...input ...process ...output

......art ....i love art ...i love people who create things ...i particularly like things that challenge preconceptions ....i like things that don't follow conventions ...experimentation is the key. for me art is not about the end product. the quality of the end product is not the only thing that defines something as art. i don't like the phrase "look at this piece of art". look at this painting or look at this sculpture ...maybe ...but not look at this piece of art. art for me is the doing that creates the thing that someone else then experiences, listens to, looks at. the art was the input and the process. that's where the art takes place. quality is not a necessity. i write songs. i write fairly routine songs. verse chorus, verse chorus, etc etc. i like to listen to pieces of music that challenge this. for me the dance music, techno, post rock and other recent finds do this. it's not about 3 minutes of comfort. it's about making the person really sit and listen, about taking them on a journey to another place, another world. there's nothing wrong with a kicking chorus that gets everyone in the pub singing, there's nothing wrong with commercial pop, it's just it's not all that there is to it. quality is not a necessity. in the world of painting people seem to be engrossed by images that are not difficult to create. some of picasso's works are very simple, some (so called) modern art is very simple and often very challenging in terms of what we traditionally value as the end product of the art. quality is not a necessity. i've been painting this week and i'm very pleased with the result. but i was more in awe of the input - i spent time thinking about the colours, the composition, some words to describe it - and then was engrossed by the process - daubing swathes of paint onto the canvas, watching the colours emerge, watching an image take shape right in front of me.... and now i have a finished image... and i like what i see ....and it doesn't matter if it's valued by others or not, that's not the point to it. the point is what it did to me and for me while i was "in" the process.... that's art ....that's where it's at ...quality is not a necessity.

...it's been a strange week, quite disconcerting. i started it celebrating an early christmas, driving in the snow to get home, watched the snow fall and fall, went to work then came home, worked from home, wondered if i'd get to dj and play guitar this weekend, decided it would go ahead, then cancelled. i've been at home more than i ever am during work weeks. it's strange to be at home and work. work takes place somewhere else. i'm not sure if home working is good or not. it meant i didn't have to drive. it meant that i "clocked off" at 5.15 and was painting or cooking or relaxing by 05.15 and 1 second.... but it means work encroaches on your home space... it's a strange thing....

listened to japan "tin drum", simple minds "sons and fascination", peter broderick "float"
reading "blink" by malcolm gladwell and "the atheist's guide to christmas" - various
...and now i'm gonna make pizza's 'cos that's what we do on a friday!