7 minute read
But first, New stuff
Before I hit you with everything I have some updates for you. There are some new pages on the website so here are the links:
- Free Foksy desktop & mobile wallpapers i hear you say?
- Get some custom Foksy art and view my latest artwork.
Feel free to take a look around at the rest of the website and tell me what you think. I would love some feedback.
Table of contents
So, what’s been happening mate?
I thought I would start today with a quote from a book I finished the other day that I’d borrowed off my wonderfully knowledgable girl friend. It was awesome and I recommend it. Like… hard out recommend it.
“We want creative freedom and agile lives, yet we attach ourselves to the very things that restrict our movement. We spend an inordinate amount of energy doing and acquiring whatever it takes to achieve the modern idea of success — and our roving eyes always want something else. Our storage units are stacked high with the shit we want, but don’t need.”
Victore, J. (2019) Feck Perfuction. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
Dunno why I thought I would share this with you, the reader, but it was a passage that really stood out to me. I, like a lot of you, have been holed up with a lot of time on my hands. Lots of time reading, annoying the shit out of my girlfriend, drawing and for the first time in a while… thinking. Don’t you think it’s amazing how much crap we accumulate over time? I guess this quote stood out to me because I have been going through what I do or don’t need as I consider what will go back into my oversized rucksack.
Take only what you need to survive
Carrying everything I own in one bag was a challenge made bleedingly obvious after my girlfriend and I made our first journey. That hellish expedition that brought us from the UK to France. What a mission. Put aside the long flippin’ bus trips and crazy people. (24 hrs to get from Newquay to Paris) Lugging pounds of shit around between buses is exhausting. It’s amazing what you think is necessary to take with you until you have to carry it. Our bags were so big that walking a few blocks was brutal. It was reminiscent of the desert scene in the movie Spaceballs.
But we learned. In anticipation of our next move we have evaluated and scrutinised every single gram (nay, micron) that’s going back into those bastard bags. I used to have a rule in regards to dealing with the accumulated shit in my life:
If I haven’t used it in a year, it’s on the list. Once it’s on the list it has a few months on the shelf of judgment to prove itself. If it doesn’t pass the judgment BAM! Bugger off mate.
But I fashioned a new rule! A simpler rule that’s free and easy, straightfoward yet smooth, effortlessly manageable and most importantly untroublesome:
If I haven’t used it within the time I’ve been [insert current residence here], it’s a goner!
For example:
- Drawing tablet… Gone!
- Puffer jacket… Fuck off it’s spring!
- Sense of self loathing… How’d that get in there?
- Pile of books I’ve finished reading… Shoot em outta cannon towards the sun!
- Toiletries bag… Burn it with fire! No wait – I actually need that.
So this is what’s been happening. My personal effects and I have been playing some weird version of that old TV show “Survivor”. Outwit, outplay, outlast. The votes are in mate and you’ll be leaving the island tonight… Noooooooooooooo! Obviously I’ve created some stuff which I will share with you promptly but I just wanted to tell you all that I also picked up my guitar again. I’ve been playing and writing songs on that sweet piece of hollow wood and it feels good. I think we should all do things that make us feel good. Don’t you?
Daily Draw
Full props to my girlfriend. We’ve been watchin’ these videos from this bloke Struthless and he’s a bloody legend. I got the idea off him to draw the same thing every day. I was doing really well up until end of February this year. I’ve been drawing foxes. The idea being that after you’re bored of drawing it a bunch of times and are ok at drawing it then you start exploring different things to do with it. Get really good at drawing one thing. In my case the fox developed a personality.
Its a great idea and it has gotten me back into drawing alot more and pushed me to evaluate and decide were to from here.
Sadly I must admit that this last month (March) I have been crap. As lame as Elsa freezing the Kingdom and ditching out with the old “not my problem bitches” manoeuvre. But I vow to crack on again in April. I’ve just had other projects on, like writing this blog.
One page zine
I follow the street artist @davethechimp and this fella rocks. He recently made a video on how to make a one page zine. Check it out below.
It got my creative spidey senses wibbling all over the place and I went and tried my hand at making one. I had a flippin’ blast doing it even though I think it’s a piece of shit. I love it and I cant wait to make more.
If you have time during lock down which I imagine most of you do. Or even if you’re an Aussie just totally chillin’ and unaware of the rest of the world’s bullshit. As your attorney I advise you to take a hit out of the small brown bottle in my shaving kit… No. Actually, you should seriously try making your own one page zine. You can just give them away or leave them lying around. It totally shits all over using social media to get your name out. Or maybe thats just me being basic. The simplicity of cutting shit up like old mags, drawing and using a photocopier is where it’s at. One of my dearest friends used to make my birthday cards from cut outs from old National Geographic mags and rip the shit out of me. They were pure gold.
Graffiti
During lockdowns and curfews the Netflix algorithm got ditched and in a weird twist of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ fate my girlfriend discovered an awesome film that follows the street artist Nychos called ‘The Deepest Depths of the Burrow’.
The Deepest Depths of the Burrow (TDDOTB) from RABBIT EYE MOVEMENT on Vimeo.
After we finished watching this film I spent the next week penning ideas. I got into graffiti a little when I lived in Melbourne but could never afford the spray cans. I never realised that everyone was just stealing them. I was so naive and uninventive back then.
So within a short stint I was able to try my hand at a couple of wheat pastes and slap out a couple of pieces with paint pens and spray cans. It’s incredible that I used to take part in these activities so mindlessly and freely when I was young. What happened to me? Oh wait. I followed the social narrative. It feels great to get back to what I enjoyed. I reckon more people should think about what they used to love as a young gun and go back to it some how. Go back to playing around. Being an adult is shit enough as it is already with out having to give up having fun entirely.
Bring on the Spring
So dust off your old hobbies and have a laugh. Do it for you. Don’t tell anyone. Stop showing everyone. Don’t take a photo, make a mental note of it. Look at it and enjoy it. Make a mix tape. Get drunk and make a playlist of bangers for your friends. Leave your phone at home for a day. Do that one thing that fills you with joy. Get high and go a for a walk in nature. Dig out all that old shit from when you were a kid and find what it was that made you a chirpy little shite.
