Sad and Beautiful World

Sad and Beautiful World is the last in the 12 part comic series, Demo, written by Brian Wood. Each issue is a separate self contained short story in which Wood wanted to explore the experience of a group of ‘mutant’ youths, albeit set in a non-super hero setting.

Sad and Beautiful World is my favourite story of the twelve because the idea itself can be seen as an extended metaphor and brings a sort of poetic beauty to it. The story features a young couple who have over the years come to fall out of love, but cannot physically be apart from each other or their bodies will tear apart, literally. I love the fact that you can compare this to a modern destructive relationship that have learnt to hate each other through love but cannot bear to be apart.

The comic features beautiful repetition of the phrase: ‘And we healed’ showing the on going pain the couple face of having conflicting wants and needs. The style of the art work, by Becky Cloonan, is aggressive black and white panels, featuring thick black strokes which almost look like rips. I like how it feels like each panel is tearing out of the page at you, as though the panel itself wants to leave but can’t, the same as the characters.

The narrative style features both points of view, from the girl and from the boy, first person, though their stories don’t contradict each other. It describes the times they have tried to leave each other, gradually revealing the climax of their dilemma, and also the process of trying to live everyday life with each other whilst keeping a happy distance. Somehow one of them even manages to have an afraid despite their proximity issues.

My favourite part about this short story is the face that it can be seen as a large metaphor for life; learning to live with each other, how it can cause so much pain, but how you always heal.

If you haven’t read it already, do.

Writing without ducks

Morning. I've been away for the week and thought that I would have a quick catch up on here. I'm changing jobs, from one boring job to another, but the benefit is I've got a two week gap so I decided to go back to my mum's for a week. She has a long garden with a log cabin hidden at the bottom so I thought this would be the perfect place to try and settle into writing for a bit.


Despite being attacked by earwigs by nights and thunder fly's by day, it was the perfect place to write. The log cabin has a large veranda with big comfy sofas and a little table, so it was the perfect plact to set up my mini lap top and curl up. Also my mum has a new collection of mini ducks whose house is right outside the veranda, so watching little creatures chatter to each other and take baths was quite relaxing.

I've managed to write 40 pages of a 60 page script I am writing and multiple micro fictions which need to be edited. Although it is a bit worrying that the 40 page script has reached it's finishing point so I need to have a good look over and see how I can extend it by twenty minutes.

But now I'm stuck, because I'm back in the real world and there's so many more distractions. Out there it was hot, quiet, and distractionless ( other then the little ducks of course). But here, back in the real world, back in my flat, I struggle to concentrate. I always feel like there's something else to do. Worst of all, I put pressure on myself to find a better job, to get something I really want quick before I get stuck in something I don't. I also think more about other people reading my pieces and what they think, before I've even finished a piece. Those thoughts are distracting from writing.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, writing is hard. You have to make time for it in your every day life and keep making time for it. Or it'll end up being a hobby you do when you're on holiday. I think what I need to do is have a move around of my flat and see if I can create a writing cubby, because at the moment it's nothing like curling up in front of ducks!

Artist interview: John Routledge - Images vs Words

                  John Routledge is an emerging artist, sculptor and photographer from Essex. He currently resides in The New Forest where he is completing a graduate internship with Artsway. He is the first to brave my interview to see how art uses storytelling and how storytelling is affected by images.

John's main work is based in sculpture. Since graduating from Coventry University with a degree Fine Art in 2008 John has taken part in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and had many exhibitions country wide for his sculpture and photography work. His most recent exhibitions includes: 'Encounters at Wheatley' at Wheatley Manor in Oxfordshire, and 'Making of Encounters' held at the John Radcliff Hospital in Oxford.

John's ambitions as an artists are quite modestly 'to be recognised as an artist.' His aim is to get his own studio and eventually work on larger public commissions. 

So, over to you John.

How would you describe your artwork?

There are many facets to my artistic practice, comprising of sculpture, installation, photography and drawing.
I am particularly interested in night photography, and will walk around the streets at night taking photos. On a personal level, I enjoy the solitude, but also the contradiction of a place being designed for the use and inhabiting of so many being so empty, it also allows me to concentrate on more formal elements to my photography - contrast, composition, etc – without interference. In a way I see this as a documentation of modern life, representing the new environments we have created for ourselves.

My sculptural practice is based around light, and I see my installation work really as an extension of this practice. I not only utilise light in my work, through the use of fluorescent tubes, but I also manipulate it through the use of highly reflective surfaces and mirrors. I don’t know why but I am a bit of a moth really, I am drawn to light, and I think there is an essential beauty and purity in there some where. I’m really interested in contradictions and hypocrisy, in an abstract sort of way, and really enjoy light as an example of this: it is an absolute, it is on or it is off; there is darkness or there is light. And yet in reality, there is never true darkness, even in the depths of space there is some form of light, however weak, otherwise we wouldn’t know anything is there. Without light we wouldn’t experience the world as we do, we would not be able to see, period. We couldn’t enjoy the beauty of a sunrise, or our partners, or the multitude of other amazing things we experience via vision.

In what capacity do you feel that art in general has the potential to tell a story?

I think art has great narrative potential, and one of the beauties of the freedom of modern art is that so many people are expressing so many things in such an astounding number of ways.

How does your work relate to this?

Whether we like it or not people will always try to read a story into your work, and subconsciously I think art always expresses something of the person who made it. In my sculpture and installation work I think this is ‘the story’ of what I have made, the story of me. I don’t really do this on purpose, but I think subconsciously it happens anyway.

As for my photographs, there are no real strict narratives, but I suppose you could see the images as a meta-narrative of contemporary life. In some ways I like to think I am telling the story of the city, without people it takes on a life of its own, it has its own character and personality completely separate from nature and us. But again I don’t really set out with a story in mind, I just kind of notice things afterwards which lend themselves to some vague form of story. Perhaps I have subconsciously done this as I’ve been going along, or perhaps it is just my natural desire to try and make everything make sense, have some form of order and logic, that means I try and imprint and force something upon it afterwards.

Do you have a specific piece which has a strong story telling element?

I suppose the one I’d most like people to make a story about is ‘The Mirror Room.’ It was one of my final degree projects and was a 6ft wide, 18ft long, 7ft high space with mirrors on all 4 internal walls. I customised fluorescent fittings to create a specific atmosphere and this was enhanced by a constantly evolving sound scape composed specifically for the space by composer David Loveless. It was a very contemplative environment, but also very visually complex, as the mirrors reflected themselves into infinity. The space ended up being almost another world, and I would like to think people imagined themselves in other worlds, dimensions, places.

In your opinion, can a piece of art tell a full rounded story or is it only once words have been added that it is complete?

I think it is possible to construct one without the other, you can create imagery with words, and you can create words with images, but I think really the two are more effective when combined, rather than used in isolation.

Do you think that images can be any more manipulative then words in terms of making the viewer feels something?

I think images evoke a much more immediate emotive response. For example seeing a photo of a dead body is far more potent and would illicit a far greater response, than a piece of text describing one. But I also think that used properly, words can go beyond images, and while they may lack immediate punch, I think they can create something far more affecting in the long run.

 

Which do you feel is a stronger storytelling tool between images and words?

I think images are the easier tool to use, as for stronger I’m not so sure. Recently I’ve attended a few literary events, including Bad Language events, which have really made me reconsider my view on this. There is a vibrancy and immediacy you experience with spoken word, that you just don't get reading a book, and I think this proves that when used properly, by a great writer, words have far more effect. But it seems to me that a far less proficient artist or photographer can achieve something similar. While qualitatively I think words have the edge, in the lazy, accelerated society we live in, pictures get the message across quicker with less effort.


Thank you John! You can view The Mirror Room video below and view more of John's sculpture work at: www.jwr-scrulpture.deviantart.com. 

You can view more of John's photography work at: www.johnny-r.deviantart.com.

Dreamscape - An artists inspiration

Following on from the idea of images VS words I've written a short piece taking inspiration from the artist Antoinette Burchill. The below is the picture I used to spark a story. I wanted to see how such an abstract piece would create a complete idea of a story. However, as the piece is so abstract I feel in return my ideas were abstract. Instead of writing a full rounded piece I have written a short micro fiction which in the end became very personal.

The day I sat down to write this piece I had just discovered that two of my cats had to be put down, both of which I've had since I was a baby. In that respect this piece lends itself to express individual experience and I'm not sure if another writer would get any where near the same story. I can name the particular parts of the image I took inspiration from, which is what lead me to the final idea:

My first thoughts on the image was that is was quite an earthy natural picture. The yellow and red reminded me of a wilted petal. This in my mind related to the earth and ground, fresh in my mind of where we had buried the cats. The way the picture moves from a dusty dark in the top left corner to a softer white in the bottom right brought ideas to mind above recycling and the idea of the continuous pattern of life and death. Again it was probally my own situation that took these conclusions from the colours, but it would be interesting to see if someone else took the same notion of an idea from the image?

Untitled

We burried you together, by the oak tree. The tree was strong enought to hold a chair, a swing chair, and we buried you below where we could brush our toes against your memories. I think of your stillness, deep below the skin of the earth.

Swallowed whole.

You sit like gobstoppers, shrinking; disintergrating; switching from the colour of skin, to organs, to bones. Until the two of you are rotten, and become one.

I site above you, feet pressed to the grass, and imagine your breath is the wind.

Ten Rules for Writing

As stolen/inspired from Daniel Carpenter's debut blog post ( thank you Dan!).... it got me thinking about my own personal rules that I write to. I'm not saying that this is the way everyone should write, it's just a few thoughts about how I go about writing.

 In no specific order:

1. Write. And if you can't write, think about writing. And if you can't think about writing, read, read, read, read, read until even the act of making a cup of tea feels like a story.

2. Go out. See other writers, poets, performance artists. I take most of my inspiration from listening to and reading other writers work, so go out to your local events and pay attention to what is happening around you.

3. Listen. I've heard some of the most interesting, heartbreaking, funny and unbelievable stories from talking to colleagues or overhearing conversations. I once heard a drunk man on the tram telling his nephew how to survive in prison.

4. Experiment. I recently picked up a horror novel for the first time since I was fifteen and ended up writing my first horror short story. It has now become one of my favourite pieces. Don't be afraid to experiment with genre.

5. Relax. Stress is one of the biggest killers of creative inspiration. When I'm stressed I get a black block at the front of my head that stops ideas getting through. Go to the gym, take a walk, have sex, water some plants, do something active that will de-stress you but keep your mind active.

6. Ask for criticism. One of the best ways to improve is to pass your work to an honest critic who feels your work isn't at its strongest, and the test out their methods and ideas of how to improve. It may not work but it will get you reflecting on what other readers like to read.

7. Talk. Talk about films, stories, novels, articles, documentaries... Constantly be analysing and looking at storytelling tools. Me and my partner are always pulling apart a film we've just watched reflecting on what worked and why or what partronised us or what bored us. This makes me reflect on the same mistakes I make in my writing and why they don't work.

8. Submit. Apply to competitions, magazines, websites, zines. It will help you to build a portfolio of work but regularly writing to spec and the knock backs will help you improve.

9. Enjoy. Enjoy writing or what's the point?

10. Support. Your peers are not your competition, they're your colleagues. Support other writers, help them succeed, celebrate their successes. We should learn from each other and be one big happy family. (sorry for the cheese)

So yeah, that's it. Just a few thoughts about my writing patterns and what helps me. I wonder how different each persons rules are? Thank you Dan for letting me steal from your blog, and goodnight :)

Long time no see

Hi! I've been so caught up in work that I've had absolutley no time to think of writing, or even having creative thoughts at all. Spending all day sinking under a pile of paperwork and listening to grumpy managers and engineers who want your response 'right now!' is not what I call creative inspiration. On the other hand I am desperately trying to change the situation and have new projects to focus on.

First thing is the Bad Language book launch which is now happening on Wednesday 2nd June at The Bay Horse in the Northen Quater. Finally! We had a few issues with dates and venues but have finally settled on a date and I refuse to move it any more, even if the Queen came to beg me to move it. Not that she would. Bad Language are also working on their next event which will be a literature quiz night filled with many surprises!

Also, next week, on the day after my birthday, is the exciting Unsung Festival which I have been looking forward to for a long time! A whole day of cider, music, literature and art, at least I hope there's cider. I'm going to treat it as my real birthday seeing as I have to work all day on my actual birthday. Work is even less fun at the moment as I'm covering someone who usualy has so much work to do of their own that they do 30 hours over a month on adverage. I have to pick that up and maintain my own workload! Anyway, enough of work rants. More fun planned...

The next project is the World Cup Special with Bad Language. We're looking for short pieces of fiction or poetry centered around the World Cup, which I have to admit is quite hard when you're not into football. But then again, it was Joe's idea, who is a football enthusiast. The first piece has already been posted to the Bad Language blog, which gives you a taste of how you can write about football when you're not that enthusiatic about it.

The next personal piece I'm working on is the inspiration from Russell Morgan's picture, as mentioned in the last blog. I've been throwing ideas around for a while but have been waiting until my words have stopped drying up from work. I'm working on a very short micro fiction, or extract, about a dead girl who is stuck in a man's mind due to his memories. She cannot move on until the man stops thinking of her so much, and also faces much frustration as he changes and manipulates both their memories into something that isn't truth. This may prove to be quite a complex idea to fit into a short piece, which is why I say extract.

I've started reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, which makes my skin tingle. It follows the story of a mute man and his relationships with the people around him. I am up to the moment when he allows a lonely, lost, drunk man to move into his home and share his life. I find the ideas about how satifying the protagonist finds the relationships in his life romatic; the rhythms and patterns in McCullers language is like reading a song. 

I'm also reading Watchmen, old skool I know, but I have been reading it on and off since the big craze about it started. I'm not really into superhero comics but I enjoy the relationship side and the idea of how focusing on the negative side of society can make you corrupt. It's quite a fun novel but I also enjoy how it's influenced by real life events and the philosophical ideas behind the plot.

That's all I've got to say for now. The short piece about Russel Morgan's art will follow shortly, and I am also writing interview questions for my first two artist interviews. I hope to see people at the official book launch where you'll hear readings from the performance poets/writers featured in the new book, visual/audio literature, art work and possibly live music. Also, if you're in Manchester next weekend please make it along to Unsung, that looks to be set to tickle your artists taste buds. Farewell for now!

Images vs Words - Artists vs Writers

Can an image tell a story? Or is it only once words are added that an image becomes a narrative? Is art a form of language?

As part of an individual project I will be interviewing artists on my blog about whether they feel their art work is telling a story or whether the story is only built once an image is related to words: whether this be through thought, vocal or written language. My plan is to discover what a more powerful storytelling tool is: images or words.

I will also be looking at various pieces of art and writing a creative response in the form of poetry or micro fictions. This is to asses the storytelling aspect of the picture and how the image itself represents a story. I want to discover whether the organicness of the image is telling a story or whether it is the writer who adapts it to a story.




My first artist example is Russell Morgan, an illustrator based in Kettering. I met Russell at the World Horror Convention 2010 in Brighton earlier this year and was particularly taken by his work. I like how thousands of tiny tiny dots scrunched together can create an image. I think Russell's work has a particularly strong storytelling element to it: his pieces seem to feature a character and always portray a strong emotion. For example the picture below: Suppressed Memory, builds a series of stories in my mind.

The piece by Russell which I have used for my creative response is titled: Arupa Lipica, as per the below.

I will post my response to this seperately.

My project will take the form of interview's with artists, posted here, and my personal creative response to images through fiction writing which, I will share an example of here. The first interview will be with John Routeledge: a photographer and sculpture based down is Essex! Watch this space!