Thoughts & Sketches

Facebook article – Royal West of England Academy

https://www.facebook.com/royalwestofenglandacademy

“18 June
Yesterday the RWA had a really exciting visitor, Ben Hooper, who is attempting to swim from Africa to Brazil; the great Atlantic Ocean.

Ben is the first person to endeavour swimming at such extreme lengths using freestyle swimming.
He has already swam around the Mediterranean and this time he wants to really push his limits and challenge his abilities to a more treacherous route.
Ben will swim up to a total of 12 hours per day. His epic swim will take him over 30-foot surges, passing through shark inhabited regions, and without doubt, he will encounter jelly fish, flying fish and a harsh Equatorial sun. The swim will be filmed by a Hollywood crew and edited into a video diary.
http://www.swimthebigblue.com/the-swim

Ben is interested in the artistic input in his project and visited the Power of the Sea for inspiration. He will be accompanied by artist Mel Cross http://mel-cross.co.uk/ who will be documenting the impact the swim will have on Ben, through her work. Mel’s work captures ‘essence’. “I don’t try to illustrate the physical nature of form – we can experience this via our senses. I try to capture the essential nature of form. The inter-dimensional resonance – the imprint the physical makes in the Universe.” “

24th JUNE 2014

Questions are the answers…..

I think that before I have the right to speak that I should have all the answers; but I don’t.
Does only God know the answers?
Do you keep your mouth shut or open it and let it spout?
Shot down in flames, or ears like satellite dishes turned on, tuned in to listen?
Vacuousness spouts and Wisdom listens and knows it knows no-thing.
Speak and fall?
Speak and find answers?
Speak and ask questions?
Wisdom knows questions are the answers.
Questions lead you forward.
Put it out there and a reply comes back.
If I open my mouth will a noise come out or eternal silence?
Fish-mouthed silent ‘o’ bubbles…
Opening ears may find answers; but I need to find questions……

30th MAY 2014

‘Salute’ – My poem to be featured in Sampad.org.uk publication

My poem ‘Salute’ has been selected to feature in a book by Sampad.org.uk in which people from around the world have written about being inspired by museums. My poem came about from a visit to the ‘Flesh and Bone’ exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum – Oxford, featuring Francis Bacon; a great inspiration. This is where I came across a painting I recognised from long, long ago….

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Salute

Everything stops.
Suspended.
The beat of my heart, the squeezing of my lungs; synapses ceased.
Silence.

Within the anechoic, charcoal-black room,
Only he,
And I,
Exist.

Not a flicker of recognition, but a fireball.
Sinews ignite; lightening; burning.

I had known him for 20 years;
But I never really KNEW him.

Back then he reached somewhere deep inside me;
Deep inside the shadowy chamber where DNA dances, tangling with passion and soul.
He spoke to me in delicious tongues that he,
And I,
And no-one else I knew,
Spoke.

I took a copy.

I was no longer alone,
Suffocating in the dank-stench of isolation.
We sat in the darkness together;
He showed me the beauty within it.

Life jeered.
People sneered.
Stupid.

‘Being an artist is a waste of time’, Concurred the cloned.
The mythical gavel of ignorance fell.

I folded up my friend and identity and filed them away under -‘Sneering’
He was all I kept of ME.
I limped away.

Wandering in the wilderness, the mask of acceptable normality slid around and buckled on my face.

But here I stand,
20 years later;
Mask-less.

I no longer ignore the screaming of my soul,
And,
unfolding myself,
I put my friend back on the wall.
He sings again.

I am not afraid;
I dance inside.
Resonance.

Everything stopped.
Suspended.
The beat of my heart, the squeezing of my lungs; synapses ceased.
Silence.
I slid into the anechoic, charcoal-black room,
Where only he,
And I,
Exist.

I hadn’t known who he was,
I hadn’t known who had painted him,
But there HE was;
IN
THE
FLESH.

‘Flesh and Bone.’
Study For Portrait III (After the life mask of William Blake’) 1955.
Francis Bacon.
A name for my taper.

Slicing through the stillness, tears of gratitude salute.
My song roars freely.

And now,
Side by side,
On the wall of my studio,
Hang my tattered photocopied friend and my pristine postcard from The Ashmolean;
One and the same.

The Full Circle.

I paint until it hurts.
And,
I smile.

19th MAY 2014

To expose or not to expose? That is the question…

‘To expose, or not to expose oneself; that is the question’.

In the maelstrom of social media I find myself asking ‘What do you want to see?’

Do you want an artist to remain a dark, mysterious, curious enigma? Does that cause you to be interested, intrigued and mystified; does it drive you to delve further, and want a piece of this mysterious specimen?
You may genuinely, deeply and passionately love the artists work. Each piece may bring you thought-provoking inspiration, awe, and deep connection to another human being, another concept, another fascinating way to view life. The paint covered Messiah leading you towards light or dark, insight or confusion, hope or despair. But moving you, poking at your consciousness, stirring the muddy pool, making you look and look and think and feel.

Will this curio and their work become less intriguing and less valuable to you if they tweet about their breakfast, their car tax or their galloping dandruff?
Does this caped-crusader lose their super powers if people view the artist’s ‘selfie’?

Would it ruin things to know the artist you admire or cling on to is human? That they eat and sleep and pay bills and worry, albeit wearing slightly different life-goggles. Would it help you to connect more to them and their work if you knew that they are more like you than you realised? Perhaps they posses planet-sized, exploratory, skewed-minds firing off in all directions; seeing what others don’t, connecting the obscure, feeling the emotions of the Universe. Or perhaps, oh my God, they do the school run, make packed lunches, and do the washing just like you. Or perhaps they are both of these things.

Would it make you love them more if you could explore their normality, or would it spoil the magic and undermine the brilliance and insight of their work?
Do we want someone mysterious to admire, or someone just like us?
Do you want an artist to be human or an enigma?

So I ask my question once more ‘to expose or not to expose oneself; that is the question’…….

17th MARCH 2014