Prick up your ears

I've been read ing the biography of the playwright Joe Ortan and his lover Ken Halliwell . They started out two gay loosers who met at RADA in the early 50's . They lived together in total obscurity for 10 years writing unpublished novels like 'the boy hairdresser' and defacing liberary books. Ken was older , inatially more confident,and had some family money from his parents . His mother died on a family pic nick after being stung in the mouth by a wasp , his dad gassed himself soon after. Ken ,origionally the more dominant was eclipsed as Joe became a phonamilly sucessfull playwright. Whereas Joe was hansome , cocky , warm and increadably promiscious . Ken was at war with the world , bald ,awarkward , shy and hostile . Evereone loved Joe and disliked or ignored Ken.

what is worring me is that i see a lot of ken in me and very little Joe. They lived for years in a small bedsit that Ken decorated.'The room was halliwell's theater and mosaic of his mind . its humour was a testament to  his fear and loathing'.  The room was carpeted floor to ceiling with a collage of high renaisance cut outs , monkeys in tu-tus and other  scary crap . Ken was someone , for whatever reason , wasn't equiped to deal with the world  , lacking self - regard , a hopless artist (no one but Joes busniess   partners ever bought his collages) uneasy with his homosexalaty, jealous and needy. He saw the world as a hostile place 'The faces passing seemed to him pale ,with hunger not physical, mixture of brute and human , devouring and defiling;long claws and bird mouths ,fat hips and loins' Thats what worries me , its the world i describe in my art . If its that hostile and unlovley  maybe i shouldn't do it . Anyway one day when Joe was just 27 ,Ken came home and beat joes brains out with a hammer.

I'm not an unlovley person ,my middle daughter was sick thursday night so i drove 7 hours to bring her  stuff she needed  . when i arrived i said it was the least i could do , cause im not much of a father , she said ' i dont know why u say that ur a great dad 'i was fierce touched by that .

This whole art thing is becomming \a way for me to deal with all these things ' i hope all the hostile bird crap and jesus stuff im doing will lead to something more mature ,pretty and uplifting

now on a compleatly diferent note i bought a little silver box its late 17th or early18th c. and pure rococo-coco and lovley. Ive also put an offer in for a large 17th c. spanish wooden s. francis we've gone from 1,650 to 1,350 to 1,150    ive said ill take it at 1,000 we'll see!

And compleatly, compl
eatly ,differant this is a picture i painted after a week of diving day and night off a small boat in the red sea. Swimming and diving at night is som
ething  i'll come back to very soon