Another full days of working on the Masculinity Two video yesterday. Here is a screen grab.
I'm eager to get this over with! I've spent two months this year working on music videos. It odd though that I'm starting to enjoy the process, at last perhaps. I'm still growing and learning, and these short video poems can perhaps epitomise the best of cinema. They have the ability to convey beauty, narrative, drama, and lots, in a very short intense time.
I watched Three Colours: White a few days ago and it was a boring experience. Blue looked beautiful and colourful and had lots of feeling and inner complexity and links which made the film symphonic. By comparison, White, was a mish-mash. A simple story. The most interesting characters were the side characters, a strange man asks the homeless hero to kill a Polish man because the victim-to-be is afraid of suicide. An intriguing plot, which is then dumped and never mentioned again. This man was an interesting character, as was the protagonist's brother, as was an old farmer, yet these characters had few lines and little bearing on the empty plot. One minute of most music videos has more emotion, plot and startling imagery than this entire film.
In painting news, I've had a note from Art Fair Cheshire asking for details of greetings cards and prints (presumably limited edition reproductions; this ambiguity with the word 'print' is an annoyance to many artists, especially printmakers) for the exhibition. This is remarkable because I've not heard prints or cards mentioned at all. I'd have gladly offered some of my limited edition prints for sale. Yet, after over a year of working on this exhibition, they send an email on a bank holiday weekend and ask for these details within 48 hours. In such a short time, all I can offer is greetings cards. I am actually exhibiting some framed prints, and had I know about this would have shown the originals with the option of a print, which is certain to help sales.
I'm keen to get these videos finished and move on to new art and music. Every day I work on one type of art, I neglect another. There is so much I can do. I want to write symphonies and piano concertos, and practice piano more, paint new, larger paintings, my greatest ever, build the second Richard Dadd cabinet and a new sister for it, record new music, release and refurbish more of my old games; yet I must move one tiny, tiny step at a time. I must continue working on this music video, and perhaps others. Eventually I will have time for new art. I must move like a glacier, though I want to fly like a swift.
