Stress & Drunks & Rock & Roll! 02/06/03 02:42

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote and there's now only two days to go before The Strip opens at Bar Five here in Swansea and I'm probably the most stressed I've been in two years. What if no-one turns up? Or worse - what if loads of people turn up and I do a bad DJ set or the albums on vinyl are too scratched and dusty? My nerves are on an all-time freak out at the moment.

On the artistic side of things I'm working on a few small projects at present, one of which is an installation (or sculpture depending on your leanings) called 'Five Years In Swansea', which is my old pair of Cat boots that I've had for seven years and wore down so badly that to wear them for any longer would have caused serious lasting damage to my back. I've painted them with a thin coat of white emulsion and am busy drawing on them in biro, which is proving a lot more difficult than I had anticipated especially when it comes to the stencil text. I'm also scanning all the doodles I've been doing at work so I can keep a digital archive of them. It's incredible some of the things I've been coming up with whilst talking people through how to go onto a website and print off a form to fax in so we can unblock the registration process on their internet banking accounts. My current favourite is the 'Fat Bastard Breakdance Zone' one, which will eventually be coming soon to a Cafepress page near you. Perhaps my most significant development is I've finally found a way to plug one of the gaps in 'Pre-Life Crisis'. I'm producing a two-panel design which illustrates a poem called 'Pauses' by my friend and former Satori sound tech. Helen Clark, which she copied into my sketchbook during last year's 'Untitled' show at Waterstones. I was going to develop some images from it to do with relationship break-ups (which unsurprisingly I was going through at the time) but lost interest after a while. Anyway, it just so happens that the gap in 'Pre-Life Crisis' is the section on relationship breakups and for some reason Helen's poem had completely slipped my mind. Anyway, eventually I came across it whilst frantically searching my sketchbooks for some text to use on these images and so the finished pieces will soon be published online...

Archive:
• 22/09/02 21:43 - Lazy Sunday Afternoon
• 23/11/02 01:58 - A Caffeine & Candy Junkie Writes
• 18/12/02 21:03 - Call-Centre Burnout & The Joys Of Christmas (Pt. 1)
• 27/12/02 21:03 - The Joys Of Christmas (Pt. 2)
• 26/01/03 22:27 - Isolation & Madness In Brynmill
• 22/02/03 03:11 - Climbing Up The Walls!
• 05/03/03 21:52 - This Is The Day, This Is The Hour, This Is This
• 10/03/03 16:08 - Highway To Hell
• 15/05/03 00:16 - Employment=Good & Burn The Bastards!