Composition : ii

Reflections on this ocean of thought: twisted vines and curling shadows, the tangle stops me going under. Surface patterns have a buoyancy of their own.

{Today's Soundtrack: PJ Harvey - We Float}

Composition

Something got me thinking, that between the surface of things and the sound of things and the way they are both noted, maybe there's a correlation. I've been thinking this for ages. During supporting studies for the Angels project (click on 'galleries'), I lost myself in these thoughts without realising that's what they were. Life superceded, and conclusion decided to hold off for a while.

The great thing about living in a big little place is that just doing the day to day, you get to meet some really interesting people. So it comes about that I am sitting in a coffee house with old friend Stanton Delaplane and new friend Richard Barnard, chatting graphic scores, and more specifically, Cornelius Cardew and his score, Treatise.

It's perhaps the single most inspiring thing I've seen in ages. At this point, my head starts to explode. I am so inspired I can barely sit still, and need to start making pictures pdq. As for the boys, they are already talking gig dates.

On the basis that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, I've started noting some ideas using basic in-camera compositions which work on their own here. Storyboarding them, they start telling me things boldly, in the way that a good narrative structure may feed off itself. They also speak in panorama, reminiscent of Koudelka's 'Chaos'. When I start layering these up, I have to apply my most professional skills to not fall off my chair in giddiness, but you'll have to wait for those ideas!

There is an ocean of thought here. I feel as though I'm 5 years old, skimming stones.

{Today's Soundtrack: The Temper Trap - Conditions/Sweet Disposition}

Keep Moving

Getting a big, bad blue door feeling again today, and although it seems far too hot for anything in life to be acting like winter, there seems to be some discrepancy between dreams and reality at the moment - dreams one side of the door (the other), and reality this side. On a good day, narrowing this gap is our joy. On a tired day, not so.

This morning I woke too early from a dream where I was pulling a series of crux moves on a sea-cliff climb. This is wild - I haven't climbed in months but it is one of those dreams that feels hyper-real - physical, emotional, spiritual. The climb is getting steeper, then overhanging, and I am having to move really slowly and carefully so the rock doesn't spit me off, every fibre of my being poised and balanced. All I can do is focus intently on these critical moves, and because of that forget my camera is casually slung over a shoulder. At one point I hear a crash and think I have dropped it. It isn't the camera, thank God.

Keep moving, I coach myself.

Not hard to interpret this one. Yet another hardcore climb was all I was given to do with life for a while. It is all I have to comment on. I was worried about losing my camera. I didn't lose it. I have my story, I have my tools for telling that story, and I have woken up.

Big, bad, blue door feelings seem to happen at the start of most new ventures, just after the first cleanly optimistic stages as reality of what's actually involved kicks in. For artists, writers, musicians, this is familiar ground.

Must remember there's light the other side of the door.

Keep moving, I coach myself.

{Today's Soundtrack: Rue Royale}

Love Come Rescue

This thing of beauty appeared on a beach a couple of New Years ago, and I've been gazing at it ever since. Tide swills in, and out again, leaving tiny feathery fibres meshed perfectly together and clinging firmly to grains of sand. Why is it so astounding? Maybe it's because when I think about the ocean, and think about this tiny, delicate object, it is ridiculous to assume something like a feather would hold its ground in such a picture of serenity against ferocious, turbulent, winter surf. But it held, and so might we, and be more beautiful for it.

I think this is the art of being still, contemplatively speaking.

{Today's Soundtrack: Athlete - Black Swan}

Heroics

Is there a problem that can't be fixed with gaffer tape? And has this board lost its former glory, or does it look somehow more glorious having 'dinged' and living to tell its tale, bearing scars with pride? (On a body-conscious note, those who lament the presence of dimply thighs, apply the same principal - every dimple is testament to an important conversation held over cake/coffee/beer. Don't tell me this theory doesn't work for you!)

[Agh! As I type, have just knocked a cup of tea over on a new cream rug, christening it to stained perfection. Hot water, fairy liquid, towels, that didn't even see the week out and the poetry kills me.]

If there's a problem that can't be fixed with gaffer tape/string and a little lateral thinking, it's probably documented here, or there - displays of genius, and truly beautiful.

Moral of the story - don't let your repairs betray the truth of a great life thoroughly lived!

And talking about displays, today has been a practical sort of day, and one which has required a very well presented outcome in which this image plays a part. See my News page for the full story. Here's wishing you a held-together-at-the-seams-with-gaffer-and-initiative-but-doesn't-it-make-us-look-herioc weekend.

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And whilst we're talking poetic timing, trying to remember the name for T's ST, and at that moment it started up on the radio, thereby saving my dimpled bacon.

{Today's Soundtrack: Frank Turner - Try This At Home}

@lizzieeverard

So, today I have mostly been spinning from all the new things that are pouring in to my brain via the medium of Twitter: friends, writers, musicians, campaigners, lobbyists, pioneers, artists, athletes and workers. I do confess, @tritwins, I do appear to have a mild addiction (@sonjajefferson and @jennybee to thank for intros to...), but then there is something precious about Twitsville for the sole-trader. For those of us who spend long hours working alone, this is the office banter that I miss - making post-it note beards and letting each other's office chairs down, as well as light discussion over the things that get to us and a shout for the inspirations and triumphs too.

Since adopting this habit of the tweets, contrary to how it may come across I am challenged to get on with my work and have something to contribute! Very sceptical for far too long, this is a one way street and I'm dedicating today's post to all my new tweet-pals who are enriching life and making the days of sole-trading a vibrant and rich experience.

Sorry if this is all so yesterday - I'm always slightly resistant to new technology. Right then, back to my stoneage life pre-twitter and the Flintstones coffee machine...

{Today's Soundtrack: Vampire Weekend - Contra}

Littered

My path is littered with love. I must stop looking at my feet.

{Today's Soundtrack: Sleepy Sun - Marina}

Dirty Old Town

{Today's Soundtrack: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Dirty Old Town}

You Got The Love

I absolutely promise, I am utterly, truly not making this up. Last night's walk home blessed once again, twice! Please, will someone tell me, for this to persist is there something I am not getting into this pretty little head??

On another note, today, this is a fantastic biography for Illinoisian singer-songwriter William Fitzsimmons. I came across him on last.fm, his music having the effect of making me stop whatever else I was doing. Reading about him turned up this extraordinary story about the home he was born into, which rewrites the rules most of us take for granted. I was inspired, I hope you will be too - put yourself in those storytelling shoes for a second:

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William Fitzsimmons is one of the oddest people you will ever meet. Born the youngest child of two blind parents, William was raised in the outskirts of the steel city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Due to the family's inability to communicate through normal visual means, William's childhood home was filled with a myriad of sounds to replace what eyes could not see. The house was suffused with pianos, guitars, trombones, talking birds, classical records, family sing-a-longs, bedtime stories, and the bellowing of a pipe organ, which his father built into the house with his own hands. When his father's orchestral records were not resonating through the walls, his mother would educate him on the folk stylings of James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and Simon & Garfunkel. By the completion of his youth and schooling, Fitzsimmons had become well-versed at a variety of instruments, at the minor expense of social standing, interactional skills, and a knowledge of proper shaving technique. [Read more]

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Get involved with WF. His communication is a thing of beauty.

{Today's Soundtrack: duh... }

Hair Theory

I have a theory about hair - that it reflects externally what a person's state is internally. (Yeah, alright, just go with me on this one...!) Have a look around and ponder this, see what you notice. Of course, this is often harder to discern on our gentlemen friends, and more generally, I would hate to imply that those without much hair, male or female, are without a beautiful and sensitive, or indeed a complex yet beguiling inner-life. And facial hair too - how does this impact my theory? Go on beardy, chew this one over! I bet your choice of beard/mutton chops/moustache does actually tell us something about your inner harmonies after all, eh?

Today, my own wild, wiggly hair today is in such rebellion it needs trapping under a very large pair of headphones, and double measure, wound around a pencil for restraint. That I have run in a million directions away from the grown-up jobs I had decided to tackle today leads me to obvious conclusions. What more is there to say? The hair theory is borne.

* Obstacles to progress shall be named & shamed: twitter, cake shop around the corner, texting a friend on holiday, coffee shop up the road, twitter, reading interesting project ideas in old journals, twitter, feeling a bit post-birthday and searching for entertainment on youtube, chatting to mates in next door studio, tinkering with phone capture and Photoshop illustrations, music blogs, and twitter.

{Today's Soundtrack: Arcade Fire - We Used to Wait}

This Is Real

Q: Was this shot made at night or in the daytime?

[Ooh, guess who's digging the light-when-you-thought-it-was-dark poetry in this one, readers!]

Today, I dedicate this short post to things not being what they seem yet still believing – being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don't see, and being captivated by what's right in front of you all the same, however mixed up and unresolved it seems. Confused? Yup, me too. How about sitting with the image for a moment, just in case it helps take you somewhere?

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Listening to Beach House today... 'boom, boom, boom'. Lovely clip for this link, it's a beautiful track. I think it's about being frightened of falling in love and – like that crap phone shot that isn't what it seems – may lull you into feeling things you weren't expecting. Making me smile.

{Today's Soundtrack: Beach House - Teen Dream: Real Love}

Liminal

A thoughtful little angel scribed this instruction for walkers in a Bristol park recently. I found it surprisingly helpful as I strode home from the studio, pondering what to do about certain things, shifting sands and the like.

It's about perception. Are we sitting under clouds (Numbers 9), or standing at crossroads? Maybe both.

'Liminal space' is a threshold between history and future. In this space, we are disconnected from our old identity, have let go of things we once clung to, and yet to be reformed in a new guise. The liminal space describes us as indescribable, in a place of disconnection, covers stripped away, pillars crumbled, handholds removed, awaiting new forms. By definition, in the transition state nothing much is familiar.

If you find yourself in a prolonged state of transition, be brave and take heart. You are you, right there. You are waiting, but not for life - you already have that, right here. It's the fruit of that life that you're eager to discover, and fair enough, but it takes time to grow. Assume and apply the gardener's patience in liminal space. Standing at a crossroads, there is much to ponder, and it's all about you - you unsullied, not him, or her, or them and what they turn you into. All that has gone. This is a chance to take stock, weigh up your options, salute your dreams, gather your strength and make some onward moves. Just don't forget to breathe.

{Today's Soundtrack: Aaron Strumpel - Elephants/Vespers}