Was your creativity affected in any way during the lockdown? Did being lockdown make you feel inspired or deflated?
Time and energy are robbed by one's day job, so glady using both, I made the most of it.
Was it therapeutic doing creative work during lockdown? Yes, it gave me a focus and a shelter from the world without.
How did you occupy your time? I wrote one new song, rerecorded others, practiced my guitar playing for my live band 'the oohz', photographed a back catalogue of my artworks and created new paintings and drawings, wrote several poems...one of which was this one 'Installation'.
What was the main thinking behind your poem? My frustration with the Art world in the UK, comparing it to the banal, everyday activities and ablutions we all go through at the start of each day on one's own.
You do a lot of different creative activities, do you have a preferred activity? No, I love them all without bias. Each one brings out a different response in me.
What inspires you with your art? How does an idea come to you?
Ardour, life, desire, the fire of creation exhumed from the murky, mental, subconscious, estuary mire. The good, the bad, the bug-eyed, the sad and the patterns and schemes in the meaning of things. The beauty, the beasts, the horror, the imaginative brain, the rush and the pulse and the rain. The abstract construction, the patterns of production, the lines that define the temporary possession before self destruction. The pagan, the past, the stairways to heaven, to purgatory and devils and demons, saints, heros and villains. The nautical, the naive, the ocean's tidal weave and the zephyrs breeze upon the terror of alien seas. The space and the time, the human rituals defined, the sex, the death and televised crime. The boats and the planes, old steam trains that run on ladders or wriggling railway branch lines, passing through the windows and opening the doors of the mind.
The pylons and people, relationship, steeples, the couples, the fantasy fetish of humanities predilections and mores. The myths, the signals and signs of the times, the flags, the bunting, banners, the severed legs saved from exploding injury mines. The blood and the splatter, the guns and mad hatters, the rockets, the skeletal bones unearthed from cupboards and drains. The music, the movements, the supernatural improvements in the creative distortion made up from one's suspended disbelief... perception, perspective, proportion or grief.
A paradise, a seeming Nirvana, the blue arcadia Eden, the colours of fresh silver fishes, one's surreal wishes, a singular banana. The random bodies, the freaky naked flesh and feet, the bare faced cheek, an unseen arm's sweep and a slap in the face with a hand hard as teak.
The theatre, the stage, the classical pillars, the station hall Valhalla and Hell, the loneliness, the spark and the tiny glitter and glimmer of a light in the dark. The legends, the Greek Gods on cloud puff ball seven, the Romans, the sea-going rowers and admirals, squalls and showers sink, drown, down to the bottom or raised to the ground by the burning love they hoped to have found. The instrumentation of guitar string frustration and, for something better to do...violins to conjuror, objects to plunder, to scrape and to bow, for it's feeding time for the soul at the zoo.
...And the game shows begins, and the scenery shifter sings, don't wait in the wings, because these are the curios and makers of incredible images of things, to dare one without, to walk deep within... Come join the madness, the folly, the strange flirting, go boldly, do daring do danger and embrace your inner illusionist, your djinn. So, in the company of angels, billowing smoke, mirrors, fancy fandangos...to sum up, I try to reflect in my art, a kaleidoscopic heart that I yearn to bring forth from a very instantaneous and magically provocative head start.
Has your artwork evolved over the years?
It used to be fun and frolicsome, now elements of darkness have entered unbidden.
Is it easier to do a piece of artwork or write a song or poem?
They all present me with their problems needing resolution and each inspires and comes at me from different testing angles, none of them easy and all most welcome.