I'm not here anymore!

I have a new blog! So don't come here anymore... I'm keeping this one alive just to hang on to the record of posts I have here, but I'm not posting anymore...

My new blog url is: http://galloglyoddsandsods.blogspot.com

So go visit me there

Hammer Horror

The man who wasn't there (my version of the title!)

Yesterday upon the stair

I met a man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

Oh, how I wish he’d go away

When I came home last night at three

The man was waiting there for me

But when I looked around the hall

I couldn’t see him there at all!

Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!

Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door

Last night I saw upon the stair

A little man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

Oh, how I wish he’d go away

"Antigonish" (1899)

This poem and the one about the two dead boys, I love. They're just nonsense poems but I love how weird and unsettling they are, I also just love the nonsense.

Two Dead Boys

One fine day in the middle of the night,

Two dead boys got up to fight.

Back-to-back they faced one another,

Drew their swords and shot each other.

One was blind and the other couldn't see,

So they chose a dummy for a referee.

A blind man went to see fair play,

A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"

A deaf policeman heard the noise,

And came and shot the two dead boys.

A paralyzed donkey walking by,

Kicked the copper in the eye,

Sent him through a rubber wall,

Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.

(If you don't believe this lie is true,

Ask the blind man -- he saw it too!)

Our Lady! and other bits

I posted the last of these three images a good while back I think, but felt the need to again. These photos were taken about 3 years ago on holiday in France. The statue of 'our lady' was right outside the house that me and all my mates were staying in, which was right out in the middle of nowhere.

First stages...

So! This is an example of how I go about beginning a new design, its not how I do it every time, but how I'm working at the moment. So i start composing work by clipping photographs, photocopies etc up into collages to get the bare bones in place, then elaborate from there. It's all about putting images and shapes together until a narrative begins to form. The work for me, has to feel like its a deliberate collage, but that it has its own life also. The marks of cutting and pasting I want seen in a way, this is likely to do with the fact that I want the processes and ultimately proof of my work evident so everyone knows I did it! that I didn't rob it of someone else and a computer didn't do it either. The work for me needs to feel natural also, I'm not really interested in stylised illustration, I want it to feel real and raw!

Can't think of title

Aubrey Beardsley

The strange unsettling sexual elegance of his work attracts me. I like thats its ambiguous and maybe offensive in some instances. I'm not interested in work thats about trying to shock for the sake of it, in my opinion you have to earn the right to challenge and extort certain subjects. If you have something to explore and deliver to people because its important to you and drives you like hunger, then it matters. Annoying its become trendy and acceptable now to put out provocative imagery within every creative outlet, from Theatre to stand up comedy, to Design and Film, boundaries are pushed all over, but all too often the glory is soaked up by Trend followers, people who want the respect and praise for making controversial statements, but lacked the balls to make the stand in the first place because being the first to raise an issue, pull it apart and not give a shit who you bother in the process, that is the hardest part, its a lonely journey until you start reaping the benefits and by that time, you've been fleeced by the wannabe creative free loaders. I cannot abide being copied or producing derivative work, sometimes is happens by chance, accident or what ever, but if I find my work starts sitting into trends, it really gets my back up! It means your work will have more chance of selling, but its a completely pointless exercise if its just about churning out material to making a quid or two.

Aubrey Beardsley though, how good is that name?!