Schiele Selves

I'm going through my fortnightly Schiele phase again. I really just think he was a genius, the way he could capture people's (often his own or prostitute's) fragility just in a few scratchy lines. 

It prompted me to try a couple of black and white portraits in a similar, although hopefully not identical vein. 

There's something a bit Quentin Blakey about the last one, which took all of three minutes, but I don't hate it. Well, this is the time of year for miracles. 

MAURICE SENDAK 1928 - 2012

Maurice Sendak has died aged 83.

Here are some of his wonderful illustrations.

And it was still hot.

on the rejected

I don't know about you guys, but I seem to spend a lot of time applying for things (which you may have noticed due to unsubtle comments while keeping details hush hush).

Some clarity then. Most recently I have been applying for a variety of things. The list goes like this:

- An MFA in San Francisco (which I have been accepted onto - potentially super exciting)

- Funding for the MFA in San Francisco. An ongoing source of frustration and waiting.

- Writing jobs. Always writing jobs.

- Illustration jobs. Always illustration jobs.

- poetry stuff. Varied and occasional.

- Short story competitions and journals. Sometimes fruitful, more often than not, frustrating again. Frustration is a feeling that may come to embody my generation. Certainly my mid twenties.

Often, things get rejected and I lose confidence with them, thinking, 'Well, I suppose I was wrong then, I suppose this was a pile of wank,' and it dies a slow death hidden on my hard drive. Although often I put them here. This post is an example of that. The Rejections (kind of like The Corrections, only less well selling - still reading that mother fucker by the way. The well-trod conundrum - How do busy people in The Modern Age have enough time to read 600 page novels?) That is what this post is about. The Rejected Art. The Rejected Writing. I'm not sure the poem's any good, but that's not really the point. Often you have to wade through an ocean of crap to get to the tower of awesomeness. Or something. Let's call them 'Experiments.'

Below we have a poem and some illustrations of animals made of other animals I did for a children's workshop proposal. Enjoy both. It's either that or the hard drive imprisonment for them both.

Read this poem imagining you are half asleep and have just had a I'm-worried-about-my-life chat with a friend.

UNTITLED

I can't decide where the reality lies

If it's meaning can be found in work

In thought

Or feeling

In the sensation of just being alive

Where is the reality

What possesses authenticity

- Drive?

What moves the world

Other than time

I asked this question to the moon

But he didn't answer back

I wrote it in the words I said to a friend

- As she lay in her bed

In her head

Her eyes

The worries of tomorrow

We don't have the answers

What can any of us do but ask

Pep talk ourselves to interviews

Pay rent through the confusion of a poor loud suburb

And stare into the sky -

The horizon is, after all,

An imaginary line that recedes as you walk towards it

I dunno about that one.

Now to the animals:

Dogbird

Elephrog

Noisy Cow

Noisy Cow (anatomical breakdown)

I have become a bike fetishist

Sometimes I find myself drooling over the aluminum frame and carbon rods.

LESS COMMON MORE SENSE

It seems funny that in a time when self-publishing sites such as Blogger, Tumblr and so on are ubiquitous, that getting published in a 'real' publication would have retained any of its appeal at all. If anything, the idea of it can seem cumbersome, slow and old fashioned, when I can just sit here in my underpants, type this, and be read by potentially anybody on the planet (don't forget that this is just a for-instance!). But on the other hand, it can make the intransigence, the solidity and history of words that are actually physically published more enticing, more special. Plus, of course, there is the feeling that someone else doesn't think your work it totally shit because they've stuck their neck out and put it in their magazine.

From the way I'm talking you might think I'd just been printed in The Paris Review. In actuality, it is much less grand, but still exiting. I've had a short story called Pig Boy Poetry published in a student magazine called Less Common More Sense. Basically, it's the uni mag for the six University of the Arts London colleges. It was published on 5th August (as you know, I've been camping for a week and a half!) and is available to be used as napkins or kindling from any UAL canteen. Man, I've hit it big.

My own sarcasm aside, I am actually quite proud of the story and the accompanying illustrations, which span a double page somewhere near the centre (does that make me the centre-fold fold-out??). And a big thanks to the lovely team who accepted it.

If you've got some spare time, give it a gander. If you have even less time, then you can breeze the illustrations below. The story is a kind of meditation about an Eastern European young man who works on a farm in the South of England, observing the cyclical nature of the crops, the animals and a jogger who runs past every day. He doesn't speak a word of English, so remains always distant. It doesn't seem so wanky when you read it.

(by the way - the camping was lovely.)

five more good things

Ok, so I am TOTALLY going mad for the list format these days. Why write cohesive sentences when you can bullet point your way through life? 1) it's more succinct, and 2) it's easier. I say down with prose and up with abridged, annotated numerals.

1: These drawings I did. (Well, i think they're good. But then, I'm biased).

This lady is an Afghan woman's liberation activist.
Unfortunately her name escapes me.
However, the squiggle of writing in the top left hand corner says:
'As a matter of fact, the world does revolve around me.'
From Coburnicus. It was during my Sophie's World phase.

2: The Sea, The Sea, By Iris Murdoch.

I am reading it now. It is supreme. I think you would like it.
Here's a quote from an old man recounting his estranged first love:
'My love for you is unaware that I am old and you perhaps are dead.'


3: Seasick Steve at Larmer Tree Festival two nights ago.



Kind of a rubbish recording, but you still get a rough idea how much energy this incredible bloke has.


4: THIS BLOG

The internet literature magazine of the future.


5: The excellent combination of documentary and rock music.



The documentary: All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, by Adam Curtis.
The song: AUA by Stereo Total (it's the rocky one towards the end).

YESSS!!

FACE TO FACE

portrait of the artist as a young man

I did some portraits. They are all in pen, pencil, water colour and gauche. I'm not entirely sure why, but I always paint portraits, more than anything else. I think it's because with a portrait your view is concentrated on revealing or expressing that one person. Something like that anyway. You don't quite get the sharpness of the line or the intensity of the colours, but you get a fairly good picture of the picture - you know? Just click to enlarge for better quality.

the Sartorialist

the White 'Fro

James Baldwin and his wonderful quote

this really is a portrait of the
artist as a young man

war paint!