"This Homeland" and experimenting with Roz's 3d scan

 As mentioned before, I thought I would experiment with the 3d scans that we had done at the low residency, and the "This Homeland" open call seemed to fit with Roz's scan, which she kindly allowed me to have access to. Getting the scan into Blender was super easy, and the texture came over well:

The texture is very high res:

And the polygons are CRAZY high res:

So much so that I actually used the Decimate modifier to bring the polycount down by about 100X so my poor laptop could cope (and to make the mesh smoother, plus some of the non-photorealistic rendering was actually cleaner/nicer on a low res).

After a lot of playing and modelling, plus a lot of borrowing from old assets (the paving, the fence, the tree), I came up with this:

Which I was pretty happy with, and which I am tempted to submit as it's quite 'traditional'. I like the elements of homeland - ancient, modern, open, restricted, and the hits of mystery, but also of freedom and restriction - who owns this homeland, do they want us there, do we care? Lighting was a PITA, as I used a realistic model for the sky, which made every thing very bright... Adding some fog gave depth and took the edge off it, but still..

Sharing with Roz, she responded with:

Which I also love - it makes more of the scene and the elements in it - it's more striking. As I suspected, Roz has a much better eye for ascetics.

I tried a few experiments that I wasn't particularly enamoured with, but it was fun to see what could be achieved quickly now that the scene was set-up:

I also ran it through AI, which was creepy and interesting, but probably not useful (I admit I didn't try too hard):

Thinking about Roz's image, I was motivated to play with the Freestyle option in Blender - I've always resisted because it sounded really hard, but isn't at all... 

It renders the lines OVER the existing render, so you can shade the model as normal, then have Freestyle do it's thing over the top... Here I went with a simple toon style shader using a "Shader to RGB" feeding a colour ramp. Freesyle is straightforward, it is, however, very memory hungry and very slow :(

I therefore experimented a bit with non-photorealistic rendering to give a more 'print' look, pulling on Roz's idea of silhouetting the foreground:

Everyone who saw the previous image loved the steam, and this helped to emphasis it, as Roz had done. It really brings the image and the 'creature' to life - suddenly it has breath, emotions... It was an impulse add, and that makes me anxious because "what if I hadn't thought of it" - but I guess this is how I learn - luck, reflection, and making yourself more likely to be 'lucky' in future.

The open call asked for images to be exactly A4, which makes for a nasty aspect ratio and no opportunity to crop... But then I realised there was no reason it had to be LANDSCAPE, and actually the scene was more vertical than horizontal, so I flipped the aspect ratio and did a LOT of tweaking and re-tweaking the elements and landed on this:

Which I really really like, and I think I'll submit.. I might even treat myself to a print for my 'secret' art gallery ;) Roz is understandably very busy, so I'll crack on, and do the creative writing that goes with it, and then see where we is at...

Progress on book art for postcards from Interim Show

Working on a bunch of projects at the same time (which I think is actually a lot of fun and a good thing as long as you make progress on the all) so trying to remember to update this blog on them all - viz:

• Wish You Were Hear - aka mental health postcards - see below
• A month in my head - still casting little wax heads... I need about 3 more and I can/should bite the bullet and start the month :-/
• Rivers of Silver - aka masks - added a layer of newspaper to 'Guilt' today actually, should do a post on it soon...
• This Homeland - initial render done, brief chat with Roz, playing with other rendering styles (e.g. Freestyle renderer in Blender)

So for "Wish You Were Hear", I want to make book art out of the cards - to hopefully preserve them, but also give something people can look at/dip into in future. After a good chat with Karen, I think I'm still thinking of an accordian book - simple, easy, robust... But it does give me a couple of questions:

1. What order do I put the cards in?
2. Should I put cards on the front and the back?
3. Do I add any text/illustrations of my own?

For now I'm thinking about the order. My initial plan was to organise them into topics, but that's proven rather hard, a bit arbitrary, and maybe a bit directive - I want people to have the same joy of discovery that I had looking at the board... 

A lot of the cards can be grouped into several topics, and actually some sit nicely between topics... So I sort of want a map... I toyed with the idea of using a Self-Organising Map - I've been itching to find a use for one since before my MA.. I might do that for the virtual version, but for this version it doesn't really work I think...

I left the question to stew and an alternative popped up - rather than organise them by topic, organise them by the predominant emotion... It's simple, it's fairly robust, it creates a nice 'flow' and if I don't advertise it, it will feel natural but probably won't be obvious... The plan is to sort the cards into emotions, then order them within each emotion to try to come up with a natural 'flow' from one to another without breaks... So that's what my table is given over to:

Before I assemble anything, I want to digitise them... Not looking forward to that, especially given my broken phone camera :-/ I could really do with a flatbed scanner ;)

Once I have them sorted, I need to get some good quality paper and start experimenting...

Musings on criteria 'good' art, and on finishing "Seven Days in the Art World"

I found myself feeling conflicted after the exhibition visits during the low-residency. The simple reason being that I didn't really find them that interesting... I mean, the process of visiting was interesting, but the exhibitions I saw left me a bit 'meh'... One in particular was sparse and seemed to require a long explanation from the curator to make sense of it. I'm increasingly feeling that art should not require an explanation to be interesting. Without the explanation, I would say it was quite impenetrable. With the explanation it was only 'quite' interesting... 

At first I felt very uncomfortable about this, and confided in a few other students. I thought maybe I was missing something, maybe I was at 'fault'. The answers I got were a little evasive - there seems to be a phobia about coming out and saying that you don't feel something is good... I don't know if that's just our group, or a general art 'thing'. I guess you have to accept there is no objective measure for 'good', but that shouldn't inhibit the debate!

I spent a lot of time reflecting on the fact that I felt the art was 'bad' because it was impenetrable, but actually I like a lot of art that's pretty impenetrable. So what was different? I came to the conclusion it was a couple of things 1) it felt like you weren't being given all the information to be able to start to get meaning from the art (and the meaning in turn felt too specific to be 'coincidental' to the work) and 2) I didn't CARE.. I didn't even WANT to work out what it meant! And that's when it hit me... It was BORING! It was so pared down, there was nothing to work with... For me, at least, it didn't work... 

For me, 'good' art rewards your engagement... With insight, with intrigue, with great questions, or with beauty... It makes you laugh, or say 'wow', or 'what...', or sigh happily, or say 'huh!'. Ideally several of those things at once... Better still, several of those things at once, and then more of those things days later...

Of course, different people will get those things from different art, this is what makes something 'good' for me. That said, slightly gratifyingly, I happened on a review of the same exhibition a few days later that concluded it was interesting but didn't work as an exhibition as it was too 'sparse' and didn't offer enough. Yes!

I've just finished 'Seven Days in the Art World' by Sarah Thornton. Really interesting and engaging book. At the end, she answers frequently-asked-questions that she gets since publishing. She finishes with the question of what makes something art, and ends the book with this (I think) wonderful conclusion:

"The antithesis is not really between art and non-art. It's more a distinction between brave, eye-opening work and vapid, attention-seeking work. Or really creative exploration versus dull illustration. It's all art but it's not all good. Appreciation can be very personal. After looking at a lot of art, you ask yourself: is this intriguing? Deeply amusing? Do I want to spend time with it? Does it become more compelling the more I think about it?"

Love that! I need to read it again, commit it to memory, and apply it to my own work.

Rejected from the RA Summer Exhibition

 Not a big surprise, but still a bit of a disappointment (I'm probably more disappointed/discouraged than I admit to myself).

Trying a new process on "Awkward Thoughts", a "breakthrough" on process vs concept, and a temporary hiatus for this piece

 "Hiatus" is a lovely word, but for some reason I always say "hiasys" instead, which makes it even harder to spell since it's not a word. Nobody has ever corrected me on it, but then I guess they wouldn't, it would be inappropriate...

"Awkward Thoughts" has proved to be a very tricky piece, perhaps ironically, perhaps predictably. I set out on it knowing it was a bit kitsch, but thinking it was a good experiment, and rationalising that 'popularist' is often used as a denigration for 'accessible'. As detailed in previous posts, I quickly got into trouble - the format (people walking down a tunnel) didn't fit with the staging (someone seeing a butterfly). I set Tomgos and Tathos to work on arguing a good way forward, and practising having Tathos lead with spontaneity and emotional choices, while Tomgos watched, nudged, and tried to keep the think on track to the guiding concept. Trying to stay true to the ideal of being 'concept led', my (evolving) aim was to share something about the taboo that death can lead to changes in thoughts and habits that can actually be a positive experience - death is bad, but good things can come from it.

I have been troubled by the idea that I am not creating, but rather 'thrashing around'. I believed that to be a 'good' artist, you have a vision, and you work steadily towards that vision. Bad artists 'thrash around' trying stuff, until something good comes out, then they claim it. This led me to be very cautious about process art, and to lean very heavily on meaning. However, that pedestal has been slowly crumbling, especially with the realisation that I was probably putting the 'cart before the horse' - essentially coming up with a verbal description of what I wanted to do, and the 'illustrating it'. However, I think I have reached a break-through:

Bad artists thrash around till they chance on something good, then claim it. Good artist thrash around till they discover something good, guided by a goal of expressing something

Or maybe put more succinctly by analogy:

Bad artists wander (process) because they are lost, and occasionally happen on something good. Good artists wander because they know where they want to go (concept), but don't know how to get there.

Yes, I know, declaring anything a 'breakthrough' almost guarantees it will look hilariously naive in a month... Well, good!

Anyhoo, we last left the reader with Tathos deciding to move the whole thing outside onto a bridge. Having tried that, I felt I was making progress, but I couldn't make it work. A few things came out in the process that seemed to fit the concept - my face (a late addition), the butterfly (representing fragile life and new beginnings), and a flower (representing death, but also moral remains feeding new life). Trying to fit these things into the format was a pickle:

Yes! It's so bad! So then Tomgos and Tathos somehow worked together to do a very smart thing - they deleted everything in the picture that didn't work... And focused on simplicity. Left with just the faces (the flower conceptually works, but practically didn't), a new direction became apparent. The faces are like memorial mask or carvings... Could they be both stone, and alive? Could they be not on people, but beheaded (or perhaps, de-bodied)? Suddenly an exciting new direction opened up:

It needs a lot of work, but it feels very promising - simple, understated, clean... The flower needs to appear, but not a budlija, but something simple, probably a dandelion (why? Not sure, but it feels right). Of course I'll almost certainly stall and change it all again, but it feels like a really good direction.

However, before I do that, I asked Roz if I could do something with her 3d scan - it inspires me and I like the idea of working with Roz - her art is close to mine in some ways, and she's very experienced (and a lovely person!). Around the same time I saw an open call advertised in the UAL newsletter, called "This Homeland" and organised by the NHS, so I might try and do a joint entry for that...

Interim Show Learnings

More narrative reflections have already been covered (is it art, beautiful mess, is it 'acceptable' art), but here is our lessons-learnt and misc reflections

Tomgos:

• Nearly fell foul of lead-times, notably the printers - easy when it's just you, harder when you are relying on other people. Was simple enough to manage 'in my head', but any more complexity and real project management tracking might be needed
• Real art (not digital) is a pain to transport, a pain to store, and costs significant money (probably around £200 in this case, mostly on printing)
• Getting people involved early meant we had examples to encourage others, but also gave a good sense of how people might interact, and which cards might be popular
• The (relatively last minute) switch to push pins and cork-board saved our bacon somewhat - it gave a tonne of flexibility to move things, to expand outside the board etc
• Ordering unfoiled versions of the cards cost first (since the lead time was a lot lower on these) was a smart move, and worth the extra money - it meant we could send out the cards sooner, and was a good back-up had the foiled cards taken longer
• The piece require quite a lot of 'feeding and watering'- cards had to be restocked, the board had to be cleared etc
• Some basic research would have identified PostSecret, thankfully it wasn't too close to our idea, but it was a bit of close call!
• Everything looks tiny in a huge gallery space
• Getting in-person feedback was GREAT, and better than agonising over Insta view counts - how could we get this in other ways?
• People love the 'challenge' of the blank cards, and seemed to grasp what was required
• NOBODY stole the pen!

Tathos:

• Filling in this list is so lame!
• Getting other peeps involved was FUN! Participatory art is a lot more fun and a lot less dumb than I thought
• Getting people involved took the art in directions we didn't plan! It came to life! The cards were designed thinking of personal sharing and mental health, but people used them in all sorts of unexpected ways - positive messages, political commentary, and lots of genuinely funny jokes about farting - and even the most spicy messages had some sort of thought in them
• Really fucking amazing to see the thing come alive and grow and evolve over the show - and the stuff posted influenced the type of stuff that got added... IT LIVED!
• Nailed the balance between my input and Tomgos's e.g. he wanted to do faces, which makes sense, but I got him to do hands, which is much more interesting and less obvious
• Proud we went out of our comfort zone, even if Tomgos was cacking his widefronts
• It was scary that people might reject our art and it might sit there unused for 3 days - imagine!!
• Making a series of pictures was actually kinda fun, and having a theme running through them made them better, it wasn't boring and lame like i thought it might be
• Making cards with no blanks was a mistake and a throw back to the initial idea that we should have dropped - people took them like we wanted, but they were confused they couldn't post them
• People REALLY had the urge to communicate - when the board overflowed, people posted on the walls, when the pins ran out, people doubled-up, when cards ran out, people improvised their own - it was like an unstoppable organic creature with a life of it's own
• The pin board was laughably small, but we lucked out as we could post on the wall, and the pin board sort of acted like a coke to slow posting and stop all the cards going straight away, and as someone said, the tiny board smothered in cards surrounded by all the cards on the wall was a beautiful metaphor for the space we give mental health vs the space it deserves
• OMFG the breeze! It was terrifying because I thought the whole shit heap would blow away, but it was BEAUTIFUL too, the cards dancing in the breeze on their pins, like they were pleading to be read and understood
• Still think this list idea was lame, but I guess it was sort of useful

Wish you WEREN'T hear? Paranoia or institutional prejudice?

Just reflecting on my piece "Wish you were hear" at the Interim Show and some odd vibes I got from Central St Martins. My piece imagined a world where mental health was normalised, and people might routinely send postcards with messages about their mental health. The piece featured a postcard rack with eight different designs, some of which had blanks, allowing people to add their own message. The piece invited people to take the cards and either keep them or fill in a message and post it on an adjacent pinboard.

My fears that people might not interact, where wonderfully unfounded:

In total, 188 cards were posted, and a further 366 were taken away! The messages ranged from silly, to rude, to very funny, to deeply heartfelt. Despite my fears, and despite being in a public space open all night, only one person drew a cock (thereby fulfilling a bet I had) and nobody stole the pen (which is really surprising to me!). 

People who interacted with it loved it, and said so. People found it funny, engaging, and moving. People said they felt a strange sense of shared trust... It was everything I could have hoped it would be, and a lot more that I hadn't imagined (full reflection and write up coming soon!).

And yet, I can't escape the feeling that Central St Martins and the staff hated it. 

I am very prone to paranoia, especially when it comes to art... But I got a very strange vibe that they were embarrassed by it. I got the feeling they found it messy, and not art. My paranoia was fuelled by a few things:

• None of the staff seemed to want to visit it or talk about it (but then, perhaps that's standard practice? Talking about anyone's art seems weirdly taboo)
• None of the staff seemed to want to go anywhere near it (but then, it was tucked away from the main area)
• None of the photos of the event featured it (but then, lots of art wasn't featured)
• One member of staff who was responsible for the area it was in seemed keen to avoid catching my eye (but they were probably busy)
• The only member of staff who had to come to the piece simply said "wow" (but they were in a rush, and actually they did look at a few cards... And actually there was a large picture of a cock in the middle of the corkboard at the time!)
• And it was given a prominent position, just in front of the one of the entrances, and I had more space than a lot of exhibitors could have dreamed of...

So probably just paranoia... But my piece was definitely 'off-brand' for CSM, and perhaps 'off-brand' for the art world as a whole - it wasn't clean white walls and a few objects tastefully placed with little foothold to offer the viewer in understanding it - it was a riot of humanity, it was messy, it was loud, it was quite vulgar - in short it was 'fucking inappropriate' and therefore I can only declare it to be a huge success :)

Fuck off BBC Maestro

 

A jolly little joke to sell your shitty content, but actually not so funny for my two kids who are not mum-havers. But hey, enjoy the fun y'all

A wall of glorious human imperfection

TATHOS (voice crackly like a phone line): Hey... Tomgos?

TOMGOS (confused and sleepy): Tathos... Wha... What time is it?

TATHOS: Our postcards are a wall of glorious human imperfection

TOMGOS: If you call me in the night again I'm going to block your number

Going well, but is it art?

TATHOS (voice on crackly phone line): Hello?

TOMGOS (sleepy): Wha... He.. Hello?! Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?

TATHOS: Sorry, I was woken up by an amazing wet dream, and then I couldn't get back to sleep, I was thinking...

TOMGOS: Dear god... But why are you phoning?

TATHOS: I was thinking... Is it art?

TOMGOS: If you mean your dream, I'm hanging up now... Why ARE you phoning? I am you, you are me, why do you need to use a phone?!

TATHOS: I don't know, it felt like I... Maybe it's easier [voice becomes normal] if I don't

TOMGOS: That's easier... So I'm awake now.. Is WHAT art?

TATHOS: Our piece for the CSM interim show... I love the way people are interacting with it, but is it art?

TOMGOS: Everything is art... Nothing is art... Why are you worried about it now?

TATHOS: Not worried... Just trying to reflect and learn!

TOMGOS: I guess... So why wouldn't it be art?

TATHOS: Shit... I guess it could just be a social experiment? Or a novel poll? Or a stunt?

TOMGOS: Ok, so why could it be art?

TATHOS: Shit... Ok... I guess it fits with our idea of art as being the event/feeling/act itself - the postcards are the frame, the art is in people's interactions...

TOMGOS: The completed postcards are the art?

TATHOS: No, more the act of completing them... Or maybe, the act of public sharing...

TOMGOS: Participative performance art?

TATHOS: Hmmm, that doesn't sound right.... Art is about making people think not perform...

TOMGOS: I guess they think as they fill them in?

TATHOS: Maybe, but not something they haven't thought before...

TOMGOS: ... or they wouldn't be able to write it down?

TATHOS: Exactly...

TOMGOS: They read them too...

TATHOS: Yes! They read them, then they contribute... Or they contribute and then they read them... I guess they pin their card next to other peoples... They maybe choose where...

TOMGOS: People have shared some really personal things

TATHOS: Fuck, maybe that's the art?! The group experience of sharing?

TOMGOS: Lucy said "it made me emotional, laugh, surprised and feel a sense of belonging with people I have never met or seen"... Is that what you mean?

TATHOS: Wow! Man! She said that? She's hit something good there... Yeah, that's what I mean... The art is that feeling, the postcards and the board are just the place to make the art happen, and the record of it happening

TOMGOS: Self-documenting?

TATHOS: That sounds sort of wanky, but maybe... I don't think that's the important thing... The postcards are more like the ashes of the fire of the art... We need to honour them and the fire they once were...

TOMGOS: You weren't smoking before bed were you?

TATHOS: Not that shit again, you are obsessed! You do that when you are afraid of sounding like an artist!

TOMGOS: Huh... Ok, sorry... We do need to do something with those cards. We should see how many we gave away and how many we got back...

TATHOS: I hate to say it, but that could be interesting - art can be numbers I guess...

TOMGOS: Wow, just like that?

TATHOS: I'm not obstructive! But we do need to do more... Maybe we need to keep that feeling alive of sharing...

TOMGOS: A book?

TATHOS: Maybe... 

TOMGOS: So it IS art? Lucy also said "There was no forcing. Weirdly it being public you left feeling a bit stronger after sharing, like exposure therapy. And at the same time still private, the piece protects your identity while giving you that nudge of not being alone."

TATHOS: Nice... Yes... Clearly she's the artist here? There's a lot of thinking here about not being alone, about it being a shared but private experience... People said that to me at the show too..

TOMGOS: Thanks for doing that for me, I'm sorry I couldn't be there

TATHOS: You know I'll keep us both safe... And you keep us safe too, when it comes to money and not eating weird shit you find on the floor...

TOMGOS: Yeesh... Sure... So it is art... Can we go to bed now?

TATHOS: It is art, but it's intangible... We need to do something to make a fitting record of it... To make a nice urn for the ashes of the art...

TOMGOS: Noted, but can we do that in the morning?

TATHOS: Yes... So is it a stunt? Or a poll?

TOMGOS: Also morning questions...

TATHOS: No! Now questions... A stunt is a shallow act intended to be sensationalist, it's not that... A poll is about gathering data... Not that either... A survey, no, there's no goal... Well, the goal is the sharing... A social experiment is about the outcome, this was about the act... I think that's the art - not the postcards, not the board, not the writing, not the pinning... the moment of being there is the art... the moment of adding your thoughts and feelings and private fears to all the other thoughts and feelings and private fears... THAT is the art! Who do you think?

TOMGOS: ....

TATHOS: Tomgos? Are you asleep?

TOMGOS: ....

TATHOS: For fucks sake... Right... What was I dreaming again...

PostSecret

 Someone just casually said my piece reminds them of PostSecret... Clearly I need to do more research in future - adding that to the list of lessons learnt (I'm trying to do more reflection on works once I complete them). I think my piece is different enough that I'm not dying inside, but clearly a lot less original than I had hoped :-/

David Shrigley and Humour and layers of meaning

 I love this picture by David Shrigley:

I love a lot of his stuff actually - it's the sort of thing I aspire to do - not the style, but the subversive humour, and the layers of meaning - like Pope.L, you don't know where to laugh or wince, and you end up doing both, which is even better. I like the outermost funny meaning - god is watching you in your most unflattering moments, but I see deeper layers of meeting - can god really be watching you all the time? What else do you do that you'd rather god didn't see? Why would god want to watch you? etc

On drawing lines and crossing them...

TOMGOS: I'm worried, I want to talk to you about our recent blog posts... I think people might be offended, I worry we crossed a line...

TATHOS: Pffft, this project is all about crossing lines... Ok, the language was a bit fruity, but seriously people can't be uptight about that... Relax old friend, you need to chill

TOMGOS: It's more than the language... It's the attitude...

TATHOS: What attitude?! What's the problem? Just say for fuck's sake

TOMGOS: There you go again! Can't you say anything without swearing? I'm worried about the umm, references to... ummm... certain sexual practices...

TATHOS: Ah! The arse fucking? It's ok, loads of people do it... I hear...

TOMGOS: Over a 39% of 22-24 year old hetrosexual men, apparently, but that's not the point... You were making jokes about it between two men, that doesn't seem ok...

TATHOS: Wow, numbers!

TOMGOS: Numbers are more useful that 'loads of people'...

TATHOS: 'Loads of people' makes more sense to me... Well, they just happened to be men... And it wasn't a joke about the sex, it was about the art and how it looks like something's happening that wasn't supposed to be... Shit... Do you think I upset people?

TOMGOS: I don't know, I hope not. Why are they all men anyhow? Do you hate women?

TATHOS: What?! No! Seriously! I don't know, putting women in there seems... wrong... they aren't people, they are proxies for people... dolls... I guess... huh... I guess they are all us, on some level

TOMGOS: Huh... All us... I guess so actually... Some more than others?

TATHOS: I think... I guess some are very much us, like the guy staring, but some are sort of us, like the guy ars... crashing... and some are sort of shades of us... shades of humanity really

TOMGOS: Why didn't you say that before?

TATHOS: I only realised it when you made me think of it

TOMGOS: You're weird

TATHOS (mockingly): 39% of hetrosexual men... look at me... I'm Tomgos... I'm a talking calculator with bad hair...

TOMGOS (annoyed but laughing): You have literally the same hair as me!

TATHOS (laughing): But it somehow looks better on me...

TOMGOS: So are we going to be more careful in future?

TATHOS: I'm not sure... Yes... and no... We need to keep pushing boundaries...

TOMGOS: But not crossing lines....

TATHOS: But the lines are in different places for different people...

TOMGOS: Huh... Interesting... So we have to keep testing?

TATHOS: I think, and remember this project is about how art is for saying stuff you can't say with words

TOMGOS: You can't swear in pictures...

TATHOS: But you can offend, I guess... Maybe we need to make art that leads people to the places we can't say, but doesn't go there?

TOMGOS: Starts difficult sentences people can't help but finish?

TATHOS: I like that, yeah... Like the postcards sort of do...

TOMGOS: They create a frame, and people hopefully can't help but fill it...

TATHOS: Hopefully...

TOMGOS: So are you going to swear less?

TATHOS: Fuck off....

No no no ugh :( Peak ugly?

 Started making the changes I described and I'm embarrassed to share what it looks like:

TATHOS: Wow, shit, that's awful

TOMGOS: Not what we imagined...

TATHOS: What went wrong? It seemed a good idea...

TOMGOS: Maybe it...

TATHOS: It's too obvious, man! It's like blatant.. It's just put out there... It's fucking awful, a kid could do better

TOMGOS: Yes, it's kitsch

TATHOS: Ugh... Fuck...

TOMGOS: It's a process, Tathos, we said we would try something

TATHOS: Ugh yeah, but ugh... Shit, I can't look at it

TOMGOS: Get a grip! All our stuff goes through 'peak ugly', doesn't it?

TATHOS: Yeah... I guess... What do we do? Maybe just delete it. Yeah, it's start over.

TOMGOS: We said we would follow a process, and we will! We won't learn if we quit

TATHOS: Ugh, I guess... Ok, so what's the process?

TOMGOS: We discussed it several times now - do you not remember? Have you been smoking weed again? We will try to let you lead with ideas, and I will consider them and add meaning, steer things... I'll try to make everything just a symbol, so you need to help make it more random

TATHOS: You know we don't smoke since the whelk thing in Amsterdam... Ok, so you want me to go with what I think?

TOMGOS: Yes, you don't have any issues about being random normally! And don't mention the whelk thing

TATHOS: Well maybe don't mention weed. And I am not random... My ideas make sense, I'm just not sure why I say them...

TOMGOS: Ok, ok, and I can help with that... Calm down old friend, this is ok

TATHOS: We need to loose the body

TOMGOS (laughing): Hide the body man!

TATHOS (laughing): Yeah, bury that fucker... It's too obvious, it's ikk. So I guess when I imagined this, I imagined it on a bridge... Like the bridge at Charing Cross actually...

TOMGOS: Why?

TATHOS: I don't fucking know!

TOMGOS: Ok, sorry, a bridge... Weird... but that could work... It reminds you of work?

TATHOS: I guess so, yeah... And bridges are dangerous...

TOMGOS: Not very, but ok, I guess... And they represent transition...

TATHOS: Oh... yeah... I guess so... Wow...

TOMGOS: The guy behind could be dropping his phone over the side!

TATHOS: The arse fucker?

TOMGOS: Ugh, you know we regret that post... People will think we were drunk... And it probably offended a bunch of people

TATHOS: I don't give a shit... Besides, do you seriously think anyone reads this?

TOMGOS: Good point... Ok, I think this could work - see, the process... trust the process... The dropped phone will make it easier to see it's a collision... I think we try that then chat more

TATHOS: Good stuff... I'm off for a spliff

TOMGOS: What the actual fuck?

TATHOS: Chill dude, can't you tell when I'm fucking with you

TOMGOS: Humph... Ok, let's do this!

Overhauling "Awkward Thoughts" piece

Content warning: contains grown-up words that everyone actually knows but they have to pretend they don't so they look like good professional and respectable members of society 

Remember this:

Nope... Me neither... Well barely... I was working on it before I stopped to do a bunch of other things... But I decided to dig it out. I sort of HATE it, and I'm weirdly drawn to it at the same time. It's a terrible image, and yet it harbours something very interesting and difficult in it's depths...

I did solve one problem in an interesting way - the faceless people were not quite expressive enough to show that the one crashing into the one who's stopped, has indeed crashed into him, and isn't taking advantage of his distraction to fuck him up the arse... I used my face from the iPhone scan, and attached it, as a way give them expressions, but also add some further creepiness. Also if people still think he looks like he's arse fucking, well at least my face is all over it...

However, I spent a bunch of time messing about with the other problem - the idea was the tunnel is cracked, and a butterfly has got in, and the butterfly and the man are both illuminated by 'god rays' through the crack. Having played about I, was really unhappy because firstly the god rays looked shite, and secondly, it looked way too much like religion. That's not good news for me, or for religion. So... I'm going to have to overhaul it big time.

I'm trying to heed all the amazing advise and not lead with my head, but rather lead with concepts but let instinct and logic play - instinct says "given them all bird's heads" and logic says "cool, sure that could symbolise...". I like the idea of both curating and creating - expanding and interpreting... Tathos can play, Tomgos gets to chip in, steer, expand, and see some love.

So... I think I want to move it outside, I think I want to use the fact it's 3d to let me mess about with the best camera angle. I think the butterfly should be attracted to budlia. I think the budlia and the butterfly are there because of something terrible - a body - initially I thought a crashed vehicle had exposed them, but that' feels weird and distracting, then Tathos said "put a literal corpse in, have the budlia grow out of it" and Tomgos said "yeah, because you are the guy looking at the butterfly, and it's there because Carolyn had to die for you to see it" and then it all went a bit quiet, and Tathos muttered something about knocking off and getting a drink.

Next mask: "Acceptance" or "Guilt"

 I think I'm going to call "Regret" done, for now:

I'm pleased with it, but it needs the rest of the set... I've already almost created the 'blank' for the next one (I didn't even cut my face that badly!). I was going to do 'Acceptance' next as it's fairly easy as the plan is for most of the face to be covered by some form of 'accretion', but reflecting on a walk (yay walking), I think it would be cool to make 'Acceptance' look like it incorporates elements of all the other masks - almost like an 'after' mask. So it would make sense to do it last... So the next 'easiest' mask is probably 'Guilt'. My plan is to have the face covered by the hands, with the fingers digging into the skin... 

BUT this creates an interesting question: do I want them to be wearable? My head says 'nah', my heart say 'yes'... And I'm 1) heeding JK's words on the power of constraints and 2) trying to listen to my heart more... 

So then that gives me an interesting challenge to explore - if it's going to be worn I need:

1. At least one working eye(!) - plan is to have a 'finger' poking into one eye
2. For the 'hands' to make sense dangling from someone's face...

My current thinking is to make them 'hand-line' instead - maybe like hand-shaped spider crabs... Or maybe metal gauntlets... Dunno... Definitely some sort of fingers, and definitely some sort of spikes. Need to further process and ferment... Why spider crabs? Not sure, but I guess decay. Why gauntlets? Dunno, but I guess agression, plus the 'armour' vibe of the first mask... Other ideas include some sort of spiky plant

Also thinking of embedding fake barbed wire in the 'skin' to mirror Regret's crown, also it's gross and I'm drawn to gross... I don't know why I need to shock - I don't THINK it's a childish urge, or a play for attention, I think it's a way to express the anger and pain I feel.