I done an art.

Actually, I done two arts.

L____ and I, at the invitation of good friend Eileen Laurie, went to the open workshop thing at Malmö Konsthall yesterday; no agenda, just hang out and make things. I’ve been planning to get busy with a collaging practice for ages—and by “planning” I obviously mean “hoarding materials and doing nothing with them”—and it was really good to just carve out three hours of the weekend in a space where space, additional tools and materials are all on hand, along with good company.

I have some Thoughts & Feelings about my work, here, most of which revolve around the feeling that while I clearly have a grasp of the techniques that interest me, I haven’t yet managed to transcend the materials themselves… the trouble with drawing on what are essentially marketing materials for making art is that the intentionality of the materials cuts through very persistently, like strong flavours in cooking, and the best collage work manages to subvert or reposition that flavour; I’m barely at the DiY-punk-band-gig-poster level, here (though that’s no bad place to start). But y’know, early days… and it probably doesn’t help to give your own apprentice works a kicking. It was fun (and very absorbing) to make them, and a good reminder that I could just do this stuff at home as a respite from The Words.

(Though of course, as is probably obvious, The Words inevitably intrude into this more visually-oriented practice. One is what one is.)

Meanwhile, L____ made a dragon sculpture out of bent wire and insulating tape, and a guy called Mahmoud did a five minute oil-crayon sketch of me that felt like a more accurate representation than any photograph I’ve ever had taken of me in my life. There’s so much talent and persistence and vision hidden away in people who ordinarily don’t get to use it.

Which is why the workshops at Konsthall are such a great thing. There’s no charge—as is the case for the gallery as a whole, in fact—and while it tends to be populated with people and small children, there’s no restrictions at all; anyone can just rock up and make something. Such a simple thing, and probably a pretty cheap one to provide in the grand scheme of things. Every city, every town, every neighbourhood should have something similar, really.