In Focus

OK some progress to report. I have set myself some goals and objectives for the next 12 months, my first one was to read a book about setting goals which turned out to be a real struggle but once i finally did I sorted them out fairly fast. I have them up on my wall:-

Part of them is developing this blog fairly substantially as it is an important part of my goals to be ready for my PhD confirmation with a good level of not only creative work but also theoretical understanding so I am aiming for 4 blog entries per week which will not only document my work but more importantly discuss it or at least make comment on it. Any discussion by anyone is welcome in the 'comments' section.

Another part of the plan is steady reading of things that will feed into and also come out of my practice, so for now after my chat with Dan last week I am focused on this idea of working through creative challenges and learning HOW to be a creative practitioner (I hate that word) lets re-phrase it artist, learning how to be an artist means learning how to continue to work through difficult situations, around obstacles and at the same time remaining focused and IN TOUCH with what is going on. You need to keep your hands on the ball, retain possession if your going to win, its that series of touches (like a fast pass to the wing in rugby) that will win the battle and indeed it is a battle as its a battle with ego and a battle with attitude and with personality. Thats one thing i learnt from business coaching that I need to not focus on creating perfection i just need to focus on creating something, anything as it will all be a step in the right direction, one thing leads to another. Dan has also told me as much and its been a real change in my approach, it has lead to a whole series of experimental works, a constant flow of experiments and small objects and marks and sketches and so on.

I used to be focused on creating the end result right away, like I had the ability to just rock up to my studio and create something amazing without having had a series of steps along the way to get there, now I am just concerned to do what feels right and not worry about where it fits in and what its about and how to rationalize it. That has been a massive change and my art is now just spinning off into multiple directions at once so I am following them through and reading about the creative process and how to work within it is going be really help to keep them moving along albeit in different directions. Exciting really.

We are re-building my website this next few months so I can put all of my work up there even this experimental stuff and also start promoting the site again.

I did this piece over a period of many months, I seriously bit off more than I could chew, getting a car body, getting it into my studio, painting it, working out how to get it to rotate, how to film it, how to edit it. It was a massive learning curve but I made it and its finally done. For a few seconds of video it sure was a mission. This will go up on my website as a final work not an experiment as I'm really happy with it.