print blog NUMBER ONE - First blog in a year

I haven't posted anything for almost a year in ceramics we were not encouraged to.We were told posts wouldn't be read by the tutors.

 Now I'm in print I will use the blog to present research.

 I do have a bit of a problem with research in as much as I don't really do any. I'm 56 and have been looking at things all my life so I have a store of visual memories and associations in my head to draw on. I also don't really understand how research works.  I see art as an immediate visual response to the world in front of me, something catches my eye and I respond. I often don't know what the end result will be. If the work says any thing it will be emotional rather than intellectual.If I was to interpose research between the visual stimulus and the artistic response, the work would suffer.

  Other than technical ability what makes an artist is the ability to edit. The world bombards you with visual information . An artist is the person who says "look at this , this is interesting, ignore that , it's not important". I think this editing process should be fairly immediate and not over thought or researched.

 This brings me to another problem.Course work is meant to have a Concept. I don't understand conceptual art. If I really had anything to say I would write it down . Art like music is good at emotion and mood rather than ideas and information.  Motzart's concerto, "The trout",evokes movement,maybe babbling brooks and fish darting about but really tells you nothing usefulthat  about fish. I have been around shows that take up too much space and say, in a very long winded way, very little about subjects that the artist knows nothing .Any way thats my rant for now .
    I will show in this and following blogs what I am doing, what each piece is a response to, what artist I think influenced it and what I was reading when I did it.

This a big wood cut I,ve recently finished. I saw a photo spread in the Sunday Times about white collar boxing . The respectable middle class people all looked very animal like, watching men hit each other and as it was christmas party time, when the animal in us comes out (print party excepted!) I did a wood cut showing ugly, aggressive people partying I made the woman very sexual and predatory the men bullying.
 At the time I was looking at R.B. Kitja, especially The Ohio Gang

at the moment I'm reading 7 days in the art world. 

and Grason Perry's "Playing to the Gallery"

and of course the miserable fellow is me!!!