The long way back: 732 miles, 4 cans of energy drink, 2 disappointing motorway rest stop meals and a screen printing bed.

So after almost a year of searching for a vacuum screen printing table and being disappointed I managed to find one I could afford. Drove down and back from Oxford yesterday to pick up this screen printing bed which if I'm honest is a great bit of kit and is going to be incredibly useful. It is a small one but prints up to A1 which is ok for me at the moment, and all its parts seem to be in working order including the vacuum which as the name suggests is integral to the table as a whole. It is missing the squeegee arm but this isn't essential  and i can live without it quite comfortably.  I would like to say a big thank you to Sander Schoonbeek for the help and company on the drive there and back not to mention a thank you to Sarah Davison who got in contact to let me know she was looking for a new home for the table.

What we do

Had been asked for our first project space this year to get a member of our family to write a short bit about what they think we do. I got my mother father and brother to all write a short piece and then selected the one i thought most appropriate or at least the one i found most interesting! This turned out to be my father's, who is probably the person in our household most "out of the loop" with regards to what it is i think i do. I also realised that despite making work the only real view the other people in my family get of what it is that i do comes from them seeing me collecting rubbish and "scraps" and the flow of this through the house and into the studio with very little evidence of the finished articles. Despite all being written separately all three show similar interpretations.   

Fathers

mothers

Brothers

more found objects for carving...

New found objects to be carved, will continue from where i ran out of room on the larger door so the continuity of the final project wont be broken. These will be slightly more considered with regards to placing objects within them i think though this is not certain, will just have to give it a trial and see. Seen as one of these objects is of a more manageable  size i may then take it directly to print instead of making a print based on it but again we shall see...

warning large post!

So the start of another year in the life of a postgraduate student. First day back was approached as always with promises to the almighty art school god to do better than previous years and that nothing would be left to the last minute (this is similar to the resolutions one makes every new year to stop this or do that in order to make us feel like a better person but is in fact a way of distracting us from the fact that we made these resolutions the previous new year and have not acted upon them). 

The first day back was as boring as expected with the time honoured tradition of hours and hours of hanging around and sitting in lecture theatres being given vastly descriptive but at the same time hugely vague outlines of whats new (to do with the merger with Edinburgh University, the only real difference so far being the quality of food in the canteen and the appearance of large orange banners proclaiming the art school part of Edinburgh uni. made me think of the images of Russian soldiers sticking their flags atop the Reichstag during the fall of Berlin) 

The usual fight for studio spaces took place towards the end of the day and instead of doing the same as last year and taking what I was given and having a shit year I fought my corner and secured a space im quite pleased with (photos attached) complete with two old barbers chairs which were the real prize I think you'll agree. 

Anyway after the dust had almost settled and the joy/ disappointment of the studio space scrum had abated we trooped to the pub for celebratory drinks. 

completed summer project.

thought it about time i get round to uploading the project i did over the summer. As i said before it is finished, but in my head it is part of a larger whole which is as yet still to be realised and so i would ask any doubters that they resist the urge to batter with criticism what i consider the most important piece of work i have made in the past year, which was from the start a creative desert. Any questions or discussion at all would be welcomed.

self googling discovery

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1699799

did some self googling (i know like i have nothing else to do) and came across this gem from a couple of years ago. its amazing what comes up! simpler times