where, why, and then back!!

doesn't time fly..... yet again a month has passed without me surfacing on the old blogsite.
where: czech republic, at home/busy working/work
why: internet connections down, spending time with family and friends
going to gigs, recently saw Madness at the teenage cancer trust - albert hall, took JJ first gig he 's been to - loved it, great night
involved in rugby club/coaching
visit down to devon
basically, haven't spent much time sat at the computer and needed a break from it - well, refreshed and raring to go, my aim in the next two weeks is to complete nail work, finish portrait (drawing for a chap in czech) and get back to the wonderful world of bloggin g

the good and the bad....

Many of you might know that I have links with Zimbabwe, if you didn't basically my uncle lives their, has done for over 20yrs (a great story apart his past may one day be written by myself - starred in the film Cry Freedom as himself, a small featured part), anyhow, thats for another time. I visited Zim last February for a whistlestop tour of schools and some of the sights, again a very long and at times not a nice story. So, I keep an ear to what is happening over there partly to make sure he is safe and follow the news as it happens.

the good:

DOMBORAMWARI Arts Centre in Ruwa is conducting independent studies for artists in various art genres.
Established in 2002, the centre provides resources for resident students in line with their aim to nurture upcoming artists and shape the careers of established ones.
"We want to share the exposure that we have acquired from various prestigious exhibitions that we have participated in to help other artists realise their dreams," said Chenjerai Mutasa, one of the centre's founders.
Mutasa said they came up with the idea of studies as a way of ploughing back to the community, adding that providing an artist-to-artist platform was critical for the development of artists.
"This programme is one way of showing our gratitude to the community which has made us what we are today and we aim to sharpen each other's skills," Mutasa said.
The centre is currently housing 10 artists who specialise in sculpting, painting and ceramic works.
Tendai Dhlamini, a Bulawayo-based artist undertaking the studies, said the programme was of immense benefit to him.

the bad:

Zimbabwe's soaring inflation hit an annual rate of 100,000%, new official figures show.
Ongoing shortages of food and fuel helped drive inflation from December's rate of 66,212%.
Government officials say the shortages make it hard to work out inflation with any degree of accuracy.
About 80% of the country's population lives in poverty and it is estimated that three million people have left the country for a new life in South Africa.
The economy has been in trouble for seven years, with supplies of basic foodstuffs, cooking oil and petrol all running low.
The central bank has introduced new banknotes to cope with the spiralling prices. Last month it issued a 10 million Zimbabwe dollar note

for those sticky moments!

Getting back to it now with a new charge of energy after weeks of bid writing and the other stuff.

Came across this new dimension in creating artwork, not up my street (excuse pun!) but clever nonetheless. I don't like the images, then again, working on this scale and on the provided materials, beggars can't be choosers!!

A STREET artist who paints on pieces of discarded chewing gum is back and working in Muswell Hill after a court case against him was dropped. Ben Wilson, 43, a father-of-three, of Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill, specialises in tiny artworks - not much larger than a penny piece.He said of his work: "I try to encourage spontaneity and for there to be more random events. By painting on chewing gum, technically you're bypassing bureaucracy."He added: "It's taking something that's been thrown away, a thoughtless action, and turning it into something more positive."The artist was touching up a collection of works on the corner of the Broadway and Queens Avenue and residents were pleased to see him out and about.

Daniela Jovic, 25, of Hampden Road, said: "My three-year-old is a fan. She gets out her magnifying glass from her bag to see them. She still hasn't spotted these ones.

"Subject requests for the paintings - which can take up to seven hours to create - are taken from the public and he always uses gum already on the pavement."I do a lot of pictures for people that have died in car accidents," he said. "I've been arrested so often for doing dedications to people, but advertisers have a monopoly over public space. Hopefully this redresses the balance."He has worked all round the world in countries including Finland, America and Australia, and used to make impromptu sculptures in woodlands before moving onto gum art.

Mr Wilson was charged last year with resisting arrest near St Paul's Cathedral after he began work on a piece of gum. (source: Hornsey and Crouch End Journal)

Picture artist alphabet - just for fun! K

Just in case I don't get time!!!

Happy Mothers Day

(got card and present for JJ to give, although I dont' think he will use the card I chose; he spent time today creating a collage card, will post soon)

bbc newsnight review - Banksy

caught the end of this, discussion on Banksy, it takes a while to get through total program time 35mins - Banksy discussion appears approx. 29mins!
click for link

Banksy - on show

One of Banksy's earliest commercial artworks - complete with Tipp-Ex amendments - is to go on show in one of the largest exhibitions of his art yet seen.
The original drawing was made for the band Onecut in Banksy's native Bristol in 1999/2000. It pre-dates album covers he produced for Blur and other bands.
But time pressures meant the graffiti artist did not follow his usual method of producing a stencil. His original workings on paper include the use of felt tips and correction fluid.
The image, Underground Terror Tactics, goes on display at the Andipa Gallery in Walton Street, Knightsbridge, from Friday to 29 March. Its price tag is £35,000.
Gallery director Acoris Andipa said: "It is believed to be one of Banksy's first commercial works."
His previous projects for Onecut included a stencil that caused a scandal when it was sprayed on the wall of a sex clinic.
Some 60 works can be seen at the exhibition, all tracked down from private owners - many in Bristol.
Titles include Paranoid Pictures, Roadwork Rat and Precision Bombing.
Prices range from £7,500 to £300,000 - higher than the current £288,000 auction record for a Banksy. (source: evening standard)

last but one about nails, I promise!!!!!

Picture artist alphabet - just for fun! I

okay, I know I missed letter I out, but in conversation with Oz, despite pronunciation differences here's an artist beginning with I.........

Again; back to nails!!

Nail quotes

Painting is a nail to which I fasten my ideas. Georges Braque

My name is Kurt Schwitters... I am an artist and I nail my pictures together. Kurt Schwitters

A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit. Desiderius Erasmus

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. Abraham Maslow

A nail will come out, but its hole remains. Turkish Proverb

The Joy of the folk law bubble bursting

Well, I am the first to admit I can be wrong... during a very interseting discussion in the Angel with Oz last night, the conversation led to the previous posting about album covers; specifically Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division, contrary to common folk law (and maybe teenage rumours), the design by Peter Saville was not as previously thought (particulary by us) as being the heart rate of a man during an orgasm; it was, as Oz mentioned (saw an interview with said Peter Saville previous week) an image taken of a pulsar. Well, after years of thinking we knew what it represented we were to say a little taken aback, who wouldn't be? Thinking you knew a secret that only a few knew, like a cone of silence was fantastic - well that bubble has been burst.

Here's the real definition of the album design by Peter Saville:

The front cover image comes from an edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, and was originally drawn with black lines on a white background. [1] It presents exactly 100 successive pulses from the first pulsar discovered, PSR 1919+21 (often referred to in the context of this album by its older name, CP 1919). PSR B1919+21 is a pulsar with a period of 1.337 seconds and a pulse width of 0.04 second. It is notable for being the first radio pulsar ever discovered (in July 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell). Its original designation was CP 1919 and it is also known as PSR J1921+2153. It is located in the constellation of Vulpecula.

Oh well, it was always gonna happen!!!!

The Nails

The Nails were a six piece New Wave band that formed in Boulder, Colorado, during the mid 1970s. In Colorado, they were originally named The Ravers, and their roadie, Eric Boucher, later became known as Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys.
The Nails moved to New York and by the late 1970s had established themselves on the club circuit. Hotel for Women, an EP recorded in 1981, contained an early version of "88 Lines About 44 Women", a song that caught the attention of RCA. The Nails were signed to RCA By Bruce Harris, also known for bringing The Clash to America. In 1984 "88 Lines About 44 Women" was re-recorded for RCA and included on The Nails' full-length debut LP, Mood Swing. The song received regular airplay despite a number of double entendres and lyrical references to masturbation and sadomasochism. [1]
Two years later they released Dangerous Dreams, also on RCA. Both Mood Swing and Dangerous Dreams made the Billboard top 200 album chart. But after the release of Dangerous Dreams RCA dropped The Nails. RCA did not release either LP on compact disc. "88 Lines About 44 Women” continued to appear on compilations 20 years after its release and was featured in a Mazda television commercial that aired in the late 1990s.
The Nails were composed of vocalist Marc Campbell, bassist George Kaufman, saxophonist Douglas Guthrie, drummer Mike Ratti (Dennis McDermott on Mood Swing), keyboardist Dave Kaufman, and guitarist Steve O'Rourke.
In 1988, the band reconvened (without Guthrie and Dave Kaufman) to record a third album, Corpus Christi, which wasn't released until 1993 and received little exposure.
In 2007, the band licensed Mood Swing and Dangerous Dreams from RCA parent company Sony-BMG Entertainment and released these albums on compact disc for the first time.

nails, nails, nails, nails

It just goes on .......................!!!!!
Types of nails
boat nails
box nails
brads
broom nails
casing nails
common wire nails
common spikes
cooler nails
deformed shank nails
escutcheon nails
finishing nails
joist hanger nails
railroad spikes
ring shank nails
roofing nails
sinkers
spiral shank nails
wire nails
apple-box nails
beer case nails
cleat nails
hinge, latch plate and lock nails
strap nails
berry-box nails
cigar-box nails
date nails
egg case nails
fruit box nails
hoop fasteners
hook head metal lath nail
orange box nails
BLOCNAIL
CLOUT
CLYDE RAIL SPIKE
CUT CLASP
CUT FLOOR BRAD
DECOR
FLAT COUNTERSUNK HEAD
FURNITURE BRAD
HOLDFAST
MOULDER BRAD
PALMHOLDFAST
ROSEHEAD FINE SHANK
ROSEHEAD FLAT POINT
ROSEHEAD SQUARE SHANK

Nails - some interesting facts!

As you may be aware one of my current pieces is based on the use of nails; well true to form, I have done a little research about some historical facts about nails, their names over the years and modern equivalents. You may wish to gloss over this post!!! But, when working with mixed media I do like to get involved with the materials I am using.

(source: glasgow steel nail company)

The Penny Nail
This article in 'The Ironmonger' from 1915 tells us the story of the 'penny' nail.
As you can see from the above picture, the details come from the account books of churchwardens and builders in the Middle Ages in England. In this case, the researcher examined the records dated 1477 from the Church of St Mary-at-Hill in the City of London.
Although many different handmade nails were in use at the time which had specific names, a large proportion were named simply by the number of pence paid for a hundred nails.
For example, four penny nails were those of which a hundred were purchased for 4d. (The 'd' stands for pence in the days when sterling was denominated in pounds, shillings and pence - £ s d).
The account records of the Church of St Mary-at-Hill show -
'ffor a c of v peny nayle vd'
The 'c' is the Roman numeral for 'hundred' and 'v' is the Roman numeral for 'five'.
The amount of money paid for a hundred nails - fourpence, fivepence,sixpence - is thought to depend on the size of the nail. The larger the nail, the more expensive it was. The largest nail appears to have been the tenpenny nail, also referred to as the 'fyve stroke nayle' - possibly because it took five strokes of the hammer to get it home.Nails in Stuart Times
Moving on a couple of centuries and we begin to see some of the nail names appearing that we still use today.
This article, again from 'The Ironmonger' this time dated 1924, reports on a young man named Ambrose Crowley who lived in the days of William & Mary. He was a Quaker who was in business as a 'naylor' and by 1682 had set himself up as an ironmonger in Thames Street in London to sell his nails.
Apart from explaining the best size of bags to use for packing the nails to stack them successfully in a pile the document reviewed by the researcher showed the following nail names being used at that time -

Batten Brads
Pound Nailes Long
Plain Brads
Port Nailes
Kings Brads
Patten Rivetts Long
Bill Brads
Horse Nailes Short
Pound Brads
Patten Rivetts Short
Clout Nailes
Rosehead Nailes -
Deck Nailes Sharp
Dogg Nailes Square
Flat Head Nailes
Sheathing Nailes
Flat Pointed ditto Dutch
Flat Pointed Short
Filling Nailes
Tenter Hooks
Weight Nailes
Lyne Hooks ditto Diamond Head
Horse Nailes Long
Weight Nailes for ye King
Lead Nailes
Spikes Copp Head
Pound Nailes Short
Spikes Diamond Head
Spikes for ye King

Handmade nails
In 1946, 'The Ironmonger' tells us under the Trade Chat section of a Mr S R Naish who put together 'a fine private collection of nails made by methods in use before nail-making machinery was invented....which must be by far the most comprehensive of its kind that has ever been compiled'.

Listed below are the types of handmade nails Mr Naish had collected at that stage.

Batten, Fine
Hob, Wrot. Sq.
Boc king(Welsh)
Cider Spike
Hob, Wrot. Patent.
Cider Stub.
Hurdle, 6 in.
Clasp, Fine.
Limer, Stock Head,
Clasp, Fine Wing.
Wrot.
Clasp, 4 in. Wrot.
Mop, Rd.Hd., Large.
Cloth Hook
Mop, Square.
Clout, Best.
Ox.
Clout, Best Strong.
Pig Rings.
Clout, Common Wrot.
Plate.
Clout, Csk.Wrot.
Prison Door, Cast.
Clout, Double Deep Csk.
Prison Door, Wrot.
Roofing Stud, Cast.
Clout, Fine.
Rose, Fine.
Cooper's Flats.
Rose, Flat Wrot.
Cooper's Hook
Rose, Pointed Wrot.
Cooper's Nails, 2 in.
Rose, Pointed.
Crib.
Rose Spike.
Essex Hurdle
Rose Wherry (or Cooler)
Rose, Wrot.
Fencing Spikes, Wrot.
Scupper.
Flemish Tacks.
Scupper, Fine Sq.
Frost, Chisel Head
Sign Hook.
Frost, Snap Head.
Slate, Fine.
Gate, Wrot.
Staples, Wrot.
Horse.
Tenter Hook.
Horse, Csk.
Tiling Hook.
Horse, Half Csk.
Tyre, Cast.
Hob, Wrot. Clasp
Tyre, Wrot.
Hob, Wrot. Clinker.
Tyre Stubs, Wrot.
Hob, Wrot. Fancy Sq
Wrot. tip.

Ah yes, life can only get better!!!!!

nail sizes with prices (US), as an image I like it, using it as a starting point for a graphite and biro sketch

album art

In the news at the moment is the sale of the painting - Kerze (candle) by German artist Gerhard Richter used on the album cover by Sonic Youth - 'Daydream Nation' (1988), not an album, which at the time was a major chart success! Its said that the popularity of the image is worldwide - symbol of peace, its probably going to sell for at least £2.5m, maybe more

This got me thinking about my own record collection - most of it in boxes, some lost in time (parties, friends borrowing them etc, currently updating on CD - I know its the day of the i-pod, I do own one and use it all the time!) and which ones stick in my mind as cherished album covers.

I have included a few here for various reasons, some more obvious than others - the immediate shock value of the Pistols; as a very young teenager smuggling it into my bedroom so the parents wouldn't see it!

Ian Dury, just loved the image of him standing there outside the shop with slightly flared trousers (not hip at the time!!), constantly looking in the shop window and setting to memory what was there whilst sat in the lounge with headphones on (so my parents couldn't hear some of the lyrics!!!

Then there is Joy Division, a discovery thanks to Oz, the cover looks at first like a mountain range in contour map formation, but, when you found out what it really represented you felt like you were the holder of a secret and only a few knew, especially not parents!

Another one I have posted is that of Klaus Nomi - I just loved the theatrical element to the black and white image, a strange mix of b/w classics and slightly comical approach (at the time I saw Metropolis for the first time and felt a link between the two - well I was young and impressionable at the time!)

Over time I might droop a few more in, of course, there's nothing like thumbing your way through old albums, which of course does lead you to sitting down and playing them... which can't be bad.