desmond doom

 desmond's vid's are a bit tongue in cheek but, at the same time, if you've got any of this equipment, there's no excuse not to have an entertaining afternoon, knocking together some retro sounding old track. and if not, why not? 

joe van cleave

 there are two things i love about this video. firstly the notion of some sort of community of large format photographers getting together. secondly, that there are a certain type of man out in the world, who will see a situation, and, with the help of a notebook and a pencil, come up with some sort of solution. lovely. 

tangerine dream

 constraints are great. here tangerine dream get ten minutes in the studio to see what they come up with. clearly that ten minutes didn't include setting up all that electroinica! lol but lovely nonetheless. when i have a wee ten minutes musical noodling to myself the results are much less tuneful! lol but i love them! (harmonica these days - who knew!) 

i'd recommend 180 fact also. you may not like everything but there's always something interesting in the pipeline

i'm just a pencil

 super worthwhile watch. love the connection to form rather than self. and while i'm super happy jacob samuel got to make a living out of this, the idea that you make what you make, that you get to work and collaborate with other people is fundamental to what i've done most of my life. it's true, of late, i've given up, more or less, on the collaboration, although i'm still communicating at a very low level, but i'm still making, still exploring. and giving up that notion of art as work (i have work, i've done that and i like to think that, on my day, i've been really good at it, but that's a different thing) and accepting it rather as a means of life. love this. 

barbara walker

 it's like the air i breathe. that was enough for me. but, of course, art is always political, especially if you've been designated a minority. beautiful drawings. i'd love to have a go with the charcoal on a big long stick! 

botanical notebook

i don't have a botanical notebook but i do have a nature book which i take out every time i go for a wander. i don't sketch but i do write lists of what i see, what the weather's doing, word fragments, wee breaths of poetry (the only poetry i write now). it's a great way of slowing, stopping, noticing.

this is a lovely wee vid, and the spanish is supereasy to listen along to. 

etienne krähenbühl

 i love me some kinetic sculpture, or just something that's plonked down and does stuff with the air. i have no idea how etienne krähenbühl makes all this function but i find his work deeply satisfying 

huntress

 there's more variations in frames, i still don't understand the obsession with fixies, but it's nice to see some people rocking ultra narrow bars. i was likely at my quickest/most stupid back in my ny days and it was always a plan to try and fix a video camera (!!!) to the bike to see me whizzing down the island. lovely wee film. i'll allow myself some nostalgia!

pom klementieff

i don't know how i missed this first time round. the only slightly amusing thing that's emerged from the crushingly dull world of marvel in recent years! lol  

alexandre mccormack

talking of the body in space - was buying myself some tickets for physical theatre (not since before covid!) when this popped up in my yt feed. when i was young i really liked the physicality of ballet, a fact i foolishly expressed, resulting in 'no son of mine' declarations etc, coupled with caring what other people thought for years after, meant i never engaged with dance as a form (even as i was writing plays which depended implicitly on movement!). 

after listening to jojo mayer yesterday on the fundamentality of rhythm, it's nice to remember the same about movement and expression. plus it's good for you! alex mccormack only has a couple of videos on yt, check out his insta channel for more 

jojo mayer

 breathtaking drumming from jojo mayer. doing my resolution not to buy a drum kit no good at all! lol (not because i think i could ever play like this, but because of all the body in space stuff being good for my brain = perhaps more later) 

here's more at an interesting ted talk

rosinha de valença‬

 never heard of her before yesterday, wow!

bookbinding

i'm planning on making an artists book sometime next year with gelli print negatives, sketches etc. here's a great vid with no voiceover, no music, just someone making their own book. it's not too difficult, just requires a bit of patience and some basic tools. everyone should do it! 

rebecca stevenson

rebecca stevenson - i don't really make three dimensional things much any more as i don't have anywhere to put them. i do like a play with wax tho. these are joyous 

switching lanes

 or how a bike rescued from a skip can change a person's life....

carl sandburg

 

after yesterday's documentary, here's this. i'm not a fan of this form of documentary but, at the same time, it's carl sandburg, so i'll likely try and listen to it while i'm working. i used ot really like sandburg but, for some reason, haven't read him in years

shadow of a wheel

 made the rare (these days) decision to watch some tv, specifically this recent documentary from pbs - shadow of a wheel - which concerns a group of american teenagers cycling across their country in 1982

loved . i loved it because of the way the documentary managed, somehow, to make both the teenagers and their older selves present at the same time, and thru that i remembered my own teenage self, my own time on the bike, and, like them, the way those experiences manifest themselves in the present. i can't imagine a life without the bike. indeed, i can't imagine what my life would have been like without cycling in it, and everything that lead from that. only books have any equivalency in terms of effect.

an added bonus, and who knows how they got all the permissions, was this is one of the best soundtracked pieces of film i've seen. i knew all the songs even if i couldn't remember who sang them! and there they are, just like i was, numbed into inactivity by music videos, as mtv arrives. as they lie about, moan, sleep, let of fireworks etc i can't think of anything else that quite captures the immediacy of teenagehood, the black and white certainty, the insecurity, the newness.

but after watching it i'm more certain than ever that, after finishing my last zwift target that's it for me with strava, koms, zwift, all of that, and giving myself up to the very thing that got me out on the bike on the first place, the need to be on the road, the need to see what was round the next corner, to be on my own, encountering the world at a pace befitting my years, taking my time, stepping off, seeing the colours. i highly, highly, recommend this film

shading

i don't love a computer it's true but this vid shows how you can have a play with the likes of photoshop and maybe make your drawing process a bit easier. or, just the ball thing is a great exercise. draw that and vary your light source for a bit, then work into more complex shapes 

wet plate collodion

 ...is a degree of faff that i just can't be doing with (right now) but there's no arguing with the images the process produces. i have one plate that i've made from an unfortunate time in my past that i never look at but which i'd never give up. which is why, if i ever do take it up, i know that my house will end up full of plates! lol 

definitely check out ruhter's insta channel. he's got some nteresting views on getting out and about and not using ai.

and here's em white for more 

fork set up

this is clear and concise. best bit for me - make a note of your settings. a lesson i've never managed to learn! lol me, i run forks too stiff, tyres too hard. each to their own! 

burroughs and bacon

 there are worse ways to pass time than listen to this pair burbling on! lol

karen carpenter - drummer

i don't know a great deal about karen carpenter but i certainly didn't know how good she was on drums!. the sound on this is very of its time and there's nothing beyond that i don't like about it but, despite the keyboards and the bass, she is spectacular on those drums!