A Night for Browsing...

No painting today, perhaps the first day in a month or so, but the night stalking can be a little exhausting. People tend to produce a lot of physical and mental noise when they are intoxicated and when you yourselves are not, you become a tad too sensitive to it. A day off then. Soothing the nerves. Browsing aimlessly.

You know, some artists use snapshots. But sometimes snapshots unintentionally become art. Take a look at this blog and tell me if it isn't art! Allisonandbenjamin

Oh yes, some of you will just sniggle and titter about it, but hey, this is art, goddamit! People's lives are art. A pity they most often than not do not know it. If they did, perhaps they would respect themselves and others more? Who knows? Like I could frame me up and hang me over the sofa, right?

Oh, life's little tragedies.

And sometimes it is just very dark and we need to look closely for small glimpses of light.

And sometimes we just see animals and no human beings around and the animal eyes glimmer in the dark and so do their teeth, lusting for blood. Yup.

Then it is time for browsing and for reading something entirely about nothing.

When the cold winds blow, keep your head low and hang on to something low on the ground.

Ideals and utopias

One night a topic concerning ideals and utopias arose around the table.

As I see it, the reason why so many ideologies turn into monstrosities, is because a dream is being materialised.
And then? Shouldn't we try our best to make dreams come true? Yes, of course, but if we seriously believe that this dream is the ultimate one and that no further dreams can be better than this, it will soon turn into a nightmare.

Ideals are there for us to have a goal, they are something which we think of as belonging to a higher level, an ideal state of being. They serve as an inspiration for us through the nitty-gritty of everyday life. If we would not try to make them become a part of reality, however, they are merely daydreaming and as such, completely useless. But, if we see our ideals as the ultimate ones, and if we succeed in turning them into reality, they will immediately become twisted and perverted and become quite the contrary of what they were meant to be. Because if we see them as ultimate, the next step is to view any new dreams or ideals or ideas even, as false and thus as threats to the ideal state we believe that we have established. The next step is of course to prohibit such false ideas and then follows the prosecution of people harbouring such 'false' ideals. The utopia is turning into a dystopia and terror rules.

There is no such thing as the ultimate answer. As soon as we have realised one ideal, we have to lift our spirits to look for the new ones that will bring us further onward.

It never ends.

The Art Project in Viseu

No mingling at pubs and bars tonight but I finished one canvas and started two smaller ones with dancing motives. People appeared and began chatting and that was of course disturbing, but OK...

Anyway, in case someone interested might stumble across this blog and would be curious as to what is happening in a smaller city in the interior of Portugal, artwise, let me try to summarize what happened here and how I got involved.

There is an annual fair here with traditions back to Medieval times and this year, one cultural organization supported by the City Council - Expovis - decided to invite as many artists from the city and the region as possible. There should be no criteria, no quality test or whatsoever and it all took form in a somewhat improvised way, as far as I have understood afterwards. On the site where the fair is held, down by the small river that runs through the centre, was built a multi-use pavillion of some size a couple of years ago. Now, it is intended for fairs, shows, exhibitions of all kinds, mostly commercial events, but on each side of the central hall in there, runs galleries and that was where the artists were supposed to exhibit the works of their choice. The 'fee' to enter, was to appear during the opening hours of the fair and to paint 'live'. That is, Expovis bought canvases and paint and we were to paint while the public passed by and glanced around.

It was just accidentally that I discovered what was going on as we visited the fair as we use to, a few times during the month it is on. I happened to mention to a young man supervising the exhibition and assisting the artists, that I was an artist, too, and he promptly asked me to fill out a form with my info and to return with works of my choice to hang up and so I did.

Now, I was a bit slow in realizing what an excellent chance this was for me to break out from my somewhat isolated existence here, working at home as I do, without entering into the social intercourse of a workplace. Finally I did, however, and during the last two weeks of the fair, I went down there each night after dinner, staying until at least eleven in the night, sometimes until midnight and sometimes even later, and I painted and I painted.

All what we painted there, was supposed to go to Expovis which some may think was greedy of them, but to me it was fair enough. If we brought our own gear, we kept the work, but if we used theirs, the work would belong to them. Fair enough and I painted ten canvases.

Now, after a while, talking to the one person who seemed to be the main person behind this all, Sr. Carlos Paiva, I understood that this was meant to continue after the fair ended. In fact, their intention was to try to convince the people at the City Council that this should remain a permanent project, providing a sort of cultural centre for artists in the city and the surrounding region, to exhibit their work and also a place to work.

Excellent! I immediately thought and envisioned unlimited effects out of such an initiative, probably more than the City Council and even the people at Expovis do. I might elaborate on that later, but suffice it to say that to me personally, it became the kick in the arse I needed to begin to paint seriously.
I have painted in periods, of course, produced a few works in a variation of techniques, but due to lack of space etc., the periods have ended and it has lasted years until the next one would begin. Last time I painted some canvases here, was 2-3 years ago. My excuse lately has been the amount of drawings I produce - around 2 per day the year round. Physically, it is of course the proverbial piece of cake, but mentally it is somewhat exhausting.

But now, thanks to this initiative, I will simply not stop. As long as I have money to buy canvases and paint, I will paint. I have hundreds of images inside of me to come out.

It doesn't matter whether I will sell or not. Of course I do think that I will sell a few, just by the sheer amount of work I will produce.

Like I said to one of my fellow artists, a young woman who understands some English; I am going to fuckin' drown this city in art! Hahaha!

And in addition to that, I also meet a lot of people which I love:)

When the plumber finally will have finished his work in my tiny studio here, I will continue to work there when I return home after having worked the evening down at the Centre or the Hous of the Artists or whatever it will be called.

I have had my piece of fun in my life. Time to work now. And it happens to be fun, too!

More night stalking

This dried-up alkie loves mingling with people, but opportunities has been scarce lately, mostly because of the nature of my work, which implies that I sit alone in front or at the side of my computer, receiving texts and sending cartoons and illustrations to those. With this art project going on in the City of Viseu, things are drastically changing, though. I meet people, brand new people and now it even seems like we go nightclubbing, bright white clubbing to steal from Mr. Pop, Iggy among followers, James Osterberg to family and close friends.

Anyway, being a non-practicing alkie limits the choices among beverages somewhat, and as I find that alcohol-free beers and wines are nothing but an insult to the good taste - or the bad, for that matter - I stick to water, sometimes mineral water, but otherwise and mostly plain water. Ten bottles of water during a night tends to get a bit boring but if you don't consume spirits, you have to have the spirit and I have no problems with that.

Anyway, I need to elaborate more on the said project, but work and deadlines are awaiting...

Night Stalking Artist

It is another sleepless night and I am impatiently waiting for the plumber and other hard-working professionals to finish off their work up in the attic here where my flat is located. Until then, my tiny studio, which is a corner of a quite decent store room we do have there, will be useless, but when it is all finished in Portuguese tempo, it will be quite okay and I will even have the base of a shower to clean brushes et cetera in - and even to take a shower if I feel so inclined, although I think I will prefer to descend the one flight of stairs to our humble abode and immerse my weary body in a filled tub.
Anyway, it will mean that instead of wasting my time playing solitaire on my iPod, listening to the occasional podcast and depressive music, I can go up there and paint, paint, paint.

Thanks to a great initiative in the city of Viseu, I have had the opportunity to paint, paint, paint, for the first time in years. Those who know me, know that I am a cartoonist and illustrator by profession and that I produce something like two drawings daily which makes it difficult to me to indulge in my natural laziness which has had to retreat to the innermost, obscure corners of my soul, and it has also caused a kind of creative fatigue when the daily work has been done with, not allowing for other creative activity. This has changed now, however, and my natural laziness is about to become an endangered trait to my personality, since I am now painting, painting, painting, from I finish my work in the afternoon untill around midnight. I will write more about that later.

Making a long story much shorter, I have painted something like 30 odd canvases during the last month and add a few days, and some of those are not totally miniatures, either, measuring a couple of metres by one and a half... (get out your converters, you odd folks who still do your arithmetics with pebbles and stones, sticks and bones!)

The time is ticking on and it is past 5 in the wee hours, so I guess it is about time to get some sleep. The bløgg is started.

Now in English!

OK, then, I have already been blogging a little but not like some people do; creating a weblog logging anything the day - and night - may bring. Instead, my first blogg named Mewsings, is entirely and solely a kind of essays, and by using the advanced option it is located on my own domain, but here we go again, really blogging, or bløgging, as I prefer to call it, because that is a Norwegian word for bleeding the fish when you catch it and before you store it on board. Allergic to fish and seafood as I am, I have not have much use for the technique, but the word looks interesting and I got use of one of our special Scandinavian characters.

Anyway, all of those texts are in Norwegian and here I will express myself in English. Let us get started then!