Notes

I think the accordionist on this track is me. I say 'I think' because while I remember playing for Sasha I don't really remember playing for this track. It has been rather subdued in the mix, probably because I played all the wrong notes.

Objets Trouvés part 2

Photos from Jill Angood, and from the Townhead (where I was born and bred) archive rescued after the buildings had been left derelict and looted in the mid to late nineties. Brilliantly, the place is now restored to its former ("we've got big plans for this room...") glory, and even improved by the microclimate created by trees we planted there when I was tiny (it could be a pretty bleak place back then, see previous post). It is now off grid and powered by the wind and solar power proposed at the beginning but not realized for thirty years! And the recent unpleasant legal battle to keep the place from the nasty hands of developers is won and done. I spent the day there on saturday and I'm a bit speechless about the experience...

Pete, I have lots more pics like these which I'll send or bring up.

Objets Trouvés

Michael Rosen and I seem to have inadvertently broken into Bande Desinée!



In other news; I saw Rachel Unthank & the Winterset at the Royal Opera House last night and it was great.

And this week I discovered that I have been squeezing boxes for about twenty years longer than I knew. I wanted to post an updated video to accompany, but it seems I haven't improved much in the interim, at least not in front of the camera...




Thanks to Sam Paechter for the pictures, which were taken in the wilds where I spent my earliest years, and where tomorrow I'll be visiting for the first time in fifteen.

Secret Sketches

We had an exciting technical breakthrough this week on the TV show, with help from the people who make the software. It hopefully means we can get it to do what we want, when we want. I get more and more convinced that we can get the show to work, which makes the prospect of funding falling through as likely as it's always been, but more worrying than before...

Am going away tomorrow afternoon for a weekend of camping and music and dancing with friends and family. Looking forward to it. But not looking forward to saying goodbye to Crista, who leaves the house on sunday.

No time for anything other than secret sketches, sorry!

Distractions

Interesting footage and useful (if pre-rehearsed) maxims from Brad Holland, who was kind enough to invite me to his Soho studio in 1999 when I was in New York with college (I mostly recall the small Rembrandt etching he had on his wall, a painting of a cash register, and a large tabby cat).
He was a huge influence on me through college, and can't really be held responsible for the boiling down of certain innovations he made years ago by leagues of those he influenced (hopefully not me). His work is still much more than that residue!
I also think, despite replacing some of the joy with even more wryness, he's always been influenced by Hockney, and that is sort of what led me to look up what he was doing now.
Oh yeah, he gave me a copy of that poster which is on the wall next to the drawing board! I still have it somewhere.

Brad Holland from Richard Solomon on Vimeo.

Originally created by request for the conceptart.org scheduled podcast with Brad Holland and the Art on a Grand Scale artists (www.artonagrandscale.com).

There is also a long and interesting podcast available here.

This post is a result of a me avoiding making changes to a book jacket, and growing tired of painting and cutting out tiny little pieces of animation set...

"I bin doin' me peanin's"

Look, if you can, at this BBC documentary about wonderful, curmudgeonly, wonderful David Hockney's recent work. The narrator is astoundingly insensitive, Damian Hurst is non-commital and a bit irritating, Hockney is a wonder!

http://bbc.co.uk/i/lk119/