New Urban scoundrel characters

I have been busy making more, so called, Urban Scoundrels. I now like to present to you two characters of which I have now finished a couple of clones of:

The Traffic Cone Terrorist:

This is an urban hermit crab that likes to traffic cones to serve as a home and mess with traffic control to cause havoc.

Vinnie 'The Drill' Molini:

He is the preferred hitman for underground areas. He is a bit of a rough character and you won't see him using a silencer!

I will soon have the first Money Moth finished and I am working on an urban meat eating plant adaptation. All the characters that I am able to finish, will be on show during the Summer Arts Market in Liverpool this weekend (27th and 28th of July).

Urban Scoundrels

Besides creating some big sculptures like these two:

I have also been busy setting up 3 different 'lines' of small sculptures, these are:
- Small fossils
- Celebrities made from bone and clay, like the Christmas characters I made last year
- Urban Scoundrels

The last type of sculpture I started with and these will be limited edition casts, painted by hand and big chance they all will have a different paint style. The Urban Scoundrels are small sculptures based on wild life that has adjusted to urban life. The characters I am now developing are:
- Pablo Escobike, a slug
- The Golf Ball Snatcher, a bird
- Squatter, a bird
- no name yet, a moth
- Vinnie Molini, a mol

Two characters are more or less finished:
Pablo Escobike: The slow and under influence, council worker that has the responsibility to draw the lines for the British cycle paths. It goes slow, random and intermitted. Pretty pointless, but Pablo is having fun because he is addicted to white paint and seriously needs to go to a rehab!

The Golf Ball Snatcher: a very unamused character that likes to mess with someones game. His character is best described as the Joker from the Batman films.

Stay tuned when more of these characters pop out of the mould!

Art statements - part 3?

I recently saw a degree show of a group of students and saw some nice work in there, but what stood out the most, at least for me, were the art statements. They stood out in a negative way, because I can't imagine that people around the age of 21 have come up with overly complicated words and sentences that mean nothing. At that point I am very tempted to grab one of those students and ask; 'Did this bullshit come naturally or are you taught to write likes this?' But that would be even rude to say for a Dutch person and I have no clue how to give this feedback to British people. Somehow I get this feeling, I don't know because I 'just' ignore established forms of learning, they are being taught to do this. If so, I very very strongly disagree with this policy!

You often see words as: explore, discuss, conversation. Words that are actually meaningless in art. So you are exploring a theme? Pfff, have now idea how that looks like and I don't care. I care about what you have discovered, not how you hopped on a boat to sail the vast oceans of complicated words. They often use these words to avoid being precise, direct and clear. You often see that they are exploring A, B, C while 'having a conversation with 1,2,3 and being influenced by X, Y, Z, creating a matrix of almost endless options. If that is what your work is about, then you haven't decided yet what your work is about and if this is a statement for a finished piece of art, than you failed to reach your goal and are now covering it up by extending the meaning of it so it will always hit something. They basically try to hit the moon with a Gatling Gun.

One of the reasons why you have an art statement in my opinion is to add to the work. 1. Sometimes to explain, but that shouldn't be too much otherwise you haven't done your job as an artist properly. 2. To add to the message you are expressing.
Any way, you are communicating to an audience and it is pointless to try and do that if; 1. People stop reading halfway through the first sentence, 2. Read it all, but understand nothing. If this is the case, then you are not communicating, you are just sending or better, trying to show of. I have said it before, it seems that for a lot of artists and apparently people that teach them, the art statement is to try to show how intelligent the artist is by using language that makes the viewer feel less intelligent than the artist. Oh, and sometimes the statements are a bit long as if they couldn't decide which was the key message and then decided to add them all and confuse their audience.

These statements have the opposite effect on me, it makes me think the artist is less intelligent, because it is a lot harder to write a statement everybody can understand and still manage to excite people to look at your work more after they have read it. I know I haven't mastered it. I write in understandable English, but so far only managed to describe what I made and why I made it.

If you want to get the feeling of what kind of art statements I am talking about, check this link and press the 'generate bollocks' button. So every time you read something like that, you have a pretty good chance that the artist is a bit insecure about his or her work.

Focus

A couple of weeks ago I set up my solo exhibition 'Urban Infusions' in Grizedale visitor centre cafe in The Lake District and also attended Strummercamp artshow. I also collected my work at Goburrito in Lancaster and The Lass 'O Gowrie in Manchester. All within 2 weeks I touched all the my artwork at had to do some selecting. I am also looking at attending new events and that makes you think about which works to bring to new events and realised I have a lot of different things:

Standing, not hanging:

- Medium sized sculptures with bright colours and without bones; GoGo, Cungo, Hom Rottey, Robit and Eyespresso.

- Medium sized sculptures with bright colours and with bones; This Transformer below, but also The Fellracer, Monkey Business and Mr. Clean.

- Small bone based sculptures, sculptures like the Christmas characters or the ones I use in my street photos

- Small stone based sculptures around fossils or fossils created on them. 

- Big fossils of fictional characters; Finished only one so far of the big ones, will finish a big one soon this week!

Hanging:

- Skull based sculptures in various styles

- Paintings

- 2D sculptures; The Wile E Coyote road kill piece and Incorporated (below)

- Fridge magnets

- Started to do badges, no photos yet

So for new events I like to make new things, but feel I have so many already and quite a few I haven't fully explored before I go to another new form. Yes, I feel I need to focus on a few to get better at them and make my work more recognisable. The question is; What type of work do I need to focus on? This is so hard, because I love every single one of them. Got a bit tired with the casting en making the sculptures without bones, but I am fully motivated to work on them again, mainly because I have got a bit more freedom to add character to them. 

I don't want to make new types of art for now, so what did you enjoyed the most? I have set up a poll on Facebook and would appreciate giving your opinion and click on one or two types that you think I should make more of.

Off course I have de freedom to do something different, but I am an artist it is part of my DNA. However, it doesn't mean I am ignoring you. I recently discovered I do use peoples advice more than I thought I would, so you will have more influence then you would see at first glance.

Thanks!

The buzz after a great fair!

Last weekend I was at Strummercamp, which is small Punk rock festival and I had a really good time there! Mainly because of the response of people to my work I had on display there and a bit for the general atmosphere and great weather!

I have the impression that the people who came there are more than average interested in what I make and might be more open for alternative things. Might, might....it makes sense that they are! Again, my work didn't appeal to a certain age group. Like always, I got a lot of attention from children, but also from everybody else. It is really nice to here positive comments on my work and seeing people smiling or being genuinely surprised!

I always leave a fair like that with an energy boost to create more based on the feedback I got, but I don't want to make a lot of new things, because I haven't explored some areas enough. For example, the fossil making, fridge magnet sculptures, road kill based sculptures etc. So I decided to focus on these ...... and soon realised I didn't have enough material to work on either one of them. It is a slow process to get bones and with my back injury it isn't easy to source big stones for the fossils.

So today I couldn't resist the urge and started something new. Well, it is also a bit old, because for these new sculptures I am going back to the sculptures I used to make two years ago:

 Cungo

 GoGo

 Hom Rottey

Robit

The danger is that the whole idea is crap. Normally, when I get a 'good' idea I leave it for a while, like a month, and check back later. If that idea still feels good after a month or longer, it probably is good. But  now that I have no part time job to keep me occupied, I have time and I don't like doing nothing, so I immediately started. 

It will be a few small fictional urban animal characters. The first one will be a bird and I am thinking of adding a very small story or description to them. To be continued.....

New work: Switchback Jack

I have finally finished the commission from The Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal! Yeah! It is a mountain biker made from plaster, bones and bike parts.

I got this commission to give myself time to make art I normally wouldn't make. In my case it was making something big. The nice thing of commissions in general is that it throws up boundaries which I have to overcome and normally I learn valuable things from it. I often use these experiences in other artworks. So it has been the same with this sculpture.

The main experience is how to work with plaster. Plaster is a strong and stiff material, but breaks easily if it moves. I think I'll use it more often to fill bigger volumes in new work.
I have also used a new texture on the sculpture; the mountain biker has dead leaves as a finish layer and I am already busy with a sculpture in which I have used the same thing.

It all took a lot of time and I think half of it was thinking and staring at it to make it strong enough while retaining the visual effects. I wanted to have the shapes and the mechanical character of the bones in 'Steady Eddy'...

....and the movement of 'Flow Joe'

The more I progressed with the sculpture, the more limited I got in flexibility in the choice of bones and bike parts and ended up asking 5 different bike shops if they had a old handlebar and to drive an hour to the only place where I knew there would be leg bones of the right size. I made the head from a skull that came from Grizedale forest.

This and many other sculptures can be seen from now in Grizedale forest cafe in the Lake District. Here is a link to the exhibition information: http://www.breweryarts.co.uk/art/current-exhibitions/exhibitions-at-grizedale-forest/

Job adverts are depressing!

As an artist earning money can be difficult and for the last few years I have managed to get work on a flexible basis. Now that I had to move to a different city, I had to look for a new job where I live now. I thought it would be easier to find a job here in Manchester, but so far it has be surprisingly difficult. I thought I have loads of different experience that would make it relatively easy, relatively that is. No, I didn't even got invited for an interview for jobs of which I thought I ticked all the boxes and I am now wondering why.
Could it be that I am AGAIN battling the same prejudice as a jobseeker as I am battling as an artist? As an artist I have a strong feeling that there are a bunch of pretentious curators out there that are lacking self confidence and therefor don't dare to select non-art-background artists for their exhibitions. Could also be pure jealousy that I manage to make good stuff without going through the system for 3 or 4 years. Then again, once I have found a curator that doesn't select artists on that bases, my background is actually an interesting asset.

With jobs it is the same and different. Again, my background consisting of several very different, but solid, jobs in which I have done well. I am now wondering if the diversity on my CV confuses potential employers. But to be honest, if you have any knowledge you would see I have a wide range of skills and serious about what I do.
I have applied for very basic jobs in administration and wasn't even invited. If they would read my CV well, they could see that I can actually create an administration and not just maintaining it! They could also tell that I am not this pain-in-the-arse-smart-guy that will question everything; my CV also contains basic jobs in which I have done well.
Knowing I can do loads of jobs, I read these adverts for basic jobs where it sometimes seems they are looking for a CEO or Superman. I wonder how people would respond in an interview to a question like this: 'Do you have a passion for administration'? Passion? Passion? There might be a few autistic people out there that would describe it as a passion, but don't you mean 'like'? 'Do you thrive in a target driven environment?' You mean scoring points by harassing people on the phone? No thanks.
If I get a job I am not passionate about, but like and if the job has targets, I'll probably do well anyway. I am a hard working individual and my base mentality towards work is better than average. Did I say I am self confident? Seems to be clear that I am also quite independent..... Anyway, this is the crap I daily read when looking for a job:

Customer Service Door Executive

This is an exciting opportunity with a company going from strength to strength. We make recession busting products and are leader in our field. We are now looking for a Door Mat to compliment our dynamic team of professional Door Mats!

Role:

We are looking for strong driven independent talents with a passion for receiving the interesting bottom side of someones else’s footwear. This is a hospitality role and therefor you need to have proven track record in customer service, preferable in the same field. You also need to have a minimum of 3 years experience in a similar role. You should also be able to maximize sales opportunities and increase brand awareness.

Skills:

-       - You must be fluent in Door Mattery and English

-       - Able to do draw attention to yourself so our customers don’t bring in dirt in our marvelous clean state of the art shops

-      -  Excellent communication skills

-      -  Outstanding presentation skills

-      -  Be able to express the word ‘Welcome’ like no other

-       - Be able to clean all types of footwear

Do you thrive on targets? Do you have a strong mentality towards customer service? Do you have a passion for laying on your back 24/7 getting covered in other peoples crap? Does this sound like you? Then we might be looking for you!