Take This Rose

Spent half of yesterday recording the ArtSwarm event, and the rest working on a song for the Perfume episode of the YouTube show. It's an odd song, a sort gothic, drum-n-bass, or high speed rock track. It will be a challenge to finish as I'm away for three days from tomorrow, have to collect art on Friday, perform on Saturday and the deadline is Sunday at noon.

Take This Rose

Take this rose
to your bed
let it lie
asleep instead
of your troubled mind
your troubled mind

May its scent
manifest memories
of a lost love
of a stone's grit
in a forgotten place

Take this flower
of my soul
from this fog
from these shadows
from this vault of silent sigh
of winter's cry

Take this rose
to your bed
to die

Cirque du ArtSwarm: Fishing Report

I feel the usual ache of the day after a busy performance night, but last night was as good as ever, and everyone seems to really push themselves to try new things. What started as an open-mic poetry night is now truly and eclectic mix of music, poetry, film, short dramas, and interactive experiences. Here is a summary of the performances.

I opened the night with a piece called 'Here Little Fishy', where I sang a child-like song and, while dangling a mock fishing rod, passed a hook around the audience. Those with the hook could suggest things that have been caught and these were incorporated into the song. I tend to open the shows with something fun and a little interactive, to wake people up and help set a mood of excitement and engagement.

This time, in an experiment, the subsequent acts were chosen from a hat, the 'Hat of Destiny', with the performer's names written paper fish and drawn at random.

The next act was Helen Kay, reading two poems with an environmental theme; one written from the perspective of her chicken puppet character, Nigella Clawson.

Debbie Breeze and Claire Bassi performed a flash play about the phrase 'Plenty More Fish in the Sea', then Nick Ferenczy read a short story about his fishing experiences in front of a projected backdrop. Claire Bassi then performed 'Fish/Trash', which involved reading a poem about our environmental impact on the world, and asked the audience to select a random object from a net, either a fish or a piece of litter. I then sang a simple song called 'The Fish Are Singing', with an environmental theme.

Carol Finch then read a flash-fiction story with a horrific twist, originally inspired by a competition for a story that combined diving, a toothbrush and humour.

Newcomer Alice Smith then performed a poetic, acted piece with an approximate theme of coping with trauma and addiction. Alice left the stage to perform among the audience in a confrontational, but also very personal, style of performance that involved props and a range of moods.

Maggie Shaw was drawn next and sang two songs on the theme of fishing, and her husband Alan sang 'Pedro the Fisherman', a song from the 1946 film, 'Lisbon Story'.

Deborah Edgeley then read a blackout poem, a poem made from a mix of random lines from Moby Dick. Moragh Carter recounted her memories of her first fishing trip, and sang a gentle song, and finally Deborah Edgeley as mermaid Thalassa, and myself as Poseidon conducted as simple, television-style interview written by Deborah about our mythical lives.

Maggie Shaw guided us to sing 'When the Boat Comes In' at the end. I've ended the other shows with a song, and the music tends to stick in the mind as we leave, but I wondered if this makes the shows too frivolous and party-like rather than art-like, but last night felt that it did need an ending, perhaps that is the key, a positive melodic ending; even Beethoven might agree with that. The random nature of act selection made things more democratic, but in practical terms wasn't as efficient, as some acts needed tables or other props that could have remained on stage, and the flow of mood can be important too. That will always be difficult when I don't know what the acts are about, but control over the start and end is essential. I will use a pre-set order next time and develop an ending as carefully as the opening.

Simon Ross was billed as the special guest, having been asked to prepare a 20 minute performance 6 weeks earlier. He emailed me earlier in the day to request a 10 minute, non-special, slot instead, as his piece was a collaboration with Sabine Kussmaul and Sabine was unavailable due to a family emergency. In the end, Simon didn't turn up at all with no further message, which is unprofessional, but not untypical in arts performances or music shows. Reliability is the first ingredient for success at anything, but it's amazingly rare. I try not to ask or cajole people into to doing things for this reason, instead trying to make people feel welcome to do what they want; to feel free and inspired to try things themselves.

There were 18 attendees overall, including myself and Deb, enough to break even. The theme for the next show, set for November 23rd, was chosen on the night using the random function on my calculator, and it will be 'First Time'.

Burn of God and Bergman

Have largely planned for Saturday's performance evening.

Spent most of today working on Burn of God, a concept album I started last February but hit a wall with. It began off-step from the start. In 2018 I played a series of piano tunes, composed in my instant expression way, so each tune had a feeling build in, but a lack of musical structure as such, a little melody. These were experiments in themselves. I thought that perhaps I could unify them by giving them a theme and assembled an album of sorts.

Then I thought I could make the music about religion and belief, but trying to fit the musically unrelated tunes into some global idea proved really difficult. I added some words and wrote some new pieces with words, a few words, like the music in Shadows, and indeed this whole album is an experiment in the way that Shadows was. That album worked really well, but I can't trace why I think that did, but this album isn't. It is perhaps because I've started not with new music to fit the emotion, but by trying to squish and malform existing work into a new mould.

Not only this, the narrative kept changing and was originally inspired by a very surrealistic story, party based on Ingmar Bergman's film Through a Glass Darkly with elements of Cosmos by Andrzej Zulawski. This felt interesting, but perhaps it made the result more fragmented and less emotionally powerful or consistent or authentic.

Perhaps the problem is a lack of coherence. I keep darting from working carefully from start to finish, and wanting an overall structure, yet it's difficult to form an overall structure when then source musical material, which is largely written is musically diverse, if not emotionally diverse. Many of the moods are simply pleasant. It's similarly difficult to start from the beginning slowly for the same reasons.

Yet, the music I have is already probably enough for an album and sounds attractive enough to deserve to be heard.

Instinctively, I divide things into sections, usually three, like movements or acts. This is a start. The first begins with the silent cry to nobody and nothing at 4am; a good and authentic start. This is a time of screams. It is only when we are totally alone, grasping at anything and anyone that we seek a god at all.

I have a song about a priest who is an artist, and so has doubts. I have some whispered words about a woman giving birth. These things are pretty but don't fit anywhere. I must keep working. Each time I start something I feel it will be easy, and sometimes it is, but sometimes its very difficult and takes months and weeks and lots of energy and angst to wrestle out a drip of creation that, at the end, I'm generally unhappy with. I must work rationally; calculate problems and obstacles, and solutions.

Art Life, Projects End

An enjoyable preview at the Cheshire Art Fair. A warm evening, very busy, spoke to lots of people.

The Burning Circus is now complete but won't be published until March 2020 at the earliest. John Lindley has kindly agreed to write a foreword for it. The Modern Game CDs will arrive tomorrow and the book is complete too, it will be launched on October 24th. The Masculinity Two single video goes live tonight in an hour.

I've spent most of today working on a small music commission for a computer game, plus working on music and admin work for Saturday's ArtSwarm show. I will perform a new song about the sadness of fish in an ocean swarming with human detritus.

I've also written a song for the Perfume themed ArtSwarm YouTube show. All of these things, these performances. I wonder what relationship these have to art and an artistic oeuvre or message. I spoke to Sabine Kussmaul at the art fair, she is studying for a PhD in art. I've also read about the wandering art of Frank Zappa. The study of art academically seems strange and insular. It's good to think of what we're doing and why, but the curious thing about art is that everything can be relevant, and anything can be argued as correct, and often is.

I work constantly, every day. Art is my life and, even before art, work has always been my life and compulsion, every day since childhood. I didn't miss one single school day, as well as programming computers at home (school taught me nothing, it merely bored me, moving at the pace of the stupidest person in the class. With an I.Q. over 150, I left with no qualifications, only the desire to avoid the pointless life of academia). Perhaps my childhood anxiety has given me this energy to work, but art is my life because only in this way can I can strive to do my best and achieve a potential. No matter how few my resources, or limited my time, I, we, have some, and we can do the best job with what we have. The ideal person is pushing limits and learning new things, always. I live in an isolated bubble; I set my own targets and limits. Perhaps academics are similar, but their peers set the limits. They know no better, but use peers for reasons of self-discipline and self-confidence rather than expert guidance.

It is time to conceive new projects.

Cheshire Art Fair and The Burning Circus

Up at 7am today, after an anxious and sleepless night of the usual stomach pain, to deliver a batch of paintings in the rain to Macclesfield, through heavy traffic to get there by 10am. The Cheshire Art Fair opens to the public on Thursday at the Town Hall. This is my biggest exhibition of the year and I'll have 12 works on show, including the spectacularly framed print number 11 of the Richard Dadd painting.

It's in a large white frame, about 80cm square, and is the only print framed in this way.

When I got back I added the Burning Circus illustrations to my book. I need to finalise the cover next and work on a few details. I've managed to put the book together at an amazing pace, and will need to do a lot of final proofing and checking. I've entered one of its poems into the National Poetry Competition. The odds of getting anywhere in that, no matter how outstanding my poem is, are minuscule, but it does mean that I can't publish my book until the results are out, just in case the fates and muses smile upon me. I can wait.

Here is the cover so far:

I've also started to add to the Marius Fate online presence and created an Apple Artist's Image. I saw that last week, Gunstorm had over 7000 plays on Spotify. Perhaps I can put this down to Tor's vocals and Stuart Ashens' video, and perhaps the new Mark Sheeky Music YouTube Channel has given my music a boost, but this is a pleasant sign, that after over 10 years, the song becomes popular (or gets a second wind, technically, it was also popular first time round). Anyway, I'm pleased that I've kept busy and kept working on music since then. I must keep trying to aim high in my wilderness.

My main plans are to finish this poetry book, and the order some Marius CDs in preparation for the album launch. I'm not very happy with the quality of the ink-jet printed replicated CDs but for any run under 1000 it seems to be the only option. I wondered about getting some sort of laser-etch machine to make my own designs but perhaps this is overkill.

Illustrations

Illustrations are largely complete for The Burning Circus. A good proportion of the work is filing and recording these; I haven't yet started to include them in the book. Each on needs scanning, recording with a code and the size, then cropped and converted into 300dpi good quality images for storage, plus 300dpi, and higher resolution clean images with white backgrounds to include in the book. These have taken up my codes 1136 to 1164; so that's 1164 artworks I've made since 2002 or so. Of course, sometimes one code is a painting or work that takes months, sometimes a sketch that takes a few minutes. Many works are not coded and almost always destroyed.

Here's one; a tiny sketch for the introduction for the book.

The second proof of the Marius Fate book has arrived and is fine, so all is set there. Once this book is complete I can move on to new art, a fantastic time. It's so rare to have clean space...

...but of course, this has a big illusory element. There are always jobs to do. Perhaps I should promote this existing work for a few months first. I find it amazing that artists can do that rather than get excited about the next, future, better work, but then; perhaps we do, which is why the best art is often obscure, unless an external agent is involved. A balance must be struck. The door of opportunity must remain open, but not at the expense of vital and incredible masterpieces that could help, could benefit, could transform the world!

Ink on Paper

Working on the illustrations for The Burning Circus today. About 20-30 drawn on card. My normal trusty nib was proving frustrating, the ink would just refuse to flow to the tip. I reasoned that the finish on the, very matt looking, nib had dulled somehow so I tried a new, clean replacement nib of identical type, and this worked just wonderfully. I wonder if I can refurbish or polish or clean the old nib, or whether I need to buy new nibs every so often? These are only a few pence, but I need to send away for them so this isn't as efficient as cleaning them. As they appear to be stainless steel there should be no need to replace them.

The Modern Game is done and set for digital launch. It already feels old fashioned and I have many new ideas to work on; three new great concept dramatic albums or symphonies, but just ideas, barely a narrative never mind a structure and no music. One album which I (unbelievably to me) last visited in February, currently called Burn of God, is a mix of musical and poetic ideas that barely fit together. It is good to look at this again afresh. The music is in the style of the Shadows music, long, largely improvised and unstructured musical pieces with great feeling, but I feel that more structure is needed. The narrative itself is strange and has evolved separately and after the music too. Everything needs work. I might have to develop a main musical theme to develop the drama. If I'm working musically, rather than dramatically, then the climax is a great tune. If drama, then the climax is great contrast, which can be a great tune too.

Chester and the Final Modern Game Draft

A sleepless night and trip to Chester today to collect art from the Grosvenor Museum. I've also finally mastered The Modern Game music, with a few tiny changes.

It's amazing how many new things you can hear when listening for a new 'first time', which is vital. The vocals and such things are secondary now to the overall structure and I needed to tweak a few blends and volume levels. One thing that struck me is how close this is to my very first album, Synaesthesia. It has elements of space and Earth colliding, a groovy track, a piano piece; Notes From Space could almost be the modern update of Waltz Of The Ghosts. There are crashes in Beginnings and the track segue as though telling a story.

I feel the themes will age quickly; such is the problem with music that makes some comment on the times. I must move on quickly to new pastures.

My main job yesterday was to work on the cover to The Burning Circus. Many options quickly emerged. Here are two early drafts. Next job; preparing The Modern Game audio release, filing that, the inner artwork for The Burning Circus, plans for Cirque du ArtSwarm: Fishing, and a piece for ArtSwarm the video show. I want all of this done in a few days. Then, artistically, two new albums, two books and as many computer games updated as I can manage, which is probably too few, as these take a lot of work.