what an amazing month

This Blog space is one of the few places now that I feel any space from the internet, all other sites seem to have been overtaken by people, the numbers visiting the website and accessing the studio cam has gone up to over 4000 visitors, my facebook site has shot up from 72, where it has comfortably sat for the past few years, to over 400, for me this is far too much to be able to communicate on a personal basis.

The influx of people on facebook seems to be from three specific areas, writers, dance groups and the visual arts, both individuals and groups, whatever it is that I am doing must be doing something I ponder, though what it is that I am doing I am not entirely sure, as the saying goes, if it aint broke, dont fix it!

currently my diary is wonderfully empty between now and 2011 meaning that between now and November I can concentrate fully on the 'warriors walk' installation that I am planning for Rememberance WeekIt is planned to create two sets of cards, a small photo card for each of the soldiers killed in the Gulf War and the Afghanistan war and name cards alone for heroes of other conflicts in recent history since the falklands war, it would have been nice to have included the Northern Ireland soldiers also however there was just so many that time and finance probibit such a task, instead the few I have chosen to do will be hung along a fence on the riverside walk, already there are volunteers coming forward to help with this task, originally quite a daunting one with over 700 cards to hang though as each volunteer comes forward the job seems less so.

While on the charity front I have recently heard that a charity who once helped me has come to the point where their funding is being looked at and played with, there is little I can do as cut backs seems to be the norm these day, no-one has suggested as yet that the cut backs within this country has much to do with maintaining the huge costs involved in managing a war such as we are in afghanistan, the money has to come from somewhere and can only come from the country itself, I have little doubt that somewhere along the road this will become a decisive factor in continuing to send troops to afghanistan, moreso than the death toll or the simple fact that we are achieving little in keeping troops there, and that is quite sad; until that time things will get worse I have little doubt, there seems a little irony that within a dying country, the charities that will be most needed in the future are the ones being restricted from growth now.

Back to a brighter note, if memorial services are indeed a brighter note, the soldiers foto cards project really is the only task for my coming months, I am having a bit of an exploratory phase with paint at the moment, as I have been for the past few years however on this occasion it is not so much to create any specific image but to see how the paint lies and interacts with each and subsequent layers, taking little hints from artists such as Mark Rothko, (the only person I know who is able to make a blank canvas interesting) and Turner, the combination of expression with banality seems quite interesting to me, anyway, more of this later as I dont have enough to talk about that at the moment.

Till then, thanks for following my blogs as I try to find something of interest to write about.