[full-size on Flickr]

Still in the studio, plan on working until 6am or so. Another crew are coming at 8:30am today/tomorrow to retrieve the diorama, to transport to the tent and start installing it in situ. So I need to get as much as possible placed and secured (hot gluuuuuue!) as possible, plus I can’t sleep. Too much work to do.

I have some other draft posts, things will get published randomly, and sometimes antedated.

packing some materials away since I will be gone for most of August, and have to clean up. Will continue and finish off some of these works in September. Until then…

[Related posts: dunkin filler, dunkin filler 2 and America Runs On]

[full-res images on Flickr here and here]

I have no clue who Anya Hindmarch is. I reckon she’s some fancy designer. Some of her bags go for £995, or $1986 at current conversion rates. Either way, her website says:

Sainsbury’s launched I’m Not A Plastic Bag in 450 stores on the 25th April. Due to overwhelming demand all stock has now sold out.

It goes on to say:

The first day, Friday 27 April, will see Sainsbury’s become the first major UK supermarket to stop giving out free disposable carrier bags in its stores.

That’s TODAY people!

Yesterday I just sent off my proof for a book I’m self-publishing, a collection of plastic carrier bags. I’ve been hinting at this work (here, here and here) for many months and finally now it is going to happen!

Sainsbury’s of course, going way back, were one of the first inspirations behind me starting to collect plastic carrier bags (see below, first image, last column, fourth row!), exactly because they had these ‘bags for life’ programs. It got me thinking. I started hording and saving bags without knowing what I would do with them.

Now my bags will be published in a full-color full-bleed book. More details on how to purchase that will come soon, but this book will be a monster, at around 340 pages in the first of hopefully many volumes to come.

concepts later; for now the process for this sculptural sketch is: enlarge the source image; tape the enlarged prints together; cut out the flag; outline the shape; cut out the shape with a jigsaw; paint white.

this material was a scrap of sound-proofing board, so I used it for this test-work. Eventually it is my goal to have these works free-standing – so the idea is to move towards 3/4″ or 1″ plywood. The more I think about it, I don’t think it’s necessary for the final works to be painted; originally this was done to increase the visibility of the work – high contrast – against the blue floor. Also because the surface and texture of the sound-proofing board is quite unpleasant, as opposed to plywood which is rich in color and textures. However I think unpainted plywood will hold its own fine, and there is no need to paint the surface. Contrast or the shape of the silhouette can be accented by other means: backlit by the sun; lit from an angle so the shadow becomes another work; etc.

the first hack was within a week after i got the Normal Space blog online, and that was just a few days before that first show. that hack seriously effected service, since the MySQL database was purged, and i lost some of my first blog entries. Now yesterday the server was hacked via the mod_rewrite script that some other website was running, which meant my site went down for a day, and a day when i had plans to get so much media and text online.

which prompted me to establish an account at a new host. i’ll be testing everything out on a dedicated IP, which is great, and as soon as the databases are back online, i’ll redirect the nameservers to my new host and hopefully everything will be fluid.

so if you don’t see any new posts here for a while, it’s being worked on, and one day you’ll refresh and there will be a bazillion new posts and video files and interactivity abound! yippie!

I didn’t know until I read over on Karen’s blog that this issue will be launched at the upcoming 2006 Publish And Be Damned fair in Shoreditch, East London. That makes me feel kind of warm ‘n’ fuzzy inside.

I’m going to re-post Karen’s questions here. But if you want to know what my responses were, you’ll just have to pick yourself up a copy.

when did you first know you wanted to be an artist?

can you remember your first piece of work?

smartest thing you ever did in terms of your art practice?

worst mistake in terms of your art practice?

best / worst bit about being an artist?

any heroes or villains?

you’ve lived and worked in London and now New York. any major differences in terms of contemporary art practice?

best and worst bits of living in a metropolis?

What shows have you seen recently?

Any words of wisdom for emerging artists?

p.s. – Karen’s zine ROCKS!!!