Artist?

I sometimes look back where I came from, because I have come from far to arrive where I am today. That is being an artist. I am still not comfortable with defining myself like that. I never REALLY decided to become one. I just wanted to make cool sculptures and work part time and see what happened.

But I come from far as in, not from the UK and not from an art background in every sense. So I needed to get used to a different language and culture, although the last thing was probably the easiest. I also needed to learn EVERYTHING there is to learn about art.

So a couple of years down the road and I get the feeling people take me serious when it comes to making art and I can say again that I have pretty much learned a new profession AGAIN! Yes, I have done that a couple of times before. This gives me the feeling I can almost do anything without any experience, that I can take on the world with a lot of skills and the most important one being' to be able to adapt and learn, learn, learn...
Yet, the more I seem to get confident in everything, the less chance I seem to have of actually getting a job. So I am know pushed in doing this full time. I still can't believe that people won't hire me. It sounds a bit arrogant, but I would be a better than average employee and it frustrates me to see people 'working' and actually doing a crap job.

I have had a lot of practice saying; 'I am an artist and I make sculptures'. I guess not having a job, there is no doubt that this would be the way to describe me. Describe me? Huh? Yes, it seems that whatever you do, it is THE thing to ask to get to know somebody, but I think in my case they would mis something, because I am just as much a sport enthusiast. Ok, it now feels a bit strange to say 'I am an athlete'.

Ok ok ok, I am an artist.....

Painter William Ralph Turner

I feel I have a couple of connections with this painter; William Ralph Turner. No, he is not the Turner that most people of you know. He is the William Turner that lived in the same era and place as L.S. Lowry. They knew each other and often painted similar subjects. He recently died and I am glad he got the recognition he deserves, although he was already more than 80 years old.

Here is a link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/william-turner-painter-who-emerged-from-lowrys-shadow-when-he-was-in-his-eighties-8708172.html

Why I feel this connection? Well, he is a self taught artist. His teacher actually advised him not to go to art school, because of lack of talent. I am self taught as well.
Just like him, I live and started my art in the North West of the UK. Also, just like him I like cycling.

I just hope I get the recognition earlier than him, but he did get it while still breathing and making art and eventually see his work being sold for 5-figure sums! That would be amazing to experience!

How I view death

This seems to be an odd topic for having some spells of glorious weather and Autumn and Winter feeling far away...as in Dias de los Muertos and Halloween. So why now? Well, I have been thinking a lot about death, but only related to my art, because I am planning some new skull sculptures. I thinking of making a very weird and whacky sculpture out of a skull and that sometimes make me think wether people get it or find it disrespectful for the animal. So I need to explain myself.

I have done a couple of exhibitions and fairs and often people are surprised about the weird and whacky way I use bones and skulls. Material that once was part of a living animal and its soul. A lot of people are surprised for probably two reasons:

1. Thinking it might be a bit dirty or disgusting to use a bone and touch it. Is it clean?

2. To make something completely disconnected to death and the suffering of the animal, almost as if it didn't exist, almost as if this is just another ordinary countryside source of material to use in art.

I now understand that. I understand the first reason pretty well, but I have been driven more by curiosity than fear. I use gloves, clean them and often only pick them up when all flesh is gone.

The second reason gives me a lot to think about. I understand rationally why people might think that, but when I started making sculptures out of bones and skulls, I was completely unaware of that. I think For me it feels like a similar way of dealing with the dead like the Mexicans do during the celebrations of The Day of the Dead.

You can mourn in darkness, but for not having known the animal, I don't have an honest connection and so can't mourn. In that case I can only remember and for remembering I like to think about positive things and I think humour and colour is the way to remember positivity. 

This style also gives me the tools to build a bridge to people that normally disconnect from the bones and death because of its horrible and disgusting outcome. 

So every time you see my work, I hope you don't think it is disrespectful, it is my way to show the beauty of nature and how much I respect it. 

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!