And here is all the info….

Luxury Goods IV: The Role of Art
Tues 28th April- Sun 2nd May 2010, 18:30pm – 00:30am
The Courtyard Theatre, Hoxton, London
An exploration of the role of art, artists and the creative process A picture is worth 50 words, not 49 or 51. A multicultural international peripatetic festival.
What is the role of art? What role do we want our art to play? What role do we play as artists and artisans when we make a piece of art? Whether it’s a work of impermanent genius; a masterpiece; or a momentary lapse of reason; we want to show it! Luxury Goods IV, invites you to participate with artists from across five continents in the consideration of the role of art, the role of creative process, and the role of audiences in a 5 day festival held at the Courtyard Theatre, Pitfield Street, Hoxton. Since the launch of the Luxury Goods: The Meaning of Art, January 2009, we have held two further international festivals, offering a platform for artists and contributors from all walks of life, to engage with themes such as cost, meaning and value. Contributors have included Richard Niman (Riflemakers’); Representatives from Christies’ and Sotherby’s; Michael Glover (The Independant); Carolinda Tolstoy; Mark Hammond; Dirty Market Theatre; Shameless Theatre; Michael Bucknell and many more… Luxury Goods is a free festival in word, spirit and deed. The festival will include a symposium on the role of art, art objects, time based media, music, poetry, performances.

 Luxury Goods London will publish a book containing all the texts, and images of the work, after the festival. All submissions must be accompanied by a jpeg image, and an EXACTLY 50 word text on “The Rôle of Art” to be released under a creative commons license -to be added to the website and published in a book .

As I finally begin to feel I’m in my space again life seems to throw up all over it. Adam’s at a writing thing tonight and I went to watch Max in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ -A production through Bedford Cerebral Palsy Society.

It was an extraordinary performance, and it rocked Louis’ world, plot twist at the end was quite a shock! But you know that old gag about not wanting to be accepted into a club that would have you as a member? I simply didn’t want Max to be there.

I still hope so much for him, and as I watched him I felt a crunch inside me, and felt terrible about it, realising that even this was more than he could handle. It is hard to accept. Shit.

So I’m going to give him a huge kiss, and tell him again how proud I am of him.

Juliet: And when I shall die, take him and cut him up in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will fall in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.

the venue, Moggerhanger House

So I lost my only regular outlet for my work and thereby my only regular income. In all these years noone has ever knocked at my door as a random art collector and wanted to see the work in my attic. So…a bit of a blow after 4 years!

Max my 9 year old has just been put on massive levels of steroids that have turned him into a rabid lunatic.

 And of course I also got turned down for the NPG comp.

So this morning the sun shone, and I went with a friend and our two little boy for a day out in Cambridge. Saw some dinosaurs and a totum pole at the museum of  Anthropology. Bought something pointless and pricey and watched them playing. Great day.

So deep breath, and here we go again……..

So I’m wondering, why am I so upset by this? It’s been a REALLY bad day (Other stuff too, but maybe an other time.)

Why do I feel like I’ve failed? It makes no sense.

So I did the thing when you imagine a series of events that make you happy, and do you know what ID? Nothing does! So am I going to feel like this forever? Is it a matter of chasing happiness in ways that I can be sure can’t make me happy?

If I’m not looking for ‘happy’ what am I doing this for? Self pity is so unattractive!

I’m working on a new painting that I have no intention of selling. Perhaps that will make the difference in itself. To paint to sell is a whole other thing.

But still……why do I do this?

I realise I’ll find out tomorrow if I’ve been excepted, and in a way that’s worse. Until then I can imagine the best. It all comes back to the cat in the box……but if I throw the box into a forest can you hear it land?

If I don’t update for a while it means I haven’t got in and am wallowing in self pity.

Fingers crossed?

Adam’s in the Times today. So very, very happy for him. In case I don’t tell you enough- well done, always knew you could and would.

Fewer things

From Adam Marek, runner-up in our Short Story Award, comes the tale of a son forced into the role of conservationist by his father, while dreaming of happier times with his mother

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article7084382.ece

 Thanks for the photos Wena and Francesco

The Austin Chronicle

Arts Review

 

‘Pornsaints’

Birdhouse Gallery, through April 17

1304 E. Cesar Chavez, www.birdhousegallery.com

What are – but also, in this case, what is – pornsaints?

“Pornsaints is an artistic approach to porn, a pornographic approach to art, a pornartistic approach to religion.”

That’s from the official website of the globe-spanning organization.

“We will call Pornsaint whoever attains sanctity through pornography. This doesn’t mean that each and every porn actor is a pornsaint – for what we know, they’re simply pornstars. Pornsaints might not even actually exist, but what interests us is that they might exist, and how they might exist.” That is from the explanatory essay by Pornsaints founder Francesco D’Isa, the Italian artist with an abiding appreciation of such possibilities.

“Oh, we’ve got a lot of great artists for this,” says Kathryn Wilson, local curator of the exhibition.

Backing evidence for that statement can be found in the rooms of Birdhouse’s expansive gallery-in-a-house on East Cesar Chavez. Erotic evidence, of course: paintings, drawings, photography, videos – images in a diversity of media, with the common NSFW theme boldly foremost.

As you might (joyfully or with annoyance) expect, most of the depictions of saintly pornstars are depictions of women. Which is fine by this (admittedly biased) reviewer, boy howdy, especially when the artwork is as gorgeous as Danny Malboeuf’s finely detailed and cyberpunky Firebird painting, Steven Leyba’s jewel-encrusted psychedelia-on-canvas, Andrew Tong’s classical oil portrait of Hollie Stevens, and so on; these and the other works offer a spectrum of gender-specific eye candy, from the come-hither to the cum-hither shades of pornography.

But that’s not to say male figures are wholly unaccounted for. Jeff Faerber’s series of acrylic-and-pencil works are well-rendered modern interpretations of the Japanese shunga tradition, thus simultaneously providing the otherwise absent phalluses (and, of course, giant phalluses, at that) and a scholarly harking-back to the ancient Eastern history of erotic representation in fine art.

There’s a lot of potential for unpacking here, a lot of theses to be written and humanist/feminist/postmodern themes to be explored by cultural investigators with one agenda or another. But also, just a lot of interesting and provocative visuals for the nonacademic eyes to take in, here at the crossroads of sex and art and religion.

Arts Review

 

‘Pornsaints’

Birdhouse Gallery, through April 17

1304 E. Cesar Chavez, www.birdhousegallery.com

What are – but also, in this case, what is – pornsaints?

“Pornsaints is an artistic approach to porn, a pornographic approach to art, a pornartistic approach to religion.”

That’s from the official website of the globe-spanning organization.

“We will call Pornsaint whoever attains sanctity through pornography. This doesn’t mean that each and every porn actor is a pornsaint – for what we know, they’re simply pornstars. Pornsaints might not even actually exist, but what interests us is that they might exist, and how they might exist.” That is from the explanatory essay by Pornsaints founder Francesco D’Isa, the Italian artist with an abiding appreciation of such possibilities.

“Oh, we’ve got a lot of great artists for this,” says Kathryn Wilson, local curator of the exhibition.

Backing evidence for that statement can be found in the rooms of Birdhouse’s expansive gallery-in-a-house on East Cesar Chavez. Erotic evidence, of course: paintings, drawings, photography, videos – images in a diversity of media, with the common NSFW theme boldly foremost.

As you might (joyfully or with annoyance) expect, most of the depictions of saintly pornstars are depictions of women. Which is fine by this (admittedly biased) reviewer, boy howdy, especially when the artwork is as gorgeous as Danny Malboeuf’s finely detailed and cyberpunky Firebird painting, Steven Leyba’s jewel-encrusted psychedelia-on-canvas, Andrew Tong’s classical oil portrait of Hollie Stevens, and so on; these and the other works offer a spectrum of gender-specific eye candy, from the come-hither to the cum-hither shades of pornography.

But that’s not to say male figures are wholly unaccounted for. Jeff Faerber’s series of acrylic-and-pencil works are well-rendered modern interpretations of the Japanese shunga tradition, thus simultaneously providing the otherwise absent phalluses (and, of course, giant phalluses, at that) and a scholarly harking-back to the ancient Eastern history of erotic representation in fine art.

There’s a lot of potential for unpacking here, a lot of theses to be written and humanist/feminist/postmodern themes to be explored by cultural investigators with one agenda or another. But also, just a lot of interesting and provocative visuals for the nonacademic eyes to take in, here at the crossroads of sex and art and religion.

Adam was amazing of course, and had dinner a couple of nights before with Alexei Sayle, really interesting with a very endearing laugh-politics, art school and his new book, nice guy. The other short-listers were excellent fun too, in fact the kind of times you hope to have before you die, so I’m feeling very jammy .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above Adam and Alexei Sayle and below the short-listers         

I sat next to Ben Okri who asked why I chased reality by doing figurative work? (I wasn’t going to tell you this, but unlike every other living thing on the planet, I had no idea who he was. I knew I should, but he gave no clues, in fact he seemed to enjoy it.) So on to the hard questions-unbelievable heavy taking into account there was a different wine for each course. Bit of a head f**k if I have to be honest! But now I’m thinking about it…..

Why paint if you can photograph? I went through the usual….. Individual representation, manipulation of the image, more sophisticated emotional content… but the more I dug my hole the more wrong I knew myself to be. Of course photography does that as well, if not better.

So why paint? I’ve realised I paint because I love the feeling of the brush in my hand, the way my mind zones out when it’s going well, the smell and feel of paint. But most of all when I work it feels like I’m being more honest, more myself than at any other time. Which I think might make me a painter, not an artist. I love the challenge, and I love figurative, because for me it poses the most challenge to the craft. I heart figurative so sc**w the lot of you!

That’s what I want to do. and ….I love the smell of turps in the morning.

So I finished off the evening on form, my form anyway! A proffessor, Ben O and girl from Geneva were discussing European humour, and so I thought I should share the squirrel joke. It is my 5 year old’s party piece, and goes something like this,

Why do Squirrels swim on their backs?

I don’t know? Why do squirrels swim on their backs?

To keep their nuts dry!

Luckily it was late enough and went down well….. Too much port.

So it’s finished. For better or for worse. Still not sure if I wholly understand the difference between doing my best and over working the painting. Now I’m beginning to think perhaps I have never finished a painting-either through fear or laziness (probably a little of both!).

I think it’s as good as I can get it. But of course that has no bearing what so ever as to whether it will get in to the show. Then how the hell am I supposed to know it’s any good? Or even if I’m on the right track? You know if you mix this up with a little mild depression it’s a bit of a head f**k!

With Adam doing so well with the Times lit. thing, it’s becoming increasingly important to me to get into this show to prove to myself that I still ‘am’, and how ridiculous is that. And so my dear ID, because that is what I’ve decided you will be, I shall pull myself together, stop whining and try to satisfy myself with the knowledge that I have absolutely done my best. (And cross my fingers!)