Let the shitstorm blow.

Left : © Natalie Angus
Avocado and Mud, 2011
glazed ceramic (with added avocado.)










Below : © Richard Deacon
North Tree and Rock, 2009
glazed ceramic


And so the question of validity continues. What constitutes a piece of contemporary art? Is it even an obtainable thing. With contemporary art thriving on the concept of the all-inclusive, yet failing to include so much what's the bloody point. If you are opposed to many threads of current practice, if you feel it's failing, can you still consider yourself an artist? If all the work you make pivots on undermining yourself and the idea of art, it's function and it's total redundancy what realm are you left in?

It's all pretty epic, and I'm sure there's no definitive answer, and herein lies the undeniable beauty of art. It's one big contradiction which is exciting, you can exist in a sphere where you don't have to assign yourself to anything. It's possible to both love and reject at the same time.

I must say, that I love Richard Deacons work aesthetically, ceramic, bulbous, alluding to the recognizable whilst still remaining abstract are all discourses I relish in. Yet, part of me says, you stick it in a gallery and you take away the fun. We go to these places to experience a reality shift, an escapism. But in anticipation it's desiccated.

Therefore, art fails at it's function to excite me anymore. Bogged down, with a critcal mind.

However, on the contrary I will defend Arts right to exist, to be exhibited, to be acknowledged as a fine form of cultural communication. Both verbose and uniting.

It's a fucking riddle and I have permanent brain fog.

Down and Dirty.

Has been an interesting few weeks. Shit hit the fan. So when it all goes balls up, obviously the best thing to do is get out to the countryside and dig in stupid weather for clay.

Got a train out to Hadfield, at the start of the North Peaks. Later found out this is Royston Vasey, and you can bloody tell. It's pretty backwards.

Anyways, after a rainy trek onto united utilities land, a few cuppas, and a bit of poking about in mud, decided to just go for it, whip the spade out and just see what was underneath. By this point it was pissing it down sideways and bastard windy and needless to say I had begun to question the rational behind why I was doing this?


I put it down to my turbulant relationship with the concept of the artist. Sitting in the studio, drinking tea, doesn't feel like I'm doing anything. I kind of feel that I should endure some self flagellation in order to be entitled to say "I spend my days making art" As if I must experience the unpleasant in order to relish the priviledge. The sheer tedium of digging, drying, processing, and making my own clay felt like something I had to go through to really appreciate my medium.

The whole ridiculous nature of this act, appeals to me. Something about the earthy and archaic steps I'll have to take for very little dividends is funny. It raises questions for me regarding the importance of art in contemporary culture, how much effort is put in, and how effective it is in communicating and exploring shared themes. I feel art should strive to try and strike up a dialogue with an audience, and it only feels right that if I want to communicate the frustration and contradictory nature of art I should put a bit of investment in. I don't feel it's enough to just bung something on a plinth anymore and expect it to talk for itself.

I want to make something beautiful, metaphysical, form that could evoke a shared memory. Shape and art has the unique ability, above anything else to let us step back and allow ourselves to be absorbed in something that we haven't yet invented words for, that we can't vocalise emotionally. Odd that.

It's also the bloody pits sometimes. Form can be vacuous detritus masquerading as something more meaningful. Art's a riddle. And the journey I'm going through with it this last three years still whacks me in the stomach periodically, right back down on my arse again. Should it be such a ball ache?

I can't think of anything intelligent or worthwhile to say.

That's all.

That time of the month.

It's about time, new post. Lots of wandering and pondering has been occurring in Angus HQ. Laptops shat the bed so it's kind of hindered me in really getting it out there as and when my pathetic epiphanies occur.

Anyway. I guess this post is to the future, whatever the fuck that might have instore for me. It's just another torrid arguement in my head. What to do with myself, where to go, it babbles on all through the day until I've had enough of thinking and just want to lay down very still. This directly spills over into my work. I can never reach a conclusion about anything, the very act of trying seems fradulant and I'm half tempted (although never fully) to fuck it all off.

It's the love/hate relationship to work, the frustration at much of the work that is made and claims to be contemporary. Not all of it but there are definite strands that I hate. Work made without depth, without investment, without consideration of audience of effectiveness of communication, about dickheads who subscribe to the "art" lifestyle, who spend the days contemplating abstract theories about how their twig interacts with the space. I'll tell you, much like every other object interacts with a space. It's there. Granted there are the people who make art great, who do it with sensitivity, with integrity, and above all without that smug face that smacks of a superiority complex. But you know how it goes, as with any group of people with something in common, tar and brush leap to mind.

I think the vessels I make, the forms, the indulgence in squishy gooey earth, the strive for objectivity. It's that annoying niggle of having a massive problem with something, in this case, contemporary art, yet all the time remaining engaged, interested, reluctantly reading e-journals, bitterly flicking through the art magazines. Contemporary art is like a massive throbbing insect bite. Well bloody annoying, you know you shouldn't you don't want to, but you're going to, you're going to scratch it with a frenzied satisfaction, until it bleeds. Making art, that you want to resist, yet knowing that whatever you do, because of where you're making it, and the time in which you make it, the background, the education, all of the crap that's been dumped in your mind.

I'll end up making what it is that I try so hard to detatch myself from.

How do you transcend this generality?!

BAhhh!


Rant over. Have a picture.

"The sprawl from my brain to your hands."

Took part in the artists bonfire last night at Islington mill. Here's the pledge I made.

There's something about the emotions that fire evokes, the chemical reactions that alter everything, the age old idea of new life from the embers that make me want to contribute to the artists bonfire.

With the comfort of Art school about to be pulled out from underneath me, I feel now is the time to shake as many insecurities as I can. It's been a strange journey, and a constant battle against what is considered to be contemporary art. Struggling with concepts that I couldn't relate to, or felt lacked substance, wrestling with the paint as it squirmed beneath me and fuelled my frustration I've at last reached a place where I feel I can have a bit of faith in what it is I represent as an artist. And so now seems the perfect time to say goodbye to all that I thought I believed in and embrace the sheer confusion of it all.

For me the burning of old work marks an end to the two years of utter annoyance and bitterness towards my own practice. Finally a little bit of joy in what it is I do, so it seems that to take a little warmth and light from that which once made me feel clammy and mildly ashamed.

I'm gearing myself up to continue to be engaged in some kind of creativity, and although the thought terrifys me in regards to the cuts, and the unstable state of things around us, I'm excited in equal measures, and positive in that which is yet to come for all of us making work. Besides, in uncertain times there's nothing quite like burning shit.

Fuck, feels good to not be carrying that around anymore. Wish I had something more informed to say.

Clean slates.

Right, deleted all the old redundant shit on this blog, and starting fresh. Try to be a bit more articulate and informed about things, a little more engagement and all that.

Also want a way to document my work, the triumphs and the epic fuck ups I make with clay. It's such a beautiful material but so hard to know what it's going to do. Perhaps that's why I like it, the unpredictable nature of it. The muddiness and dirtiness of it all. The private and self indulgent act of forming it. It has a realness and an urgency that I've always loved and it's substantial character after it's been subjected to the fire still excites me.

It has become almost like a sanctuary for me, and I guess that's noticeable in the forms I chose to make. Sensual and looking like they've been spewed from inside the earth. The solidness and the weight of them along with their tactile nature provides me with the grounding I need when constantly bombarded with abstract theories that leave me cold, and questioning the ridiculous day to day bull shit and conceptual ideas we are bombarded with.

Moaning.