Ironic bananas

A valuable lesson taught by a dear friend....

The world is full of sadness and evil. There's war and crime and death all around us, made all the worse as most of it is thrust upon us by all forms of media, without thought as to the impact or consequences of continually force feeding bad news into a delicately balanced society.

This perpetual extortion of bad news, often without true fact and deliberately exaggerated to create greater impact as news moguls compete for our absolute attention, silently sends us into a miserable solemn semi-pensive state, wondering where it will all end.

So in view of this, it's vital to find fun wherever and whenever one can...a wry private smile is a wonderful tool to surviving life. How you do it is up to you, I try and have fun with sculptures when I can, but there are there also simpler ways....so.......here are some ironic bananas...

..we had snow...does it add to the slip hazard?!



..couldn't resist..
....to be continued.....as smiles on a miserable day always should...

(feel free to add your own)

Simple Symbolism

It's an intriguing aspect how we as human beings find different symbolism in different things. Whether it's due to a sub-conscious link to past fond or fearful memories, or a more transparent and immediate effect on the brain in the here and now I've never quite worked out, either way, symbolism has vastly different effects from one person to another.

Take this belt for example. This is all about personal symbolism, and to the rest of the world will either be a likeable or ugly addition to an ensemble. 



It's a simple section of stainless steel cycle chain infused into a quite ordinary leather belt which I had made for my recent wedding. The leather element was hand made by Isaacs Saddlery, and is beautiful and simply crafted and combined with the chain element really makes a wonderful accessory. For me, it symbolises the joining of two people, as the chain joins the two halves of the belt, made all the more relevant by my own surname – Steel.
The chain is strong yet flexible, it moulds itself around the waist so freely it's almost unnoticeable, and, crucially, does not take over the function of the belt (which still has a normal buckle) but merely adds to it – having much the same impact as a marriage should to an existing relationship.

Another simple, yet beautiful, example are these flower nails by Masaharu Ono. I absolutely love these, they are a very imaginative symbiosis of the hard and strong and the soft and delicate, all in a very simple form – really very clever.



Sometimes as artists do we focus too heavily on art history and techniques? On the works of our famous predecessors? Is there a human element often forgotten, that being the psychological impact that, to me at least, is a fascinating aspect that can just be explored and explored....cracking the symbolism “nut” and understanding the effect of art on the people around us is surely the key to art that truly works.

The most powerful weapon?

This is what we imagine when we hear the fateful letters WMD...



...images appear of missiles built in deathly secret, fired from afar, causing carnage to countless thousands of unknowing victims at the target destination. There are countries around the world suspected, rightly or wrongly, of formulating evil Weapons of Mass Destruction in dark, deeply scientific laboratories with intentions of power and destruction of catastrophic scale...and we, the righteous innocent ones watch in fear and angst, powerless to stop the weak becoming more powerful than we, ironically forgetting of course that we probably invented the technology and sold it out in the first place.

Yet there is a WMD, more powerful than any crazed egotistical dictator can create. We freely invite it into our homes every day, openly letting its force break us apart a piece at a time, tearing out the morals and values of society and each day taking us to a level more base than the last. We pay for the privilege of it's mesmerising power, allow it to stop us communicating with each other, place our young in front of it so we do not need to attend to them using the excuse we no time for them. We believe it without question, allow it's influence to eat into us, change us, and as a group, destroy us.



It is of course...the television.......there's a sculpture in the making I feel....