A few sketchbook pages from my Italian voyage.

I overheard a fellow in the pub saying this.  I don't know the context, but I thought to myself, is there a more concise, more solid indication of an excellent situation and all being well?  I think not.  Dancing is the best, and if everyone is doing it, that's clearly a very very good thing.  Indeed, two activities beginning with the letter 'd' - dancing and drawing, are, I feel, the two number one ways to respond to and interact with your surroundings, to heighten your senses and awareness, to focus, meditate, relax and stay healthy, not to mention nourish the spirit.  It has also recently been found that, out of a range of activities, drawing and dancing are the most effective at staving off the effects of ageing, both mental and physical.  A good dancefloor is also a cracking example of human unity and positive energy, with everyone adding to the whole and everyone benefitting.  With regard to drawing, it seems life drawing sessions these days are often sold on their therapeutic and meditative qualities as much as their creative ones, which can only be a good thing - the world would, without question, be a much much better place if everyone drew and danced as often as possible.

I was planning on making this - a humorous, silly but also somewhat serious and pertinent little sign - for a wee while, just for fun, but then something happened a few weeks ago that sped up the process.  I was having a ride up on the South Downs to pick blackberries, close to Devil's Dyke, and left my bike, complete with lights, water bottle and pannier, next to a path.  As is the way of such things, I went further and further away from it as I delved further and further into the bushes, but always peered back to check on it.  At one point I emerged from deep within a bramble to see across the field a fellow cyclist standing next to it, and assumed he was just checking it out to see what was going on; we stood looking at each other for a short while, I still in my helmet, sharing what I assumed was an understanding.  However, when I returned to my trusty steed I found all my stuff scattered about it, my pencil case and smaller sketchbook bag opened and rifled-through and my water bottle and a light taken off the bike frame.  The other light had been swiped.  The bastard!  And a fellow cyclist!  I was seething - a light's easy to replace but I was so annoyed that some people see fit to do that kind of thing, and out on the downs in the middle of the countryside!  Still, just goes to show that there are indeed cunts out there (and not just the robbing kind), even atop the Downs, and it's wise to be careful.  However I am still firmly of the opinion that such care and caution should be subject to restraint, and that it's very important to be largely trusting of people and to stay relaxed: a world of suspicion and paranoia is not a world I want to live in.  Anyway, it felt good to make this (I'm a big fan of swearing as well as catharsis) and I will no doubt do more with it in the near future, perhaps a sticker or a bookmark (book thieves are the worst, after all).  My haul of blackberries was also underwhelming, but I made some reasonable jam from it and gathering them is always such a great pleasure, no matter what happens.

This is a new piece of personal work I made to celebrate the changing seasons and everything becoming more green as Spring arrives and eventually becomes Summer.  Having found a printer that not only makes square postcards but can print multiple designs in the same run (yes mate) I also wanted to make a bespoke image for my next postal campaign.  It's also quite a good example of something that I occasionally try and incorporate into my work - a dub influence.  Dub music is quite a big presence in my life - I make it, spin it and listen and dance to quite a lot of it.  It's a unique genre in many ways; indeed, it originated not as an actual genre at all but more as a mixing technique and for a while there was no purpose-built dub - the only dub records were reworkings of existing (reggae) tunes.  It's also the only music style (alongside reggae) I can think of that encompasses such a wide gamut of transmission or dispersal - you could go and hear a dub DJ (whose set could comfortably span forty years of music), and an MC or a singer or you could see a fully live dub band or an entirely digital/electronic solo producer or band, or you could hear (and most crucially, feel!) dub in its most natural and archetypal setting, the soundsystem (if you've never gone to a proper, heavyweight dub/roots soundsystem dance you really should!  An experience like no other, but not for everyone...!).  And part of the beauty of dub is that, whilst strongly established as a stylistic form in its own right, it is, in essence, a process - something that is 'done' rather than something that 'is'.  Therefore you can apply dub techniques to any style of music and combine it with anything.  And I thought, why not art?  Why not dub things up visually?  So I often like to strip things back, cut things up and add 'effects', chop and edit, whilst leaving traces, snatches, echos and impressions alongside little pockets of detail.  And the best dub is always a little bit rough and unrefined - grit, gnarl and texture always feature in my work, alongside pattern and repetition in the manner of a spaced-out delay.  One of the key aspects of dub is also creating space (and thereby emphasising the underlying structure) - I'd love to do this more but it doesn't always work out that way (especially in commissioned work).  And, in Jamaica, where it originated, there is a strong culture of re-using, recycling and re-purposing, which is something I also like to do (both in my work and life generally - waste is a terrible thing and "if it's nice, do it twice").  As a wee aside on repurposing, my friend Mairead once suggested doing a Google images search for the term "gambiarra" - if you're unfamiliar with the term do check it out.

Today is the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, truly an excellent time of year.  Best wishes to all of you on this most auspicious of days and may a wonderful Summer lie ahead for everyone.  This was going to be a colourful image, but being England, today is cold, wet, windy and grey, therefore I've kept it monochrome (for now, it's trying to brighten up out there...).

A couple of recent things, revisited.  Roger as a square and a rescheduled, re-coloured event poster.