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| Belgrave Flyover, Belgrave Circle, Leicester November 2013 |
As we slide into
December and the days grow ever shorter, I feel like I’ve spent most of the
year complaining about my creative frustrations. There have been no shortage of ideas, (or
commitment to them), but, for various reasons, everything got a bit fragmented
and undirected this year. Most
annoyingly, the luxurious academic summer holidays found me plagued by various
health niggles and singularly lacking in energy. Some work was done, but without fully
capitalising on that valuable block of available time.
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| The Woodsman, Belgrave Gate, Leicester, November 2013 |
I’ll probably
look back on the year, in a few weeks, and find that plenty did happen really,
but that it was mostly in the form of smaller, paper based pieces, extensive
photographs, tentative writings and, (most intriguingly), experiments with
video. At the turn of the year I stated
my intention to augment my core painting and photographic activities with other
media, and that certainly has started to happen. However, inevitably, it’s one of the reasons
why things seem to be spread rather thin and there are less fully resolved
paintings, to show for the year.
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| Belgrave Flyover, Belgrave Road, Leicester, October 2013 |
I’ve also caused
myself problems by having too many seperate projects on the go at once, (five
at the last count), each of which has the potential to become an extended body
of work. It’s great that I’ve been
finding visual (and intellectual), stimulus all over the place; and identifying
and compartmentalising distinct strands within it all does help to keep things reasonably
focused, at least. Unfortunately though,
it also emphasises that my day job leaves only so many hours in the day/week/month,
even when I’m using the time energetically.
A definite resolution for next year is to focus on consolidating existing
stuff before I load any more creative shotguns.
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| Belgrave Flyover, Belgrave Road, Leicester, November 2013 |
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| Belgrave Flyover, Belgrave Circle, Leicester, October 2013 |
Anyway, enough
moaning. At no point has the work actually
stopped, and the last few weeks have seen me applying myself with renewed
vigour. This is, in part, due to an
external deadline of the most unavoidable kind, (see below). I’ve spent much of that time with both still
and video cameras around one of the two major flyover/roundabout conjunctions
that characterise the area of Leicester covered by my ‘Belgrave Gate Project’. When
not there, I’ve repeatedly driven around both roundabouts and over the flyovers
that transcend them, shooting video through the car windscreen courtesy of a
very homemade, but fairly effective, dashboard camera mount, (it fits my Fabia
pretty well, - I’m happy to license the rights to Skoda, for the right fee).
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| Told You It Was Very Homemade |
There must be
considerable CCTV footage of me performing these slightly eccentric manoeuvers already,
so I should assure the authorities that my motives are benign and that
everything is hands-free. Revealingly, I
now realise that pretty much any mundane activity can now become an art
activity for me. The normally
frustrating stop-start tedium of driving in rush hour traffic has been
translated into a captivating, strangely hypnotic stream of visual
consciousness when played back on screen.
Of course, another drain on my time will be teaching myself to edit all
this footage into something coherent.
Anyone want to pay me a modest stipend to give up work and just spend
the rest of my days indulging myself with all this? (I thought not).
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| Sainsbury's Supermarket, Belgrave Road, Leicester, October 2013 |
Extra hours have
also been devoted to collecting visual information in the car park of the
adjacent Sainsbury’s supermarket. Having
faffed about over summer, I suddenly realised that their closure and relocation
is upon us, and that the subsequent contested demolition of the flyover next to
the site is likely to commence in the New Year.
The chance to document all this change should, of course, be a gift to
the overall long-term project, (urban transformation being one of my
preoccupations), but any ‘Before-During-After’ story relies on there being
enough of the ‘Before’ to really tell the tale.
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| Sainsbury's Supermarket, Belgrave Road, Leicester, November 2013 |
For the time
being, it’s a case of just seeing the year out as productively as I can and
picking up the ball again as quickly as possible after the inevitable festive
hiatus. The hard drives are bursting at
the seams; another of the mysterious paper-based ‘Clue’ pieces has reached completion; and a full-blown ‘Belgrave Gate’ painting is all planned,
and under way. Physiotherapy and an
introduction to Pilates [1.], seem
to be keeping me a little more mobile; and December should (hopefully) see an
end to my distracting dental problems.
It seems that 2013 may be ending with rather more momentum than was
evident six months ago.
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| Sainsbury's Supermarket, Belgrave Road, Leicester, November 2013 |
[1.]: Many thanks, Di McDermott. I know it’s been a heavy year for you too.
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