fifteen years later...

Tap. Click. Whir. Buzz.

The Outpost, my base for the last 7 years. A council bungalow snuggled away behind unkempt privet hedge, nestled into a trench on the side of a south west facing hill in Nidderdale.

The site is characteristicly me; obnoxiously scruffy and permanently unfinished - more studio with seating than family home. The walls adorned with murals of red, green and gold leaf.

Washing up is piled chronologically in the kitchen sink, microbes partying like Olympians in the lower levels.

Like I said, obnoxiously scruffy. 

The garden follows suit;

haphazard and lazy gardening techniques, "rewilding" or letting it all do it's thing with the occasional strimmer attention to the paths. Letting the hedge over grow and carving tunnels into it as a descent into the property, 

punctuated with sticks of bamboo loosely woven together to form trellis, fence, feature...

i am home.

It's just me, Biggles (a dog) and Hobbs (a cat) out here. Biggles, now in his 17th year is now a slow and sleepy beagle. Hobbs, the successor to the late Terence "RaRa" McMuffin, is a 5 year old ginger tom, a rescued orphan from a farm. 

I rarely have reason to leave The Outpost, my fate, my destiny, my old man cave.

I've picked up this blog again to document my thoughts, observations and sidebars of my practice. I think there is some benefit to knowing something is "published" as a blog. A self therapy thing. There is also some value in reviewing my processes from up to 15 years ago, although it's not my intention to revisit it particularly.

This is the state of my desk;

Detail I;

Detail ii;

Detail iii;

Detail Iv;

There's more, obviously but I just wanted to reintroduce the subject before I started whining on about the challenges of being an artist and the battle with "expectations" or the relentless search for validation.