Something new, something old

white wash. christmas edition 2009.


I have no idea why I never made such a thing before, but for Christmas 2009 I sent out a small edition for the first time to celebrate the season. This past Christmas I did the same and on both occasions I crudely filmed the making. Well I guess there's no point doing such a thing unless you allow people to see it, so here's the first. The film for that of 2010 will come shortly, if you can bear the wait. The good news is the editions are in reality better then the films and should last you a life time, whilst the film in this case is under 2 minutes.

There is something slightly unhealthy about great expectations and in particular those surrounding new year. If you manage to get over the dissappointment of the new years eve party then the reality of the next morning will surely put check to the most romantic imagination. First there's the hangover and if not, the enquiry, why not. Then of course the weather is most unlikely to embrace a positive radiance, let's face it, it's another day in winter, grey, wet, cold and in the case of Berlin at this moment, snow again. Don't get me wrong, I love the snow but heavy dark skies don't speak to me of promising future times. But maybe I have to learn to look a little further or nearer. Yesterday for a very short period of time the clouds opened a wee window through which my first sunshine of 2011 broke through and darted across the tiring branches of the christmas tree. Fantastic pools of light papered the walls and drew my attention to what was, and has for a long time, surrounding me. I spend so much time trying to create things consciously that I over look some of the wonderful installations that have come about over time and chance. Dust on pictures, reflections in glass, cobwebs and temporary homes found in  ...........  time and chance. 

All change

'a new me', image taken during a commission for the Böll stiftung.

The hour has come and gone, in with the new and out with the old. Only the next is always to come and the present is always the past. So what of new year. I am still walking and falling at the same time, catching myself whilst looking to the next step each time. I want to know who jumps side ways or maybe even more interesting, who steps backwards, for when you follow this logic this would be a true step into the unknown. 

Captured time

    and so it came to pass. 2005 (detail)

It's new years eve and as warmer temperatures come and slowly peal away the layers of time incapsulated in white, the evidence of our means are revisited. It is in many ways  the same as what I explored in the work - And so it came to pass. 2005 - the evidence, marks and life incased within the walls of any appartment.

Stille Nacht

.... heilige Nacht. That I can't say with any certainty, but the snow that came this late December to Berlin brought an undoubted peace with it. Looking out of my window late evening the picture presented before me held such a stillness, a complex and infinite dance of moment and mayhem played before me. The snow twisting in silent swirls of petticoat lace too remote to crave but so deep and close as the deepest depths of forgotten pockets newly explored. It held me suspended for how long I do not know but now I recall scenes from the film - Powaqqatsi - from Godfrey Reggio that had the same endless stillness in motion. This is all a rather long way round to saying I could only eventually step outside and sink myself into the very same darkness. It's corney to say but if there is any such thing as a church, in the real meaning of the word, then the all absorbing silence under those heavy stained dark skies was the ceilling of such. 

Dessau – portraits

Working along side a week long project run by anschlaege.de which explored the visions and perspectives of young people in Dessau, of Dessau, I produced a number of portraits of the participants which were later used for poster and included in an exhibition staged in the Bauhaus, Dessau. 

Early and late

I intend to prove one can be in two places at once. For in the next couple of sentences I shall claim to be both early but late, where the new is but old and the end only the start. I had previously promised to follow the last post up with further infomation only then to leave things as they were for god knows how long – LATE. But if I was to issue a promise that this poor blogging performance of mine is to be finally changed for a more active model, my new year resolution - then it could be said to be – EARLY. Either way what NEW is to follow I admit is rather OLD. So I will try and compress a large span of time into small set of posts and bring things up to date.