Adapted from the Original.

Every breath we have each drawn has left us, one at a time, mostly without fanfare or fuss. But a winter’s breath – it drifts forward away from us, a calling card to the sky, its visible presence reminding us of our physical existence.

When there is a call to gather, sometimes we are given the chance to stop, to remember and to lament. But we are also given hope. Perhaps that is the kindest of things within grief and loss. When we mourn another, who is lost to us, hope can still prevail. Hope, for me, takes form best along within remembrance. If we allow hope in, they who are lost to us can continue to be part of our lives. To put it simply; the acts of love and lessons we are given by someone, don’t depart. They are given to us, in part, to remain with us after the person has gone. And if we can continue to honour the love and lessons, we offer up the warmest form of remembrance.

Impossible You

Sometime in 2019, I think..

Having left Renfrew Street with pages of notes and having slunk past the Vic without going in for a drink, I headed up and over the hill, in my tiny pixie boots. Relevant? Yes. The structure of this footwear seems to give me confidence, I feel a lot taller than the wee heel implies. Well, I say tall….

Heading towards the Stow building I was trying not to build or propagate any expectations. I was trying to keep the heid but I cannot lie, I was so bloody excited. We must view these things with open hearts. To be open to possibility and to see the work of other artists is crucial. How can we create our own work if we close ourselves off to the efforts of others? Does not every artist need a willing audience? If we enter a space, with a signed off opinion, why bother?  Seriously, I’m serious!  There is not enough time in this life for fucking about; that is not to say we should willingly love everything we encounter, without question or contemplation. Rather that we at the very least show up willing to engage. You might, by now realise, I repeat points. It’s deliberate. It’s affirmation for me. It’s providing a viewpoint in varying ways. Increasing the possibility of it sparking a thought in numerous kinds of people, rather than just one, appeals to me.

So there you were….. Impossible you.

After countless days of rain (5 probably, that Glasgow thing of exaggerating bad weather and letting the few days rain cancel out any recent hot days, because you know, we’re good at moaning) there you were, under a blue sky. That blue. Childhood blue. Could it be true that a new exciting chapter in a refurbished building was imminent? Were the whispers I’d heard about to turn the dial up. Or was my heart about to be broken.

Did this sometimes misunderstood artist just simply have too naive a view. Probably and far from it, at the same time.

Notes On Hope

I’m not a critic, nor a journalist. I’m not a public figure, I’m not a director. I’m not a project manager. I’m an artist, a graduate, alumni of the Glasgow School of Art. I’m Garter. I’m an artist with my own approach. I’m an emotional writer. I’m not by the book. I’m not under contract. I don’t fit your mould. I don’t want to. My opinions, ideas and thoughts are completely mine. I share them regardless of the potential audience size. I stand by them and they live in total isolation of unwanted influence. I walk, basically, alone, there ye are.

So, anything you read from this point forward is of my own making. It is how I see the things which have presented themselves to me. If I slip into saying we, I mean me. I do not mean I speak for you. As both an artist and as a viewer, I approach things with an open mind and no assumption. It could be quite nice if you would afford me the same as you read. To take a slant or an angle or presume the impact of a situation/event/piece of art is to ignore the potential. It limits us before we begin. It influences our opinion and we often find that we just blew our own trumpet while ignoring the rest of the band.

First of all, and I’d like to address this immediately, I find it relevant; For the last seven years I have openly nursed a creative rage against my school of learning, unable to make sense of my feelings about the heartbreaking fires, unable to reach some sort of levelled thinking. Holding onto disbelief as though somehow it would provide an answer, you know? Emotional responses, well it’s a Glasgow thing I suppose. Maybe it’s a family thing. Maybe it’s a height thing. But when your whole creative being can be traced back to a memory of studio 21, 1974/5 (I think), well I hope you’ll understand even just a little. I’d got to the point where I just don’t talk about it, sort of like when someone has died and their name dissolves from daily conversation.

Whilst much of the anger and confusion seems justified, (so much remains unexplained) it has diverted potential and passion on more than one occasion. Whilst there is a deep need for clarification and answers, we have to remind ourselves of some fundamental points if artists are to continue progressively in this city.

The creative community continues to scratch their learned heads, throwing their theories into the pot, shouting for answers, boaking at the void in Renfrew Street’s roofscape, demanding an explanation. I know this, I’m one of them. Doesn’t matter how many impossible blue skies visit us, or how many nights we are sent the stars to light our way, it’s changed, it’s gone, we lost it. Our time, this century, we lost the Mac.

Fucking hell.

Danny

I don’t usually use names in my posts, not really. I have a thing for vagueness and ambiguity. So much of what inspires me is hidden within elaborate paragraphs and passages. I conceal often blunt facts so as to protect myself and my sources. I thrive on the story telling but I’ll probably always have a totally different version in my pocket.

When this artist first started courting on the East Coast of Scotland a few years ago., it was a cold, hard shift breaking the ice of Edinburgh folk. Of course it had its delicious charm in a particular someone but as far as the general population went, it was a wee bit barren. This Glasgow artist had a tough gig.

But, as some of you may know, I don’t stay quiet for long and I eventually found conversation to brighten my journeys. An unexpected friendship arose. On the pavement at the top of the Waverley steps sat a man. With the kindest of faces, held up by weary shoulders, sat a soldier.

We conversed as the months trundled on and I saw that there sat the most humblest, intelligent soul. We spoke of art and determination. I told him of my blossoming love interest….He encouraged my creative progress. He accepted my money and my sandwiches. My children shared their chocolate. We bought him lunch.

He said I inspired him to keep going; that made me cry. HE inspired me, that’s the real truth of it. I abseiled down a lighthouse to raise money for Bethany Christian Trust, who’d helped him. Ten minutes out of my easy life raised nearly £500.

We talked about mental well-being and he shared brief sharp, knowledgable insights into the aftermath of war. In what were my darkest days, not that I realised they were at the time, I clung to trying to help others as a way to survive. Didn’t always work. Sanity is hard and to hold on to sometimes.

The last day I saw him was one of the darkest of my life. I barely remember it. But as I made my retreat, I made a detour and found him on the pavement. We talked about the lighthouse. I thanked him for his friendship. He told me to live, to keep going, to be happy. I promised. I waved as I left.

Today I found out he’s gone from the pavement. He was 47. His name was Danny, a champion, of this weary world

X

https://youtu.be/a7S7m-R6q_4

A Wee Fish Supper

I am not in the habit on writing in straight lines. I often dodge the blunt facts when I weave them into words. However, earlier this year our family lost our heid honcho. Violet Black Kelly Archbold, 1918-2017. The full story of this woman’s impact on our lives is for another day. But there’s one wee element I’d like to share with you. Having moved off the mainland to Mull in her 80^th year, she kept her Tradeston beginnings in her heart. She loved her food. More importantly, she appreciated it. She’d seen empty purses and she never forgot it.

One of her favourite things was a fish supper, especially if she was back in Glasgow. A real fish supper. It’s been on my mind a lot these past few months. I’ve done a lot of wandering and thinking for one reason or another, neither of which I’ll be sharing here. And there were days where I ate purely to sustain myself. Not for hunger or want. Not for fancy or whim. But because I knew I had to stay standing. And on the hardest of those days, it instinctively had to be a fish supper.

How many times have fish suppers held a family together. Late departures from agonising hospital visiting hours at the Vicky, Mammy too tired too cook, nae time to think, crisis point standing at the door. A fish supper. What’s a treat for the two wee lassies who’ve been good all day (nearly)? A wee poke a chips, fish for mammy, extra vinegar and eating in front of the telly. What immortal being, stoating out Rab Ha’s disnae hear their belly cry… a wee fish supper pal..? You’ve earned it.

It’s a leveller. It’s Glasgow. Standing in the dusk, paper torn open, manners in yer pocket for the time being, missed yer bus cos ye were queuing for a wee fish supper..

Whatever status you may have assigned yourself and whatever point of decline or progress you stand at, a fish supper is not beyond you. And nor you it.

This Blasted Century

It took over 13,000 steps to reach enough clarity by the end of that particular day.

6,500 lefts and the same of rights.

 

That’s 7 miles.

 

The thoughts that stumbled in time to the boots are impossible to calculate. And they’re beyond comprehension. They’re thoughts that no-one plans for nor welcomes.  If we could map them we would. If we could illustrate them, we would. If we could accept them, we gladly would. The deliberating and drafting of such thoughts only too often evoke sorrow.

 

A drifted word ebbs from the next table and stings her eyes. A word removed from her vocabulary for the second time this blasted century.

 

How are we to thrive? How are we to see this new route into an undrafted chapter? What can she stand now?! What merit is in this staunch integrity? Is she to stand for the rest of her days, or can she be allowed the faintest of rests?

 

By others standards, it’s a pause, it’s a lesson, it’s meant to be. Meant for who, though? It’ll all come out in the wash Granny would say now. Fight the good fight. To thine ain self be true. You only get one life. How many times is my ain self to be tested and for what? I cannae see for what, Granny. Cannae sing for toffee either these days.

I miss those days, of glued hymn sheets and a boy with blonde hair.

 

The sun used to bounce off his freckles in the summer term, his blue eyes finding her across the desk.

Breath

Breath

 

Take one.

Take several.

Hold some.

Give the last.

 

Suppress none.

Acknowledge that silent process as it supports the chaotic workings of our existence.

 

Save the words by putting them under.

Pure

No tattoo, no festival, no big wheel, just me and the town…

.

Emerging from the library and feeling the anticipation in the night as Christmas Eve-like murmurs float past and soft carefree steps tap out a verse.

Yo, Vinny

Today’s thought:

We are living in a time where we will gladly digest countless products pertaining to be celebratory of an artist, deceased. We are existing in a time where breathing artists cannot make a living. We are engaging in an indulgent practice of obtaining and soaking up ‘stuff’, quoting artists, buying their imagery on the latest surface. Filling our homes and world with bastardised versions of originals. We are encouraging this and generating piles of money for whoever owns the rights to reproduce the image.

I was 13, first year English class. Poster on the wall of Starry Night by Van Gogh. I spent countless hours looking at that poster. I went on to study his work for Higher Art Theory. I fell in love with his story. Perhaps that sentiment isn’t the first one you’d feel for such a sorrowfully portrayed individual. But it’s what happened. I fell in love. I am, to this day, in awe of how he managed to live in the face of his demons and in such a creatively productive way. I never, ever cease to feel empathy for him. Well, for that which we assume to know about him.

Consumerism has strangled art. Product manufacturing has drowned the Artist. I never bought anything with his images on it. Apart from art books, the poster on the classroom wall was enough. I’ve toyed with the idea lately of maybe a t-shirt but I’ve not brought myself to do it. Ok, I confess to purchasing a vinyl sticker of his signature for the van….

We’ve taken this artists work and churned millions of items out in his name. For what? Because we need stuff?? Because we love art?? Because we celebrate his genius? What sits wrong with me is that he’ll never gain from it. Financially or artistically, it is a dead bird to him. He is artistic poverty in its saddest form. We fell in love with him a little too late I fear…

Resolved

I started writing earlier but it was a confused rant about not feeling able to verbalise something. It was not published.

I’ve stepped back, had a word with myself and a blether with others and now I’m back.

Im feeling pulled in an artistic direction which I thought was alien to begin with. But I’ve taken a breathe. I’ve allowed myself to be interrupted and now I realise that I’m being navigated back to real process and action. Backwards is not regression, instead it is a positive. I’m re-working ideas which have held their strength and their value.

In MY day if I wanted to work through an idea or something I’d need to leave the studio, walk to the library, cross reference, photocopy it, if I had credit on my photocopy card, cut it to fit my sketchbook, stick it in my sketchbook, wait fir the glue to dry, close the sketchbook, put it in my bag, walk back to the studio, open the sketchbook and then start drawing out my thoughts.. I’m pretty sure that the walking to and from were a positive contributor to the work, the thought process and my well being. Now?? All done in front of a single computer and in a glazed automatonic state.

Hmm. I know what I’m doing tomorrow.