Preliminaries

I have been asked to say ‘something’ about this work.
This is a difficult request;
ask a fisherman to describe what fishing is ‘like’ to him,
or ask a woman what it is ‘like’ to give birth.
It is Beyond description.
Indeed, it can only be Experienced.

And so only a fool would attempt description, I offer myself as that fool.
For the hell of it, as it were.

If I endeavour to describe it directly, I will at best, deaden your Sense of it.
So I will endeavour to describe it all-around-the-edges-ly!

Many have gone before me, and how much has been said to this end:
Whole libraries are filled in testimony to this, disciplines and lifestyles and social
positions have been built, careers and fortunes made, on effing the ineffable:
Babel babbles with bubbling boils bursting boisterously
back-words backwards
big-time

‹inhale›

The work was created through Being Authentic.
If you desire to Know this work, you must Experience it Sensually.
(Thankfully, this is very much easier to do, than to describe: a child can do it,
indeed they are very good at it, ask one to show you how, no, not that one - he is a
little bugger!)

Like all things truly Valuable and Meaningful Art has no Value or Meaning other
than Itself. The greater Value of these sculptures is not to be found in their
physical remains. It was Experienced during their Creation. If I have succeeded in
Being Authentic (and you are present enough to be receptive) then some trace of
this Reverie will emanate from these forms into You, that is, Your Being.

‹exhale›

Listen, it is quite simple;
you will either Like them (success),
Dislike them (possibility of success),
or be Indifferent (failure).

For those of us still scratching around in the basement of the intellect (my
current-self included), and those more ‘scientifically minded’ (God help them!),
and those that see Art as a cryptic crossword puzzle - I offer below some further
thoughts and information on how these works came about.

Wake up!
Read on,
or retire?

Part 1. The Materials

As I walk about I am drawn to certain objects and things and stuff.
They jump-out, sparkle and attract me,
they resonate at my frequency, or freak-wency, or free-quent-see.
I chance upon them, pounce upon them, squirrel-them-away in the Shed.

They hold a Power over me,
something I call Yesness.

In the winter when I gather firewood and timber from the woods I sometimes find
interesting forms within bough and limb, branch and twig.

As I wander along the shoreline, across the marshes and on the sands at low tide,
the sea gifts me treasures.

In the bramble bound piles of the gypsy scrap yard, in the waste places and
agricultural ruins, things that few folk seem to value hold great power and
Mystery for me.

Some species of Material that have a strong draw at the moment:
i. the stored fibrous sunlight of wood
ii. the frozen creamy motion of bone
iii. the buttery strength of iron
iv. the cold patient gravity of stone
(not all wood though, not all bone, not all iron or stone.)

Part 2. The Process

What will happen or be made is unclear at the start,
indeed profoundly unimportant,
it’s all in the Doing you see.

The Materials thus procured were then stored in the workshop until such time as
I was reminded of them and my mood was favourable.
Then they were brought together.

I played and pottered, finding likeness and fitment and suitable harmony and
pleasing contrast until a sense of completion was felt. Yesness.

or another way of putting it might be;

Gathering of Attracter Materials
Potter and Play
Devotional Meditative Humbling of Self
Wonderous-emptying-unknowing-plunge-towards... I death.

Transcendence to Communion with Mystery (That Good Feeling)
Beyond
Return to the Sleep of the Everyday
with Afterglow and Material Remains (sculpture)

or another way of putting it might be;

I meditated in creative Reveries and danced with Matter (I kid you not, these
Divine moments are the purpose of my Being) If you imagine the thing you enjoy
the most and relive what you feel and experience when doing it -
That is what I mean by Reveries.
That is Being Authentic.
That is when the I, You and We cease to Be.
That is what all those folks were on about;
Jesus, Lao Tzu, Joseph Campbell, Omar Khayyam, John Lennon, Ted Hughes,
Nina Simone, Walt Whitman, Ghandi, Emerson, Thoreau. &tc.
Each to their Own and no other.

or another way of putting it might be;

I did what I felt was Best.

Part 3. Results

On this occasion it was figurative forms.

Embodied moods and emotions.

Aspects of my self and selves.

Suggestions of people I know or have known or have never met and yet felt I have known,
in some cases more strongly than any one I’ve actually met.

Part 4. Conclusions

What are these things to me?
The remains and traces of the Material Expression of Being Authentic.

What of their future?
All Things are Decaying into No-thing, whilst from No-thing are Becaying more things.

The End...
...of this moment at least.

Tea and cake anyone?