Category: Art/Photography

From the very time as a child that I learned to read & write, I have loved both. I wrote from a very early age, filling up note pads with poetry,songs, & stories.  Just before I hit thirty years of  age I took all I had written & kept from about the age of 12 yrs…& burnt them on a bonfire.

How I wish I hadn’t.

It didn’t matter if they were childish writings or thoughts. They truly were part of me that I destroyed. I would say that psychologically that at the time, they were part of my psyche that I wanted to destroy. So I did. In flames.

Why did I do this? Its simple really. Though I have lived the usual life of work, family, being a `grown up’. I still did arty things in my spare time. Then I allowed that mostly universal thought of `Put away childish things’ to enter my world.

All arts it seemed are deemed to be  `Childish things’.

Get to a certain age & writing for pleasure, making music, painting pictures, becomes frivolous, unless of cause you are an artistic wonder to be admired. How dare the you express yourself through art if you are low paid &,.. whatever Deity forbid not considered a  recognised and/or admired `Artist’.?

That seemed sadly to me at the time was to be the manner of things. I now realise this kind of thinking is wrong. One can still play & be adult in their interactions within the society around them.  What I have realised to my horror, is that perhaps it seems even more to be the case in the 21st century ..That you must put away childish things’…. Why do you think there are barely any actors/actresses that have `common’ accents’,  Why do you think there are no popular musicians singing about Ghost Towns (The Specials), How shit it is being unemployed (UB40-One in Ten). Why do you think that tablets are popular..(Tablets are for media/content consumers), & desktops sales,(mostly used by media/content makers), are dropping . The masses are not expected to create, they are expected to consume in a corporate world.

In the 21st Century, we are beginning to build a world of Corporate Feudalism, whereby,  `The Arts’ (Writing,Music,Painting, Drawing,Acting..etc), is the pursuit of the priviliged, the monied, regardless of whether or not the monied are actually any good at it. The everyday spaces have or are disappearing. Where have all the Common lands gone, The Village Halls,  Small venues gone?  For gia sake Pinkfloyd & Motown artists played at the California Ballroom in Dunstable, (No longer exists). Huh? Where you say?

Well thats my point.

Once upon a time in Britain, you could arrange to hire a field from a farmer, rent a flatbed truck, rent a local sound system, get a cheap printed flyer out and host a local gig. Whether it was a play, or local bands, sometimes local events included on occasions nationally known bands, & would you believe children of the 21st century, Artists, that were in the charts, appearing in  national theatres, and even, would you believe on prime time TV. Once upon a time in the UK, Local communities could put on & provide events for their local & surrounding communities.

Now it would seem, unless its a charity event, that local artistic endeavors are based on..`How much MONEY will this make’ .. `Will this upset the council’..`Security/Policing/Security/Policing..POLICING/POLICING…Control..Control.

It would appear, according to popular media & our political classes  that we the average, everyday people  are uncontrollable louts. We must have our leisure time as well as our working hours controlled. We the masses are unreliable, we the masses have no manners, no decorum, no respect for each other, let alone our betters. (?). Thus, in the 21st century we must be guided, must be Nannied. Its for our own good.

For the human species,  ART, from cave art, graffiti, prose, ballards, plays & dare I say especially through the artistic expressions of satire, we as a species have been driven to learn & express ourselves, not only in admiration, but also to critique. Now at the same time we are technologically creating & sharing tools to enable the masses to express themselves, we as societies are also allowing hierarchies to to control social structures that allow for  repression & exclusion throughout all levels of society.

It would seem that in a time where there has never been so many tools available for mass communication, that we the masses. are actually allowing ourselves to be entertained & `educated’ by a small elite section of a global media savvy monied subculture that have no interest in the world, other than our species appetite to consume &  preserving their own positions of political,social, & artistic privilege.