Moulds, Molds, Bears, Giant Babies and The Cautious Emergence of The Weirdly Absurd

Well, I've been doing the usual thing, neglecting this blog and manically experimenting/pottering. 

Allowing that it is possible to potter manically of course - I'm taking the view that it most certainly is. .

The trouble is, as I have probably mentioned before, is that my focus shifts so quickly between projects and ideas that I am into a new idea before I have blogged about the last one. Then eventually, the weight of unblogged about things becomes so great that my Blogger's Guilt kicks in and I try to feature about ten ideas at once. 

Oh well, so be it ;-)

So, first up - You remember the plastic model railway figures from my last post? Course you do. I have made a few more little surreal scenes using them, (in this case some very nice hurrying passengers) and a few very pink plastic babies I came across on the internet (of course). Combined with an image transfer of one of my digital fake-cell-structure creations and a few other bits and pieces this interesting little scenario came about. It's called "Try to ignore The Babies".

Taking this post to be a vaguely logical progression, I considered said plastic babies and wondered how making polymer clay moulds of  them might work out. Polymer clay does seem to be pretty good for mould making. Non-flexible ones but that is OK. This Baby/Alien piece was made using crude impressions from one of the moulds I made. With some crackle effect technique and additional glass beads. (I was given a box of various small beads from a friend. I didn't think they were the sort of thing I would be using but as it happened they found a place)

One mould led to another, this time using a couple of model railway figures, which, my creative process being what it is, resulted in some pieces with a very different vibe. Using inks and Ren wax etc etc helped.

As is the way of these things, before long, some of my little plastic animals got roped in to the mould making frenzy. These two little Red Panda head drops came about that way. 

And this Bear pendant. All interesting stuff I thought.

And moving skilfully on, like a smooth radio DJ style link, talking of bears, I made some bear images using a rubber stamp I acquired, and taking sort of multiple, artily out of register monoprints from the stamp's impression on poly clay, which I coloured up in various ways. 

I used one of these images as the background for this piece called "Big Bear, Good Dog" ;-)

Moulds from the heads of various plastic figures I have had knocking around for years came into the equation also, to somewhat creepy effect. Only somewhat, as the absurd tends to trump the creepy; in the work I do at any rate. Here's a couple of spike beads and drops to emphasise my point.

The more observant amongst you will have clocked the strange image at the top of this post. This was me trying to mix and match heads and bodies ;-) The body is from a mould of an unpainted pottery dog blank that I acquired from who knows where, ages ago, and the head is from a plastic motorcyclist. the result is like some very odd artifact from an archaeological site somewhere. No idea idea where that 'somewhere' might be though. . .

So that's me for the moment. Other stuff will no doubt emerge from my fevered brain as this strange time of Covidiosyncratic Groundhog Days grinds on, and on.

Oh well, and talking of 'well', stay well!

best, 

Jon x

The World is Suddenly a Different Place. .

Well, strange times. . . Surreal times. The fragility of the links that hold everything together are suddenly exposed, although I guess this fragility was obvious enough if we chose to look in that direction -which of course we didn't.

Not that it has had much effect yet round here. Nothing tangible, which makes it like a kind of Phoney War, everything is fine and normal until the first bomb drops on your house. But the advice is to practice Social Distancing, which makes a lot of sense if slowing the rate of infection is the idea, which it should be. It will be weird not seeing friends or family for weeks on end but it has to be done.

It did occur to me that when some people have survived the virus and are no longer infectious, they can act with impunity, mustering in confined spaces at will, having wild parties and dancing on the tables while us virtuously uninfected types lurk in isolation, looking on and muttering darkly over our stacks of toilet roll.

A friend of mine joked that he will be 'self oscillating'. . . Which, I pointed out to him, could get messy if you need to go to the bathroom. . . Could an outbreak of mass self oscillation explain the panic buying of toilet paper?

I am foreseeing complications on the bead making and selling front looming. I have to weigh up the risks of standing in a line at the Post Office, and whether customers are prepared to wait indefinitely for their orders if I decide not to risk it. I need to mail stuff in person to get proof of postage which covers me in the event of things getting lost in the post. I may have to risk not being covered, and print out postage labels online. Also, are people still going to be buying components when they perhaps won't have venues to sell their finished work? It's all very up in the air right now. All I can do is carry on and see what happens. It's all any of us can do I think.

But doom and gloom and viruses aside for a moment, Spring is in the air, I heard a skylark singing yesterday (who knew skylarks could sing Paul McCartney songs? groan. . . ) sorry, I also heard a chiffchaff (a kind of warbler) for the first time this year. The geese are getting frisky in the pond, and as a consequence a goose egg appeared on a patch of mud at the pond's edge. Not in the nest box thing nearby, or on anything resembling a nest of any kind. . The female goose showed no sign of wanting to sit on it or any awareness of her motherly duties. So the egg is forlornly sitting there, being rained on etc and obviously not going to progress to the point of hatching. I thought birds had strong instincts concerning that sort of thing. Evidently not these ones, silly creatures!

So we will be Social Distancing and continuing our own brand of Self Isolation, not because we have symptoms of covid19 but because we have both been freelancers working from home for the last three decades at least, and that kind of social isolation (at least for five days in the week) is completely normal for us and we wouldn't have it any other way. . .

Please stay safe and well and keep up your Social Distancing whenever possible to give the health care system every chance to keep up with things as they transpire ;-)
And as the legendary comedian Dave Allen used to say, "May your God go with you".
Jon x