Sometimes people say:"Where do you get your ideas from?"
Simple.
The family.
Yesterday I started on a digital portrait of my nephew. Nothing surprising in that you may say except that Alex is only 20 weeks old ....in the womb.

To view the ultra-sound digitally manipulated photo of Alex click on:

Looking for a really cool arty place in Glasgow?

Try the re-vamped CCA ( Centre for Contemporary Arts) in Sauchiehall St.
www.cca-glasgow.com uk

Visited the Royal Scottish Academy annual exhibition held this year in the McLellan Galleries, Glasgow.

Lots of sumptious paintings. As usual the standard of presentation, technique,craftsmanship, content is exceptionally high. True there were some paintings, and we are talking paintings andsculpture here - photoraphy and video is a "no no" as far as the Academy is concerned, which made you wonder what criteria was used for their selection.Still they were few and far bertween.

But I asked myself: is this the world of 2002? there was nothing I saw that could not have been painted 10,20- even 50 years ago...
On to Cafe Flicker (Glasgow Media Access Centre - www.g-mac.co.uk) where I showed my mini film: visitChicago.com a spoof advert. It got a good reception. Lots of interesting films were shown . One had been made on a High 8 camera by 2 young men in 45 minutes about a psycho-analyst who fed his cocaine habit by giving unnecessary medication to his patients. Yes it had lots of technical things wrong with it but it was on the ball.
Which is more than I can say for the annual RSA exhibition.

Had a moan to Lys Hansen, artist and mentor, about the thinness of so much contemporary art and she said:
"It could be about to change. Read the New Stateman - 18 Feb."

"Do you mean the Ivan Massow article by the chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts? he got sacked for it."
"No, this is somebody else saying much the same thing."

I got a copy from Stirling library. First surprise - New Stateman is now much more readable. Its years since I used to subscribe to it. Maybe I will again. Or maybe I will just readit on-line. (www.newstateman.co.uk).

In the article Peter Watson says an awful lot of influential people in the Tate establishment had confided to him that they were appalled at this year's Turner Prize shenanigans and hope that it will never be repeated. www.tate.com

He said some changes are being considered to alter the rules: to make it biennial, to lift the age restriction and to remove the embargo on non-British artists.

If a gallery as influential as the Tate was to take the lead we may well see the current strangehold of conceptual art diminish in this country.
"Revamping the Turner Prize is the single most important initiative the Tate establishment could make to move us beyond bad aesthetic times. It won't change overnight, or all by itself, but it is a high-profile start," said Peter Watson, author of A Terrible Beauty: the people and ideas that shaped the modern mind ( Phoenix publisher).


He wonders how much longer it will take us all to realise how unambitious contemporary art has become, how unidimensional the aesthetic are and that we are faced with an intellectual and aesthetic dead end.
Am reminded again of an American art historian who said during a lecture at the School of ther Art Institute in Chicago , where I did a year as an Exchange Student, that as far as they were concerned "conceptual art has been packaged and put in the past."
www.artic.edu
If we are talking cutting-edge art work then she considered the next wave most likely to be immersive, work using the latest technological tools available, which allowed the viewer to become part of the art work.

And you can't bullshit your way around that lot.

As the American art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto said:
"We are living in bad aesthetic times."
And that needs to change.

There's an awful lot that is pretentious and transitory in today's contemporayr art scene.

And I had a gutsful of it yesterday in Edinburgh : bits of an old book torn out and stuck on the wall with tape - Fruitmarket gallery - Young Scottish Contemporay Artists, - lightbulbs swinging like a giant pendulum - Collective hankering back to this year's Turner prize of light bulbs flashing on and off-and more, much more that it would be embarrassing to write about it all.
Yet critics do. They enthuse over these mind games because that is what they are, an,artistic version of crossword puzzles. : The contemporary artworld has been hijacked by academics.

Surely in three hours tramping through Edinburgh galleries I saw something I liked? Yes. The Ingleby gallery ( www.inglebygallery.com) with its retrospective on Ian Hamilton Finlay- always have been a fan of his work and a new discovery for me of the work of sculptor Emily Young who works in stone.

The work has emotional and aesthetic appeal. It hits you in the gut. This is the real stuff. You don't need to read several hundred words of academic "insight" into what its all about. You feel it in your bones.

As art critic Richard Ingleby, ( for the Independent newspaper) who runs the gallery, says about her work putting it into its historical perspective:
"For all the associations that tie Emily Young's work into the history of 20th century British art there is a sense that her closest cousins are further back in an ancient past of Cycladic figures and Easter Island totems. The history of sculpture itself is 30,000 years old and the stones that Emily Young uses were formed in nature many millions of years before that, so what's a few thousand years here or there in the making.

This is the wider context: it's a sobering thought and one which, like her best work can't but inspire humility."

Honesty. That's what I find missing in so much of the pretentious work that passes for contemporary art today. Only when you come across the work of someone like Emily Young do you realise that is what is missing from so much work today.
It's being clever for the sake of being clever. Fine. There is a place for that
But it has nothing to do with the human spirit.

Change your routine. That was the advise from my favourite pop pyschologist who writes a weekly column in the Financial Times.
(Normally I read The Guardian www.guardian.co.uk but on Saturdays I like the FT )
He says: "There's a simple psychological principle that says if we do things differently, it helps us think differenlty, and alternative thinking easily leads to innovative action."
So I skipped the Saturday morning housework and went in to Glasgow to see the series of Bruno Bozzetto animation films on at the Glasgow Film Theatre, part of their Italian film Festival.

Was I glad? You bet. Did the house suffer? Nope. The dust will be there in a weeks time: Bozzetto was a one-off showing of Italy's most famous and prolific animator's work.

Talking of thinking differently I was reminded of Charles Handy's words that if something worked in the past it is unlikely to work in the future . "We must not let our past, however glorious, get in the way of our future". He was talking about the changing worlds of organisations and business. The Church of Scotland announced yesterday that research shows that unless something is done the current decline in its congregations will see it defunct in 50 years time.

Popped into our local art gallery-Fotheringham, in Bridge-of-Allan- www.bridgeofallan.comyesterday where a private viewing of Jonathan Hood's work was taking place. What struck me was that nearly everybody standing there sipping wine was grey-haired. Had not seen so many old people in one room for a long time.
Does this say something about the people who buy traditional oil paintings?

The first invitation dropped through my door this week for an opening exhibition by 2 students who graduated from Glasgow School of Art with me last year.

So last night I went to the Lloyd jerome gallery in Glasgow - a dentist who has turned his waiting room in to an exhibition space for contemporary art-for the opening of Kate Foster and Stephanie Connelly's exhibition "The Biography of a Lie".
In true GSA style it was very professional and thought provoking.

Well done Kate and Stephanie!

Visited my former Head of Department, David Harding, to collect some extra footage of his amazing farewell party last summer. A gathering of some 300 - boarded the Waverley steamer in Glasgow to pay tribute to David Harding who was one of the key figures, if not the key figure, in turning Scotland into such a cutting-edge zone for conceptual art.

David was awarded an OBE for his work. The 300 who boarded the steamer that day represented a walking Who's Who in Scottish contemporary art.
I have it on video . Now my job is to turn it into something more than a home movie. David suggested savage editing to 5 minutes!...

Rare to find an interactive installation that fulfills all the criteria: aesthetically pleasing, interesting and totally immersive.

But the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow are showing one : Polaria/Gastarbyter.
Artists Bruce Gilchrist, Jo Joelson and photographer Anthony Oliver trvelled to remote north east Greenland to conduct fieldwork on light and physiology in 2001.

The result is Polaria. You sit on a plastic see through chair in a white cube, wearing a white hooded padded anorak, white overshoes and place your hands flat on to a plastic surface either side of you. The heat from your hands triggers off different colours of light depending on the pressure you put on the embedded electrical surfaces.
You feel a slight tingling in your hands.
You are totally immersed in it.

Meanwhile for those watching from outside the white cube all they see is your back- total anonymity- and the chaning light inside. You , the art consumer, becomes a piece of performance art.
It is a knock-out.

Forgot to mention something really innovative at the Glasgow Art Fair - the arrival of the carvan gallery.
This is a totally new way of showing art.


Organised by Jan Williams and Chris and Chris Teasdale from Portsmouth they tour the country with their specially constructed caravan which doubles up as a gallery. They produce art works - postcards- in response to the places they visit. It is mobile, free and highly accessible.

They capture the ordinary and extraordinary details of life in the 21st century in Britain seeing the world with fresh eyes.

Head stuck in computers and editing suites for past week to 10 days hence no blog diary.
Had a break visiting Glasgow Art Fair which was disappointing.

Tremendous sense of deja-vu. Same old paintings, same old frames,same old names, only the people manning the stalls seemed to have changed.
And the prices they were asking? they must be kidding!...the only people I saw buying were an elderly couple purchasing a Scottish landscape. Nothing wrong with that. Except I have seen more innovation walking around Habitat.
Perhaps that sums up the gallery scene today. Only old people want to buy traditional paintings.
Maybe painting really is dead. Does it have anything new to say ?
Tramway offered some new and interestingmulti-mediawork. ended up buying a CD for £5 Where Do We Go From Here by the Icelandic Love Corporation. Now that was refreshing...and new.

What's up Doc? yet another blog failed...yet another message about parameters. Is it something to do with the length? had no idea there was a limit to the number of words one couldwrite in a blog. Still it was only about 200 so that can't be the problem.

Why do we do it? write, paint or create. That's the question I ask myself.I could be out shopping, playing golf or just meeting friends, instead here I am flogging away at the computer, doing all sorts of digital editing and writing and wondering....
Talked to another artist friend last night and she was feeling low too. In fact she was on the verge of getting herself a job when she found that the post delivered two invitations from people wanting her work, one a prestigious London gallery.
So, its a case of struggling on...

Help! after an absence of some weeks - due to family problems in Wales- I do a blog entry and it disappears...says the parameters are wrong...this is another attempt..

Edited my first movie at home - a performance of Red Moon theatre group in Chicago - using Imovie.
They did the piece in the Three Arts Club, where I happened to be staying, for a 100 dollar a head charity function. As mere students we could not attend but I filmed it in the courtyard from my bedroom window. Talk about serendipity. The fire dancers/eaters had been rehearsing all afternoon on the roof.

Went to David Mach's opening at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. They have cleared the top gallery for his work. it is an amazing show - so much diversity, so colourful and witty. Best I have seen for a very long time.

Found myself standing next to him so I introduced myself . Have admired his work for years. He comes from Dundee, is totally without "side" and has little time for much so-called conceptual work. Hurray!

Has film failed?
That was the subject of a radio discussion tonight from Tate Modern.

Having spent the day in GMAC ( Glasgow Media Access Centre) editing a video on David Harding listened with particular interest.
To summarise - digital technologies are not only changing the way that films are made - you can shoot endless footage vey cheaply but it is also changing the way the stories are told. With digital manipulation to can create alternative narratives to the ones shot using traditional methods of film.
Mind-boggling.
Had a small taste of it the scope and fluidity of digital editing today when we needed a close-up of Pete McG laughing to go with one speech- so we took the shot from a close up of him laughing at a subsequent speakers speech...
oh what a tangled web we weave!

Victor Burgin came with glowing credentials to the last Friday lecture this season. Unfortunately he had lost his luggage containing all his lecture notes, slides and video clips. So he got something together in a hurry this morning in his hotel room.
It showed.

Yet again am reminded of the fact that academics don't live in the real world. Airlines are notorious for loosing luggage on internal flights - surely he must know that? why didnt he carry the documents?
He spopke on the 'specificity' of an art practice, arguing that the concept is more useful to us in the age of digital technologies than is the traditional notion of 'medium'.

He made some interesting points:
a).the first art school established in Paris in 1648 introduced theory. Painting was no longer a technical skill.
So we have had art theory around for an awful long time....
b) when photography was introduced they started to say that painting was dead. ye it is still very much alive. so what is it about painting that it has that other art forms do not have? he reckons it is the specifity of paint - the quality of the paint on the canvas. It is the painted surface.

He made scant reference to digital technologies. At least he was able to talk and it was stimulating. Then he showed some rough cuts of his video work which he had sent in advance to GSA. All I can say is that they fell flat on a big screen. We could sense his own embarrassment at seeing his work blown up big. Maybe on a small tv monitor , in situ, with site specific work it might have worked..
Am reminded yet again that the ability toi talk about your work is of primary importance, the ability to convince others that what you are going is "art" is really what is important. Think Duchamp. Think urinals.

Is mental illness coming in from the cold? is it the new cool? Not that long ago both subjects would have been taboo, certainly not the subject of films aimed at a mass audience. Yet both have met with tremendous critical acclaim.

Last week saw the film "Iris" Judi Dench in her Oscar winning performance of Iris Murdoch's decline into Alzheimers disease and tonight have just seen "My Beautiful Mind" all about Nobel Prize winner Prof John Nash and his affliction with schizophrenia.

Found the latter film far more alarming.

Ina Blom, art historian and associate professor at the Institute of Art History, University of Oslo, came with glowing credentials to give our weekly Friday lecture at Glasgow School of Art.

The title of her talk:" Technology and Avantgarde Historiography in the work of Raoul Hausmann and Nam June Paik" looked interesting, if a little dry. She would discuss the interrelation between technology and historiography in the construction of an avantgarde legacy. Heady stuff.

She was very tall, even by Norwegian standards and rake-thin. She started to speak, clearly an impressive intellectual then I slowly realised that her lecture verged on the impenetrable. If only she had given us a hand out it would have been easier.

Question time. Not one hand went up. The students, normally a bright vociferous lot, noted for their asute questioning of speakers sat in stunned silence.

Afterwards Mona, a Norwegian, said:" My sister in Oslo tells me that none of her students understand a word she says."
Perhaps academics ought to pass a test, like to drive a car, to ensure that they are able to communicate efficiently with their student audience.

Discover Cafe Flicker in Glasgow part of the Glasgow Media Access Centre.
Full of bright young men gung-ho to make films.

It was great. Here's a place where you can meet like minded film-makers, show your work and get feed back.
Hand over my tape "Seahorse Symphony", something I made in Chicago and edited back in Glagow.
It was the first time had seen it on a big screen and it did look very dreamy and other worldly. Of course, the music helped enormously, a specially commissioned piece by The Shed Acquairum from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra resident composer.
Other works shown were mainly documentary. The standard was much higher than expected; had thought it would be full of art school videos of students staring at their navels. Instead all the work was full of pace and very lively. Some were professional and had got funding.

Have got myself into a routine starting with twenty minutes drawing every morning. Getting a studio practice established is tough . Just read about a guy who sends out 20 sets of slides each month to galleries in the hope that they will pick him up. He reckons on a take up of 1 in 10....

Had my first studio visit from a buyer, Richard Diet. He saw "Forgotten", a digital print I made in Chicago of an older woman's hand,in the Smith Gallery in Stirling during their Christmas fund-raising exhibition for the local hospice but by the time he went back the exhibition had finished. He was a very cultivated young man with a genuine interest in art. Works in the Planning Department of Stirling District Council.