Because it’s not all about me, but rather about building communities.
Last updated & checked for dead blogs: December 2023
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Detail from the 2021 drawing Lamentation, by the author
: “Much has already been said about the championing of individualism over community by the likes of Thatcher and others from the 1980s onwards. It is — and continues to be — a weapon used to divide and…”
Scene from the final episode of Andor season 1. Source: Disney+
: “I’ve mentioned here before that back in the 1970s and 1980s there seemed to be a myriad of ideas about potential future societies in popular (mainstream/children’s television) science fiction: hallucinatory…”
Read the rest of “Radical futures re-emerging in mainstream science fiction”…
Cover of the 1828 volume of the British Almanac, used under license of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
: “Saturday 1st April 2013 On this day it is 373 years since THE DIGGERS moved onto wasteland at St George’s Hill, Surrey, and began to dig over the land and plant crops. Sunday 2nd April 2023 On this…”
Detail of the cover of the exhibition catalogue
: “My parents moved to Chichester after they’d both retired a couple of decades ago. It’s never struck me as a particularly exciting town. My father died in 2015 and my mother died two years…”
Read the rest of “Sussex Landscape: Chalk, Wood, and Water”…
Life-drawing, 30 minute pose
: “I took the day off from my day job on Monday — part of my plan to make sure I use all my annual leave allowance before I lose any untaken leave at the end of April — and booked myself a three-hour…”
The opening banner of the exhibition
: “Making Mischief is a rather wonderful exhibition at Compton Verney Art Gallery in Warwickshire, and is on until 11th June 2023. The exhibition fulfils its obvious…”
Read the rest of “Making Mischief: Folk Costume in Britain”…
Cover of the 1828 volume of the British Almanac, used under license of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
: “Wednesday 1st March 2023 On this day is ST DAVID’S DAY, as celebrated by the COMMON PEOPLE of WALES, and the first day of SPRING under the Meteorological calendar. Monday 6th March 2023 At sunset…”
: “February’s nearly over, and slowly we’re closing in on Spring (even if it doesn’t feel like it at the moment). These dark grey months at the beginning of the year have never been great for me…”
Cover of the 1828 volume of the British Almanac, used under license of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
: “Wednesday 1st February 2023 Being the start of LGBT+ HISTORY MONTH in the United Kingdom, and the Neo-Pagan/Wiccan observance of IMBOLC. Thursday 2nd February 2023 On this day is the Christian observance…”
Plans for nuclear fusion powered flying saucer by British Rail - Patent No. GB1310990A
: “In 1973 British Rail, Britain’s then nationalised railway service (which for the youngsters was, despite the contemporary 1970s jokes about British Rail sandwiches, far better than the privatised shitshow…”
Read the rest of “Capitalist Realism and British Rail flying saucers”…
Study of a Figure in the Court of Queen Mab (4) and (5)
: “The first three studies from the Court of Queen Mab were large-scale pastel drawings on black paper - there’s also an as-yet-unposted fourth large-scale pastel drawing depicting Queen Mab herself that…”
Read the rest of “More Studies from the Court of Queen Mab”…
: “I started working on the Snake Mask in January 2022, and it has sat partially made for a full year now. I think it’s time to finish it. I don’t know why it’s been such a blind spot for me over the…”
Cover of the 1828 volume of the British Almanac, used under license of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
: “Sunday 1st January 2023 Being the NEW YEAR’S DAY of this year. Monday 2nd January 2023 Declared a secular holiday for the COMMON PEOPLE to celebrate the beginning of this NEW YEAR, given that it started…”
: “Last night brought the welcome return of Brighton’s annual Burning the Clocks procession/event, after a break over the last two years due to Covid. It was loud and joyful, as the short video above hopefully…”
A twilight view of a snowy landscape near the village of Shingay-cum-Wendy in Cambridgeshire, taken by the author
: “It’s been a difficult year and I didn’t get much artwork done in 2022. I managed only 3 finished photographic pieces - two Untitled “Moss” pieces (here and here) and Spirit of the Orchard in…”
: “One of my first Mastodon posts was a request: Looking for recommendations about speculative fiction (SF/F, pref. short stories, but novels are fine) set in anarchist communities or dealing with anarchist…”
: “The recent change of ownership of Twitter is making a small but growing number of people think about their future on social media, and on the internet in general. You’ve all seen multiple web platforms…”
Life-drawing, 30 minute pose
: “I have been inconsistent with my choice of medium in recent life-drawing practice - alternating between pencils and pastels. I don’t see this as inherently negative, but it does suggest to me that I’m…”
First three results from Craiyon using the prompt a haunting of roses
: “Publicly-accessible AI art tools — Craiyon (formerly DALL-E mini), Midjourney, and the growing number of others — allow non-skilled users to produce an image that otherwise they would not have been…”
Life-drawing, 1 hour pose (pencil)
: “My plan to re-introduce regular life-drawing into my artistic practice is still going ahead, even though it’s not as frequent as I’d hoped yet. Some of that is the logistics of finding and booking…”