String Theory Sketchbook

If anyone is interested in looking, I've made an Issuu book of my String Theory sketchbook. I love sketchbooks and often get a lot more from the process of creating, than the final creation itself.  The Sketchbook is A3 in size, ring bound with a lot of stuff paper clipped in and bound with string, sadly I couldn't add in the extras into this view. I hope you get the idea thou.

If you click Expand you'll get the full screen version

Old Years Resolutions

It was exactly a year ago I evaluated my 2010 resolutions, so I thought I'd do the same with 2011's resolutions today.

I made a short list this year and I'm curious to  know what I've achieved. The resolutions were :-

1. Get a new job. - Yes!

Yay! As you all know, if you've been following the blog, I have indeed shaken off the shackles of temporary agency work (after nearly 10 years) and got what my dad says is.. "a proper job". Starting the 3rd of Jan which I'm very excited about.

2. Save up and pay off 10% of my mortgage. - Yes

I'm not sure why I made this resolution, I think because I needed it putting in stone that I would actually do it. The reality was that I paid off 10% of the mortgage in Jan 2011 and I have also managed to save up a further 10% ready to pay off next month too!   : )

3. Buy new clothes. - No


I haven't bought any new clothes this year.

4. Be positive and confident, say yes more, engage with new opportunities. - Yes


I'm going to say yes to this. To help my job search, I contacted a local community centre who were running a back to work type project. I signed up and once a week we met to discuss my job search. This was purely voluntary.  The worker, Natalie, would search through job papers and the net looking for any suitable work and when we met up she'd say have you seen this job or that job.. It was really great because I don't have motivation for that kind of thing.  The idea that you are having to meet someone pushes you into looking for work.

As a direct result of those meetings, Natalie asked me if I'd like to be a trustee for the community centre.  It would involve meeting once a month with the other trustees and deciding on stuff that would effect the community centre. It's purely voluntary. It's something totally out of my comfort zone, but because I'd been to the centre for Job search program I was familiar with the staff in the building who are really nice. I agreed.  So now I'm on the board. We meet up everything month and find out how the centre is running and decide if improvements need to be made. It's very interesting.

So yeah, I think I've engaged with new opportunities this year and I've felt more confident in myself from it.

5. Read more books, listen to and be accepting of a wider range of music. -Yes


I'm not sure I've read a book this year, I'm always dipping in and out of books though. usually poetry books, Brian Pattens book was sent to me via Bux and I read that, also some teaching books. I'm not sure I've listened to a wider range of music I have listened to many new bands this year, which is always exciting.. including Black Keys, Raveonettes, Bon Ivor, and Miles Kane. However, some older artists have had albums out this year including Thomas Dolby and Elvis Costello - his new album is great..

6. Draw, paint and write more.  - Yes.

Wow, this is what I wrote back in January.. "I need to finish my paintings and get further with my dream of having an exhibition in one of the local galleries. Not that I can plan ahead so much for this but I want to write some good poems too."  as you know, if you follow my blog. I managed to get 21 paintings together and put on an exhibition, currently showing. I'm extremely proud and can't quite believe I've been that creative this year. The pictures look amazing in that space too. (See previous blog for pictures)

7. Face my fear of travelling. - No


I didn't achieve this, although I'm getting a lot better, I went to Liverpool this year again on my own, to see Bux and had a fantastic time.  This is something I really want to work on this year.

8. Be less defensive with people. - No/Yes


This is something that I struggle with on a day-to-day basis, even to the point where I'm insulting people because I so uptight about what they might think of me.  Am I less defensive? I'm not sure, maybe, marginally.. I hope.. it's a hard one to measure.  I think maybe I am less, I was adamant that I wouldn't go to a Job Club to seek help finding work, but then as the months ticked on I realised that ego has no place and people were only trying to help.. Once I'd made that change it was so strange.. the job came my way, the trustee position was offered, the gallery space opened up.. maybe I have changed a little more than I thought.  I think with my dad... um... maybe I'll never get a handle on it.. maybe I'll always have to just keep myself in check.


9. Have one new experience a month!


I've probably done this but not realised.. I initially wanted to deliberately give myself a new experience but looking back over the year I have had some great firsts.

Best Moments of the Year

• Undoubtedly meeting Bux on our annual Liverpool get together.. We had such a great time, and I will defo stay longer next year.
• Seeing 10cc and Graham Gouldman with my dad earlier on in the year was great.
• Getting a new job was a fantastic feeling
• Having my paintings finally shown was thrilling.

New Job

For those who have been following my relentless job searching escapades.. (I've been looking for a new job on and off for years, but this summer I started seriously looking) you'll be pleased to know that this afternoon (24.10.11) at 4.41pm I was finally offered a job!!!

Of course me, being me, I didn't actually realise for over an hour cos I didn't check my emails.

I feel like I've been picked first in the school football team, after years of being picked last!  I am very happy, excited and nervous about what the next month will bring.  One thing is certain however, I will not be working with children any more, after ten years of working in secondary schools and colleges I'm hanging up my board marker, I'm retiring my detention slips and tick chart. I'm joining the grown up world of pen pushing, filing and stamping. (all the same things just without the children)

"No dark sarcasm in the classroom" sang Pink Floyd, too right. No longer will I be called E.T, Paul the Alien, Bowling ball Paul!, D*ckhead, W*nker, Oi!, Voldemort, Baldy!, eww that supply again!, oh no i hate you!,  No longer will I have chairs thrown at me from across the classroom, all for asking a pupil to move seats. No more will I be throttled by a year 9 boy for asking him to turn his mobile phone off. No longer will an argument erupt over a pupil picking up a piece of paper or me having to supply yet another pen to yet another child who can't afford one but still manages to ring mum on his iPhone 4 in the lesson!

I will not miss those early morning calls and the anxiety of not knowing which school I'll be going to, then having to go into the most challenging educational environments in the area and sit there thinking is this a dream? Is it really reality?

I'll really miss the girls at the various agencies who have constantly provided me with work over the last decade.  I'll miss  my contacts at the schools who try their best to give me an interesting day (3 Spanish lessons, for an art teacher who can't speak any languages! sure Baz will do that!).  I'll miss some of the great teachers I've met and worked with.  I will genuinely miss my holidays and finishing the working day at 3.30pm. I will miss the friends I've made at some of the schools.  I won't miss the mileage on my car or the bridge tolls.

Strange to think I've taught children who are now 26 years old and whom are out there living their lives, with hopefully a good memory of school.  I'd like to think I've been a good teacher, and certainly many children over the years have said "Yay!!!! We've got 'im again!" and "Sir, you're the best teacher, can't we  have you all the time!?"..to which I've said "You're only saying that because you're getting away with listening to your ipod"  and then the girl who said. "Sir your voice sounds like melted chocolate" and on her leaving day, even thou I'd only taught her once, came and said she really enjoyed that one lesson and I was a cool teacher.  Then there were the 4 year ten boys who would come into my lessons singing various REM songs insistent that I was Michael Stipe. I couldn't help but laugh and sing along with them. Or the year 7 girl (4 years ago) who had me as her art teacher for 6 months and sent me a thank you card at the end of term, (which I still have) and inside it says "thank you for being my teacher this year I have learned a lot".  Or the Sixth Form A-Level Photography group who, upon hearing I was leaving, set up a "Save Baz!" Facebook page, in order to convince the college to give me a full time job!!

I will miss doing my paper registers, passing a sheet around the room and asking everyone to sign their names.  On checking it to discover Chris Packet and Phil McCrackin where also in my science lessons. When I first started teaching Saddam was student, then Bin Laden, and now Gadaffi.. Along with Micheal Jackson and Obama regularly make an appearance. I've taught the worlds greatest dictators, leaders, icons and even fictional superheroes  The best bit of course was reading the names out in class (purely to check I had everyone there - officially you understand) and the laughter when I read out "Ivor Biggun?" "is Batman here today?" and "It says here that Thomas is gay, is that right Thomas?" and the shouts of "yes he is" by several lads at the back of the class.

Other great memories include me having to call in senior member of staff for this particularly naughty class. The deputy head walked in and proceeded to shout at the class. I was stood behind her and watching the faces of these children. It suddenly dawned on me that everything this woman was saying was such a cliché! and then my mouth cracked at the corner and started to turn into a smile, I had to turn to face away from the class cos I found the whole scene so incredibly funny.  Then one of the pupils shouted out. "even sir finds it funny, look he's laughin!!!!". This made the whole thing worse because then I had to try to straighten my face and pretend I wasn't, which as you'll appreciate is hard to do.  Afterwards I apologised to the deputy head who said "don't worry I've done the same thing many times.  "


Great times and some sad times too. Great teachers who have retired and sadly some who have died.  The nature of supply teaching is I see it all. Thankfully I even managed to teach one student in sixth form who I later worked with as a teacher. The circle completed


Feels like a million years ago I first went to what was the Amy Johnson school and witnessed my first pupil lovingly shout "f*** off!" all for asking her to come into the classroom. Halcyon days.. I often think about her and wonder where she is now. Then I think about the headmaster who told me not to correct pupils if they swore, cos I'd spend an entire lesson correcting instead of teaching.  I ignored this advice. 


Looking back I'm not sure how I've managed all these years, friends have told me that I must be so patient and they couldn't do what I've done. I don't know how I've done it either.  I don't consider  myself confident, I'm not sure how I've stood up in front of 150 different people every day and took control of a classroom situation.  


-- update 10 dec 2011.. still waiting for CRB to clear before I can start new job.
-- update 20 dec 2011.. finally got an official start date :)

I am the god of Hell Fire

The surround to my fireplace isn't fitted, but that doesn't stop me from lighting it. It's been properly backfilled with vermiculite and I've used a fire retardant seal round the edge of it to keep the smoke from seeping out.  I'm really happy with the results.   I know it looks rough, but the wooden surround will cover that..

I just need to reorder the room now!

Real Fire

When I moved into this house in 2007, I inserted two cast iron fireplaces back into the front and back bedrooms.  The chimneys downstairs had been bricked up, however upstairs they had been covered over with plasterboard.

Front bedroom in 07, after I'd taken out shelves and stripped he walls, you can see the plasterboard over the mouth of the fireplace.

I got given a cast iron fireplace from my mum which I placed in the front bedroom, and I bought a second hand one off ebay for the back bedroom.

The increasing cost of gas and electric has really focused my mind on getting these two fireplaces back into working order. I originally installed them as decorative features, but with these biting winters I'm convinced they should pay their way - and save me some cash.  

Last week I called out a chimney sweep to take a look at the chimneys and give me a quote to clean. While he was here I quizzed him about using the fires and if, with the current building regulation, I would be allowed to light them.  

Front bedroom fireplace as it is now.

The good news was the front room fireplace was able to be used, after some tweaking.  The sweep gave me some instructions.  I would need to backfill the space between the fireplace and the chimney back wall, with a mixture of cement and vermiculite.  I thought that would be pretty easy to do.  After that, he said, I'd need to seal the gaps of the metal surround with some fire retardant sealant - otherwise smoke would fill the room.  

The bad news was the spare-room (where my pc is) that fireplace was incomplete and would need to be replaced! he said that both chimneys were clean and had a good draft coming down so no problems there. 

Spare-room when I moved in - 07 - fireplace from ebay.

I was really gutted about not being able to get both fires working.  Next day my dad bought me a bag of vermiculite - which, if you've never seen it, is like bits of polystyrene. Vermiculite is an insulation material and keeps the heat from being lost into the chimney wall - also protects the chimney.  The bag seemed massive, but I set to work creating this mixture.  Maybe it's because I've not done any hard graft in a lot time, or maybe it was because I'd been at school all day, but I really felt exhausted by this task.  It took ten bucket loads to backfill the space and my legs were aching after going up and down the stairs 10 times with a heavy bucket.  I considered stopping, but then realised that if the concrete set then I started again the next day it would be weak and create a crack.  Needless to say there is this vermiculite stuff all  up the stairs now, so that was another job to do.. hoovering that up.  

Pressing the mixture down behind the fireplace was really difficult too. I'm sure builders must have special ways of doing it, but I just used my hand and put as much pressure as I could muster. When I woke up this morning I noticed I had a bruise on my arm from where it had been hitting the cast iron fire back. 

You can see the vermiculite and cement mix here, highlighted.

It was a really messy job, I started mixing it with a trowel, but the consistency was like a moist flapjack and the only way I could mix it was to use my hands. After a few buckets I realised the cement was reacting with my skin and the vermiculite was cutting into my fingers, so I switched to a rubber glove which was a little better. The fireplace (above)  looks like it's covered in cement but that will all brush off with some wire wool that I've got.  

Next stop is the heat resistant sealer, then I have to wait for the cement to dry before I can fire it up.  I'm hoping even having one fire will really help heat up the house.

String Theory Exhibition

Feels like years ago that I booked the exhibition space at the central library in the city centre.  Today was the day that I could finally hang my paintings and see them in a bigger setting than my front bedroom-come-storage-depot.

List of paintings

Exposed String Triptych II. Acrylic and emulsion with plaster on canvas, 50cm x 76 cm, 2011
Exposed String Triptych III. Acrylic and emulsion with plaster on canvas, 50cm x 76 cm, 2011
With My Body. Acrylic and emulsion with plaster on calico. 1m x 1m. 2011
Til Death. Acrylic and emulsion with plaster on canvas. 50cm x 76cm. 2011
I Thee Endow. Acrylic and emulsion with plaster on calico. 1m x 1m. 2011
Holy Ordinance. Acrylic, emulsion and card on calico. 32cm x 43cm. 2011
Faith. Acrylic, emulsion and card on calico. 32cm x 43cm. 2011
God. Acrylic, emulsion and card on calico. 32cm x 43cm. 2011
Companion. Acrylic, emulsion and card on calico. 32cm x 43cm. 2011
String Theory. Oil and acrylic with plaster on canvas. 1m x 1.4m. 2001-2010
String Theory II. Acrylic and string with plaster on canvas. 1m x 1.4m. 2010-2011
Rigging. String, acrylic & cardboard with papier-mâché on canvas, 53cm x 74cm, 2011
Headship. String, acrylic & cardboard with papier-mâché on canvas, 53cm x 74cm, 2011
Immeasurable Love. Acrylic & plaster on canvas, 55cm x 76cm, 2011.
My_People. Acrylic, cardboard and papier-mâché on canvas, 69cm x 26cm, 2011
I Pledge. String, plaster and acrylic on canvas, 53cm x 90cm, 2011
Circle. Acrylic and string on canvas, 53cm x 90cm, 2011
Relationship. Acrylic, string and card on canvas, 30cm x 40cm, 2011
Lodge. Acrylic, string, card and papier-mâché on canvas. 38cm x 72cm. 2011,
Shifting Shadows Acrylic, string, card and papier-mâché on canvas. 38cm x 72cm. 2011.

I'd also made some small mounted miniature copies of my sketchbook pages to put into the display cases, along with a blurb about the project itself.

Paintings waiting to be loaded into car. (I still love that Jeff Lynne picture)

I enlisted the help of my dad, as he has a bigger car than me, to help transport and set up the paintings. We arrived at the exhibition room at 9am.  I laid out the paintings roughly in an order from first to last, then tweaked them to add some symmetry to each wall.  After adding name tag/price information to each image, my father and I hung each picture, steadily marrying up the hook and eyes of the hanging system.  The building is listed so none of the walls are allowed to be screwed into or have anything stuck onto them, including tape/blue tac etc. The labels then had to be stapled to the bottom of each painting.

Photo-montage of exhibition space.

After we'd finished I took some photographs.  Looking at the paintings in that room was such a thrill.  I know it's not a really flash gallery, and I know it's not in London, there won't be any influential art critics going along to a library in Hull to see my exhibition. However, I am really excited and chuffed with the results. 

Photo-montage of  exhibition space.

I never set out to sell any of the paintings, I did them because I wanted to paint, but seeing them in that space just made me feel like maybe I could make a living from art. I'd be happy to have them seen, if someone buys one I'll b over the moon. 

Cornered

For more info check out : String Theory

Strikes

On Wednesday last week I went into the city to primarily photograph the public workers on striker.  Standing on the sidelines I caught sight of a friend, striking, who works as a teacher, he called me over and before I knew it I was in the middle of the procession.

Knowledge is Life

It was all very thrilling afterwards I was pumped up with equal measure of anger and sympathy for those public workers having their pensions cut.

Later in the day I visited my dad. We sat together watching the local news as I wondered if they might have captured my face within the multitude.  My father was defiantly saying the strikes were completely pointless and would achieve nothing. Even though I knew inside he was correct, I argued against his words, saddened  that my father appeared to have just given up.  This futility wasn't personal though, he had every sympathy for the workers, he just didn't accept that the status quo would ever change.

It's taken me several days to process the conversation we had. Did I agree that nothing changes? I suppose in the end yes. but then the next question was was inevitable.. Does that mean we give up trying to change?  Do we put trust into those politicians when they've let us down so many times before?

There has been so much talk this week about democracy. "It's our democratic right to strike" say the strikers.. correct of course but on the other side "how selfish of those strikers to withdraw their vital rolls from society in this time of need!"  Every MP saying that now was not the right time to strike, slamming union members for taking this action..

On Thursday I watched Question Time and one audience member asked "When is it ever the right time to strike?"  There is never a correct time I guess, isn't that the point?

My dad said that the strikers may have the public support now, but if the strikes went on and rubbish was piling up from bins left uncollected - that support would quickly ebb away.  Is that all it takes I wondered? a few bins of uncollected rubbish for our democracy to fall? As much as I didn't want to accept that as true, I could believe it not to be the case.

On the BBC's More or Less radio show this week they examined claims made by the government and by the unions regarding pension pay outs..

The government claimed that their new proposals would see an increase to £21k a year in pension of a teacher.  The unions claimed that there would be a drop to £4k and most pensions were not gold-plated! Such a massive difference prompted the statistics program to look into it.  The research found that the government figures where based on a teacher who started work at 25 and worked until he was 68, never changed jobs, never took any time off and constantly paid into his pension the new amount which includes the 3% increase. By contrast the unions took an average part time teacher who had taken several different jobs over her career and worked until the same time.  It's clear that teachers don't all start at the age of 25 and work continually until their 68. Mostly that's impractical to do.  Any parent who's had a teenager will know that managing 30 of them you need to be able to be strong, fit and agile.. not many 68 years olds are that.. The unions figure were also incorrect as not all teachers are part time.

Both figures were incorrect and it's actually impossible to know what an average person will take from their pension because it depends on their circumstances.  One thing is clear though, if the deductions become so high many of the lower paid policy holders will withdraw their policy. Then there will be fewer lower paid policy holders than higher paid workers. This will not fair well for the remaining policy holders who will have to pay even more to make it sustainable.

I didn't pay into a pension.