The Aftermath

I don't really want to wittle on about dead birds for my entire life (although it's going that way regardless). However, i just wanted to post that yesterday (2 days after the burial) i was walking past the pigeon grave and his pigeon pals were visiting...

Death of a Pigeon

As i walked home this beautiful Thursday afternoon i happened to bump into my good pal Joe, or Joseppieo as i like to call him. Anyhow as we engaged in some light hearted chit-chat we happened to pass a dead pigeon (i'm sure one of us had just mentioned dead animals, thus, this was quite coincedental). As i am fascinated by birds, dead ones in particular (just check my Annette Messager rant) i decided to photograph it. It looked as if had been petrified and was in a really peculiar position. Stealing it and making into a fantastic piece of pigeon taxidermy was on my mind. However, being the lovely people that we were, Joe and i decided it would be a nice idea to bury the pigeon in the park by the blossom trees so it didn't get eaten. It was, and still is, a beautiful day. A beautiful day for a funeral...

The pigeon as we found him...







Joe making the grave...



Pre- burial...





The funeral attendants (aka the pigeon's acquaintances)...







It was a simple ceremony...







Everyone was in agreement that the pigeon would have been pleased...



R.I.P Pigeon from 200?-2008

Speaking of Messager

She's not so bad herself...

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I always percieve Messager's work as being slightly ephemeral, everything looks so fragile. It makes me feel nervous and sad about the, perhaps, short lived nature of her work. The above piece has connotations of memory and a moment in time. I am still not sure if i want to involve clothing in my piece. Taxidermy is something i definetly want to have a look at. I can imagine myself when im in my 70's, alone in a massive comfy armchair with thousands of pieces of taxidermy around me to substitute for cats, as i am allergic. Perfection! Oh by the way, i have a massive tendency to get off the point... Due to this i can't remember what i was going to say.

Till we meet again.

Boltanski you old Fox

Annette Messager you lucky French froggy (i apologise if that's technically racism, it's just jealousy). I hope you know how lucky you are to be in a long term relationship with old Christian (love of my life). Mr. Boltanski was probally one of the first artists i put on a pedestal back in my college days, and he has remained there ever since. His work never fails to put shivers up my spine, having an overriding sense of nostalgia for a seeming lost time and people. I am 100% aware i sound like a total arsehole at the moment. A.R.T.F.A.G. But fuck it, it's probally true. I read a quote from him where he states that he never works with anything personal (as in experience), i'm probally in the same boat with him to be honest. He has done a series of installations, which reference the holocaust and are simply breathtaking. One of them featuring thousands/millions od discarded clothes in a huge synagogue. This image is up in my studio if you want a cheeky peek (i couldn't find it on the tinternet).

Bacon Rind

For all you folks that aren't familiar with a bit of cockney rhyming slang, bacon rind means mind (and i didn't learn that through googling "cockney rhyming slang" and then proceeding to be a dick and try and show off poorly...). Anyhow here i am, beginning a Joe Blog for our research project, and my main area of study is on the mind, primarily memory. Also Paul if you're reading this, im only doing bits and bobs on this badboy, most of it will be in my research book. Anyway seems appropriate to start this with a poem whose underlying theme is memory.

Digging by Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boat nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly,
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once i carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slag
Of soggy peat, the curts cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow me like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

I'm looking at artists that work with issues of memory, identity and who achieve a sense of nostalgia through their work. It's funny how many images of ground and digging arise when thinking about memory. My final piece is to be buried (although i'm not sure what the piece to be buried is).

Alter-egos.

Apparently since beginning at the wonderful establishment that is the Glasgow School of Art i have begun to acquire a few alteregos. So i have decided to give a brief introduction to the wonderful Alisdair Mackintosh and Daisy Drab-70s Housewife. Both are wonderful folk and always up for a natter. Just pop over and say hi. Mind to tell me which one you want a chat with before hand. We don't want any dissapointment when Alisdair isn't really interested into seperating colours from whites.

The Bold Alisdair





Daisy Drab-70's

Objectification.

Vanessa Beecroft's work has always concerned me somewhat. My first viewing of her VB works sparked a real interest. I found myself commending Beecroft has i interpreted her performances to be somewhat ironic. A post-feminist illustrating how far we (as women) still have to go. These women are reduced to literal objects - uniformed and without soul. However, during my research i found out a number of interesting things out about Beecroft herself. For example, she has suffered from eating disorders from the age of 12 and thus, lives in the middle of nowhere in order to resist the temptation of binges from 24 hour shops. Her first artwork displayed was "The Book of Food", which before it became an art work was Beecrofts food diary in which she obsessivly listed what she ate. Are these women that she then displays not her beauty ideal. Before she obtained recognition and hence, cash, her first models were not models but people with eating disorders. Her most recent works have designers such as Galliano queing up for the chance to design the models underwear, shoes or wigs. I have to ask, does this not sound somewhat corrupt? And if she has become a bit of a poster girl for the post-feminist age, i have to say, fuck our conception of post-feminism. They are blatantly missing the point.

I am interested in exploring the female figure that does perhaps not adhere to the media's idea of beauty. Damaged women. Women whose body's hold scars etc. I find it frustrating that people do not appreciate how beautiful this is. Women whose body's may not be pigeon holed under some ill informed ideal on how to look. I find it touching when someone reveals the truth about their most sacred and personal possesion; themselves. I might find Beecroft's work touching too had she not made them conform, this could be a satire on the nature of our very world but i fear not. There is too many contradictions in it, she annoys the hell out of me.

Moustachio

Oh dear, oh dear, the trend of good old lip warmers seems to be fading fast. My research and thus, vast knowledge of the afore mentioned is causing me to feel quite distressed at this loss of hair. Thank God, during this project i will be adorning one with great pride. Although the humour factor in my project is not to override the other issues being adressed, i see nothing wrong with helping thee ole' moustachio propaganda, and hopefully regenerating the popularity once seen in the early 1900's.

Other proud owners of moustaches:

Friedrich Nietzche

Adolf Hitler

Josef Stalin

Horatio Herbert Kitchener

Albert Einstein

Hulk Hogan

Tom Selleck

Ned Flanders

Fare thee well all moustache growers, i salute thee!

P.S. For the sake of humanity bring Tom Selleck back, BACK I SAY!!