Rovers Return, Bushys Basement and Mad Sunday

The Rovers Return, or "Rovers" as it is more commonly known is the one pub on the Isle of Man my friends and I would have to call our "local" despite the fact that non of us actually live close to it... We started drinking in pubs around the Key (bay) in Douglas (The capital of the Isle of Man) usually visiting the "Douglas Hotel" and the "Trafalgar" pub both situated near to each other. The Isle of Man has a large Live Music and Bands culture, we started going to these pubs because of the fact that loads of our friends were in local bands that played reglarly in these venues. Soon the live music began moving from these pubs to the Rovers and so we followed. The Rovers had recently done up it's "Basement" into an area where live bands could perform on stage. It was called "Bushy's Basement" due to it's link with the Bushy's Brewery which ran the pub. And ever since then the Rovers and it's Basement have been our homes. On a night out we always seem to start in the Rovers and then move on from there. One thing I love about the Rovers is you could walk in there one day on your own and still know almost all of the people in there. We know almost all of the staff as many of them were our friends that have gotten jobs in there and also just because everyone is so friendly and fun you can't help but grow to love the place. There are certain things that you come to learn when in the Rovers "lifestyle", there is no reception for mobile when down in the basement - gotta go upstairs, but people tend to know if they can't get hold of you it cause you're in the basement and so just come wandering down. also beware of the toilets downstairs... they tend to be a bit temperamental, which we all soon learned... ick... also the layout of rooms is confusing and random to begin with - upstairs there's the pool room - pool table and amazing juke box, the TV room - TV usually with football and no smoking - good for a quiet one, the bar - the first room you enter with the bar - mmm, the big table room - ...room with bit tables - the best room to go to if the pool rooms full and there's loads of you, and then there are just small random rooms for chilling in. When you first enter the Rovers you feel so lost and overwhelmed but if you're the right kind of person you soon fit into the lifestyle and it all seems to make a weird kind of sense...

Down in the Basement there is also a series of rooms devided by low archways. There is the Band room - where the bands set up and play, with an area for drunken dancing and skanking, the room with tables and chairs or "round the corner" where you can sit and chill and listen to the band but still just about be able to hold a coversation. and of course the room with the bar, in which you'll find most of the locals - aka our mates/the pub crew propping up the bar and helping out the staff when it gets busy.



The Basement has bands on the nights over the weekend, sometimes with a £2 entrance fee which you can avoid depending on who you're with and who's on the door... and also holds themed nights for the hell of it, like "pirate night" "medieval night" "1950's night" - Gangsters! just to name a few, the staff - aka Sam, Jay, Julie and the rest randomly decorate the place with things relating to the theme - and what with Sam and Jay's amazing artistic talents (used to go to college with them on the art/media course) it usually looks... interesting?

And so after we have stocked up on alcohol from the rovers we head over to the Outback, situated round the corner from the Rovers where all the rest of the Rovers crew tend to accumulate after about 11-12 o'clock and carry on the night with shot lists and laughing at scary dancing Alan whos is always, without fail, dancing alone, crazily on the dance floor - we think he goes there for his weekly exercise...

and then of course there is the infamous -

Bushy's Beer Tent

The Bushy's Tent appears on the island for the TT fortnight in May/June, conveniently located adjacent to the "Bottleneck" car park on the Douglas Promenade close to the Sea Terminal - so close that the thousands of bikers arriving on the incoming boats have a good view (and sound) of the massed ranks of visiting hordes already enjoying the beers and live bands on offer. For the past two years, the tent has not only proved an excellent vantage point for the antics of road-users performing a variety of entertaining stunts - wheelies, do-nuts etc. (some partially- or fully-naked, if you're lucky!) - but is also perfectly located for watching the Dukes Video big screen recordings of the TT racing itself. Jobs at Bushy's Beer tent are ledgendary, you've got to have guts and staminar to work there and to withstand the ominous "Bushy's Flu" that inflicts the workers due to the fact that they are working in damp conditions (spilt beer) in the cold (next to the sea - in a large tent...) but it's all worth it because you're in the centre of the action and excitement and getting paid for it.


Along with bushy's beer tent and the TT there is the awesomely amazing Mad Sunday in which the promenade along the sea front is closed off to cars and a street party ensues... the Beer tent is the place to be, there are thousands of people from all over the world along with all our friends from college and the pub crew all out for an amazing time...



Roll on the summer... :D

Mark Rothko

While on the trip to London when I went to see Les Miserables I also went to the Tate Modern art gallery. I have been there three times in total so far and each time is just as interesting as the last. This time when I went there was a room which had been re-designed, showing pieces by Mark Rothko. There were about five paintings in total; Large scale, simple yet abstract designs that measured up to 5 metres in length and about 2-3 metres high. They had been painted in deep reds, burgundies, browns and blacks and filled the room with their presence. The room itself was in the middle of the building and so had no natural light in it other than what seeped in through the doorways. The room had been lit with dim down lighters that cast an eerie glow in the room and created such an atmosphere when coupled with the images I was ensnared in the room and found it very difficult to leave. The paintings themselves were incredibly simple and basic but on the scale and the way in which they had been displayed made for an impressive viewing.



I have since been back to that room in the Tate Modern and not felt as moved by what I saw... I don't know what it is or was that moved me so much that day but it wasn't there when I returned... maybe it was just a one time thing...

About Mark Rothko

Green Wing

THE most amazingly funny, stupid, genius piece of comedy work I have ever seen... I love Green Wing so much.

I watched almost all of the first series when it was on TV and have recently been bought the box set of series 1 allowing me to relive all the amazing moments of comic genius.

Synopsis:

A Channel 4 comedy which follows the adventures of the childish and slightly mad staff at a hospital.

Despite a general lack of medical attention, Green Wing follows new surgical registrar Dr Caroline Todd through her first day at work and beyond, starting out as she means to go on - disheveled and under-deodorised having spent the night in her car.

Green Wing was written by a series of comedy writers: Robert Harley, James Henry, Gary Howe, Stuart Kenworthy, Oriane Messina, Victoria Pile, Richard Preddy, Fay Rusling. And was created with the attempt of making a sketch show that is a sitcom aswell.

The goings on in the hospital are usually childish, dangerous and egotistical which all adds up to the amazing-ness that is Green Wing. I recently watched Green Wing with someone who had never seen it before. They were constantly confused and were asking me things like "why did that just happen?" and I just shrugged and said "why not?" if it gets a laugh why shouldn't it happen? there is a broad basic plot to the series but does tend to get lost within each episode as it is filled with random goings on that bemuse and distract the audience. Such as one of the HR team weighing her breasts to see how much it would cost to post them to various countries, or the constant competitions in the operating theatre between co surgeons Mac and Caroline and egotistical anesthetist Guy.

Random sketches included this one which I personally love... the Staff Liason Officer Sue White (who is basically insane...) gets random visits from the staff throughout a day as they face various trials and worries... Guy the anesthetist walks in, leans over the desk and says:

“Do you know what I like about you?” [pause] Fuck All”

...and walks out... pure genius - of course if you haven't seen Greenwing it isn't possible for you too imagine the facial expression and over all demeanours of the characters... so I suggest you go out there today and buy the box set ASAP

Check out the characters

Channel 4 website

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Plot Summary:

Set amid the chaos of pre-revolutionary China, small time thief, Sing, aspires to be one of the sophisticated and ruthless Axe Gang whose underworld activites overshadow the city. Stumbling across a crowded apartment complex aptly known as "Pig Sty Alley," Sing attempts to extort money from on of the ordinary locals, but the neighbours are not what they appear.

Sing's comical attempts at intimidation inadvertently attract the Axe Gang into the fray, setting off a chain of events that brings two disparate worlds face-to-face.

As the inhabitants of the Pig Sty fight for their lives, the ensuing clash of Kung Fu titans unearths some legendary martial arts masters. Sing, despite his futile attempts, lacks the soul of a killer, and must face his own mortality in order to discover the true nature of the Kung Fu Master.

I watched this movie a few days ago. When I first told that was what we were going to watch I was extremly sceptical and wasn't really wanting to watch it at all. Luckily I was forced to. Kung Fu and other martial arts movies rarely interest me but this movie was pure comedy genius coupled with random ultra voilence that had me laughing so much.



The scene opens in a police station in China where we see people being beaten and thrown against walls as the wife of the leader of a local gang arrested for spitting in public. The arresting officers, unaware that the lady in question was the wife of one of the gangs that ran the city on a knife edge of fear and violence, are badly beaten. The gang leaders and the lady leave, outside the police station doors and windows slam shut as they enter the street and we see from a distance people moving down the street... the ledgendary Axe Gang. A scene of random violence ensues as the Axe Gang destroy the other gang leaders, finally shooting the wife in the back with the shot gun after telling her she was free to go...

We follow the main character Sing as he attempts to join the Axe Gang and make something of his life from the street urchin he currently is. We see him attempt to claim benefits by frauding the people of the Pig Sty only to be stopped by the ultra scary land lady and her husband who eventually turn out to be Kung Fu masters who have sworn never to use their powers again after seeing their son destroyed by KungFu years earlier. Many random battles ensue all with both comic blood and gore and amazing, if a little cheesey at times, special effects.

In the end Sings amazing powers as a Kung Fu master is released as he faces his own mortality only to fight back to save the day ending, as all movies should, by winning back his childhood sweetheart...

A funny movie, badly dubbed but worth the time to watch it... made me laugh lots and cringe in pain. Watch it if you get the chance.



Kung Fu Hustle

Les Miserables

Plot Summary:

Jean Valjean, a Frenchman imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a police officer named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

Jean Valjean is paroled from prison after serving 19 years at hard labor for stealing food. He is taken in for the night by a kindly Bishop, whose silverware he steals on his departure. When he is caught with the silverware, the bishop not only does not press charges, he also gives Valjean his silver candlesticks. With this start, Valjean reforms and becomes the mayor and head businessman in a small town. But when former prison guard Javert is transferred to become police captain and recognizes Valjean, his past life comes back to haunt him. Meanwhile, Fantine, one of Valjean's employees, has had a baby (Cosette) out of wedlock and is dismissed from her job while Valjean is away; when he finds this out (far too late), he takes responsibility for them.

In France, the poor are planning a revolution. Jean Valjean is an ex-convict who tore up his prison papers confirming him a free man. Several years after his parole, he is a mayor. He is forced to fire the over-stressed Fauntine, who is forced to become a prostitute to support her waif-like daughter. After a rough beating in the streets, Fauntine is almost sent to prison but Jean bails her out and supports her. Inspector Javert is catching up with his, discovers his identity and tries to follow him. Fauntine dies traumitically, she writes a note agreeing that Jean takes her child. He rescues young Cosette from the evil, theiving landlord and his wife and they sneak into Paris. For years they lived in the church and finally ten years later they spend Valjean's hard earned money from his past. Cosette soon falls in love with a revolutionary in the streets, they all soon get wrapped up in a battle between the rich and the starving, which, sadly, has faulty results.

I went to see Les Mis in the summer of 2002 with my mum at the Queens Theatre, London. I have been to a few smaller scale musicals in the past, some on the Isle of Man. One I remember vividly in a theatre in Liverpool - The Phantom of the Opera - amazing! Les Mis was the first big, long running show I had seen - and to see it in its "home place" of the Queens Theatre was just amazing. The atmosphere was so powerful and consuming. The actors and actresses were so talented there was never a point at which you felt they were just acting, this was their lives you were watching up there on the stage. All through the play I was engrossed, suckered in to the emotions and happenings, I laughed, I even cried... Before taking the trip down to Londom my mum and I had been looking into all the different types of plays london had to offer. I have to admit I didn't know the plot or even the basics of Les Mis and so wasn't particularly bothered about seeing it. After seeing it, I couldn't have imagined going to see a better play... I loved it so much. I would recommend this play to anyone. GO AND SEE IT NOW!

Official Website

Hand to Eye

Hand to Eye was a book that featured strongly in a project we were given in my first year at college. It features, work and reviews on 45 illustrator from around the world. It features computerised images along with the seemingly more popular hand drawn illustrations that seems to be ever more in fashion of late. The thing i like about this book is the way in which it focuses on so many different artists but yet the layout allows you to compare and contrast the work which would otherwise would be impossible...

Exhibition

Buy the book

George Segal

I don't know a great deal about George Segal, his work was something I stumbled over one time in the library and found it really interesting.

As my final piece for my GCSE art exam I made a large scale (1 x 1.5m) relief of the Four Horses of the Apocalypse using plaster bandage and soon came to hate the stuff with a passion... To see famous artist using to use plaster bandage as his chosen material was quite interesting as I has seen how difficult it was to get simple results on a smaller scale; the results Segal achieves is really impressive.



From the work I have seen of his my favourite has to be Lovers Fragments, life sized fragments cast from humans. They show a variety of poses of people, rarely showing all of them but just enough to see there are two people and tries to show the love contained in that simple genture or moment.

Stefan Sagmeister

There is one piece in particular that has drawn me to liking Sagmeisters work and that piece is this: Poster for AIGA lecture in Cranbrook, Michigan, 1999



He was asked to create a poster for a lecture he was to give and so asked his assitant to carve the details onto his torso with an X-acto knife and photographed the result. The scars from which still mark his skin to this day. One thing I like about this piece is the fact that it is so shocking to begin with, it leaves the viewer thinking what else would he do in the name of art? I also like the fact that he holds a box of plasters in his hand almost just out of shot but helps to show this isn't just a cleverly concieved photoshoped image. He has actually suffered for his art... also the fact that it is possible to see places where the assistant has gone wrong and actually had to cross out some of the words!



Sagmeister has done many other pieces, the majority of which are in a similar style, not sticking to the clean tidy lines we so often see in graphic work but crossing the lines and confusing the eye to create unusual and imaginative pieces.



Read about him

Creative Review

I started reading Creative Review when I was in my first year at college, there were always back issues lying around the studio and usually helped to fill up the time when we just couldn't be bothered to do the piles of work we had scattered around us. I was soon able to pursuade my parents that a subscription through the local newspaper shop was a good idea, after all it's considered one of the leading monthly magazines for Visual Communication. Focusing its pages on graphic design, advertising, new media, photography, illustration, typography and more.

One thing that I love about CR is the way in which you may see unusual adverts on TV and wonder who or what made and created them only to find in the next issue of CR there is a full explaination of how, who, why and when these modern day master pieces were created.



Along with the monthly magazine, people who subscribe through CR themselves receive a free bi-annual DVD with over three hours of music videos, short films commercials and more from the years creative geniuses and up and coming Vis Comm stars.

In addition to the magazines and DVD, CR offers the usual advertising space which, once we've finished our degree will probably come in very handy wheather we choose to go into a job already in the industry or we want to create our own companies.

CR also offers a range of competitions and opportunites for up and coming designers such as the Annual - a yearly competition which brings together over 100 of the top visual communication work from around the world.

Creative Review has under gone a large change in layout and is considered to be the "new and improved" version but I personally liked the old layout more... but nevermind we all get used to change in the end.



Check it out

Sony-Bravia advert

This advert was first viewed in July 2005 in which the director Nicolai Fuglsig released 250,000 multi-coloured bouncy balls down the streets of San Francisco. They used large scale, cutomised air cannons to release the balls down the streets with cameras set up in side street to capture the action and huge nets to capture the balls. Once it had all died down, huge teams of people went out and gathered up the balls in bins to start all over again...

Check it out

Music

Music has always been a big influence in my life, all through my teenage years I have searched out new bands and types of music to listen to. My love of music all started with my older brother Mark, he was interested in metal and older music such as Metallica, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and so introduced me into this sort of music. I liked it, but I needed more and so music channels came into play big style!

My parents listened to music but never really had a great interest in it. Their CD collection consisted of things such as Fleetwood Mac, Queens greatest hits (which
I think everyone ones at some point or other...) The lighthouse family, and some more chilled stuff like Enya or classical stuff. I liked some of the stuff they listen to, and have to admit that I have listened to some of it more recently (stil loving Fleetwood mac... Stevies voice... tis a classic) but soon enough Mark and I began surpassing our parents with the music and they started stealing our music.

In my earlier teenage years I admit that i listened to music that would be considered to be "emo" but I've got to the point that I really don't give a flying crap what other people think of my music taste. I hate the fact that there are people out there who criticise people for the music they listen to... I realise that at one point I would only listen to "metal" and "rock" music, and then only to bands that would be accepted by m y peers but now... SOD IT. if I like it i'll listen to it.

such as today, I'm currently listening to Jose Gonzalez - which i was introduced to after seeing the Sony advert, I've also been listening to Jack Johnson, Institute, Nine Inch Nails, Imogen Heap, Massive Attack, Faithless and The Prodigy

Want to label me? Feel free... I just don't care any more :)

Girl, Interrupted

I first saw this as a movie on TV one evening many years ago. Soon after I bought the book after having been so affected by the movie, and I was not disappointed. The book is a lot more indepth and moving than the movie which, by comparison, doesn't even come close.

Kaysen's memoir was originally published in 1993, but it portrays events from 1967 to 1969. She signed herself into McLean Hospital at the age of 18, and stayed for nearly two years. Over 20 years after, she hired a lawyer to get access to the medical records giving her diagnosis, and some of these are published in the book.

The movie has four very well known actresses by the names of: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg and Brittany Murphy as the deli chicken lover who ends up commiting suicide after taunts from the aggressive Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie). The book was published in 1993 and the movie was made in 1999 and directed by James Mangold. The Genre is considered to be biography/drama as the book is a biography of the author Susanna Kaysen (screen play by James Mangold) and the 18 months she spent in a mental institution after an accidental suicide attempt.

In the beginning, the movie is very jumpy, skipping from one time to the next to help the viewer to understand the mental perspective of Susanna (played by Ryder) soon it drags you into the oddities and lives on the ward and allows you views into patients worlds such as Gerogina (susannas room mate) Polly (aka Torch, as she set herself on fire at a young age and had been institutionalised ever since) and Daisy (played extremly well by Brittany Murphy - definitly one of her better roles) it follows the lives of the patients through the perspective of the lead roles eyes (Susanna Kaysen/Winona Ryder) and often uses voice overs from her diary kept during the period on the ward. One of the main focusses is on the relationship between Susanna (Ryder) and Lisa (Jolie). Angelina plays an aggressive, powerful character adept at manipulating the other patients and caretakers. We first meet Lisa (AJ) when she enters kicking and screaming being dragged in by the ward attendants after being caughts after yet another escape. She instantly takes notice of Susanna (ryder) as she has moved into the room, we find out, that used to be occupied by Lisas best friend who committed suicide after her escape.

The movie does have a strong sad feeling due to its subject matter but it is immense in the way it is shown and soon has you entranced into the lives of the characters, and has you laughing and crying along with them all...

It is many years since I have read the book (I lent it to a friend and never got it back - grrr) but from what I remember it is a great deal heavier (emotionally) than the movie and has more graphic descriptions of more painfull events that the movie leaves out, the book is able to handle due to its medium.

I love this story, both book and movie and recomend it to many people (although it's probably females that would enjoy it more...) the fact the it is a true story through the eyes of the author only makes it more powerful and moving to behold.



Buy the book here

Check out movie info here

"The Best Page in the Universe"

OH THE HILARITY OF RANDOM OFFENSIVE CRAP... I love it...

This link was forced on me some months ago when I was meant to be attempting work but instead got distracted by this...

CHECK IT OUT

It is the stupidest, most offensive, hilarious, most obtuse stuff I have ever seen... and it's proud!

and the best you wish to know?... has to be this image...



The creator is some random fella who started all this as a list of things that "pissed him off"... read this FAQ entry:

"How did this site start? How do you promote your site?

This site started out as a text document containing a list of 50 things that "pissed me off." I circulated it to people on efnet #coders a long time ago, they liked it, so I posted my first page back in '97. I don't promote this site, all traffic has been generated by word-of-mouth alone.

How many people write for your site?

Just me. I do all the articles, graphics, programming, layout, email responses, etc."

ok so the content is on the whole completely offensive to anyone and everyone but sometimes he comes up with little gems that make you laugh so hard it hurts. and at the end of the day there are some people out there whose sole purpose is to say some of the things we're thinking along the years... The site consists of images crappily created on paintshop, or at a push possibly photoshop... and along with the images the creator usually has typed a large, rambling rant about the subject in hand, check out this for instance...



and the rant... "So I was sitting there the other day enjoying a delicious spotted owl taco when along comes this walrus of a woman wearing a midriff t-shirt, exposing her flabby disgusting lard-filled gut as she lumbered along. I stood up so I could get a clear shot of her because I was about to barf up my lunch, when I suddenly realized that I was surrounded by nasty fat chicks with giant saggy guts. GROSS.

Every time I see another one of these lardass women parading around in some skimpy outfit, it makes me impotent for weeks. I don't get it. Is it part of that whole "acceptance" thing? That stupid mentality that we're all beautiful and that having a gut is cute? Trust me, your gut (and it is a gut, not a "tummy") is not as sexy as you think. It's nauseating. If you don't have the body for it, then why wear a tiny midriff t-shirt that accentuates your bulbous lard sack?

I know it's the trendy thing to go around dressed like Britney Spears because you're all mindless media drones with no opinions or personalities. I know that you all watch Jenny Jones and you have "if you've got it, flaunt it" chiseled into your minds (and I use the word "minds" loosely here because using this word implies that you have some mental capacity). Quit buying this shit. You're not Britney Spears. You're not hot. You're not popular. Nobody cares about your stupid new shirt and it doesn't matter how much you spend on your clothes because you're always going to be the same old boring you, who listens to the same music everyone else listens to because you're insecure and don't have opinions.

Just because looking like trash will help you get laid doesn't mean that you're any less of a vile pig. Cover up. Get some decency. Being able to get laid doesn't mean that you're attractive, and it doesn't mean you should go around showcasing your fatass to people either. There's always someone as horny as you are ugly. Take the hint: they don't make tube tops in extra-large because fat people shouldn't wear them."

generally random offensive stuff that people tend to think not say, let alone publish...

but I have to admit this is a good idea...

Simone Lia, Tom Gauld and Cabanon Press

Yet another website I found while randomly searching at random for random stuff one random day, randomly like...

Simone Lia and Tom Gauld are a Graphic artists/writiers. They illustrator/writes comics and children's books and produces limited edition products.

They have combined to create Cabanon Press, a website to exhibit their work... check it out below or check out their individula websites:

Simone Lia

Tom Gauld

Cabanon Press

Simones Stuff:







Toms Stuff:

Baltic Gallery, Newcastle

At the beginning of this year we went on a class trip to Newcastle for two days in which time we visited the Baltic Art Gallery. It was quite interesting to see the gallery as I have mostly visited the Tate galleries and other London based galleries such as Saatchi and the National Portrait galleries etc.

I enjoyed looking around the gallery and seeing various works but found that the time allocated to viewing it all was far more than actually needed and so we seemed to find ourselves at a bit of a loose end after a while. The pieces that interested me the most were probably the videos that were shown in various rooms and floors throughout the gallery. There was one in particular that we spent a while watching which was all done through digital means with unusual flower forms and strange abstract shapes... I never got to find out who it was by but I liked it... ah well... anyhoo yeah it was a good experience to go there but i don't think it's a place i will be rushing back to anytime soon.

see their website

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy is an artist I was introduced to at an early age by my mum, she owns many of his books and so when i began to realise I wanted to go into the creative industry I began investigating the book shelves for things I may like and came across his book called "Wood" published in 1998 and also "Stone" published in the same year.




Andy uses natural materials and found objects to create art that usually has a short lifespan. Andy has worked on large scale pieces such as "Wall that Went for a Walk" in Grizedale Forest, Cumbria; drawing on the traditions of wall building from that area. He has also made a syccessor to this piece accompanied by the book "Wall" in which it shows how the wall was constructed along with some small scale art pieces in the surrounding area of the wall.


Andy's art varies in materials and techniques; using ice, leaves, mud, feathers, stones, water and other naturally found objects to create beautiful, sometimes breath taking pieces of art.

see info here

The images I have added to this blog do no justice to the books, if you like what you see i strongly reccomend checking out what other books are available such as Time

Post Secret

My friend sent me an e-mail a few months back, I hadn’t heard from her in months and was pleased she’d got in touch. We’d spent the previous two years in college together discussing the finer points of anything and everything and we always seemed to have a similar sense of artistic thought patterns, always trying new things, attempting to find and push boundaries.

So anyway, back to the e-mail entitled “look look look!” she told me about a website: www.postsecret.com, which her tutor had told her about that day. She sent me the link because, in her own words, she “needed to tell someone who would fully appreciate such an ace idea...check it out brussell sprout”. And so I did, and I’m really glad I did... The concept behind the website is amazing. It all began with an idea by Frank Warren for a community art project back in November 2004. He handed out blank fronted postcards to strangers and left them in public places asking people to write down a secret they had never told anyone and mail it to the address on the reverse, all this was to be done anonymously.

The post cards soon came streaming in, each individually crafted, revealing the senders deepest secrets, fears, desires, obsessions, a view into the soul of human nature. The cards themselves stood alone as works of art and were displayed in exhibitions around the country. After a time Frank stopped putting blank postcards out but still they came thick and fast through the post with post stamps from all over the world, homemade, intimate secrets held on a piece of card no bigger than 6 x 5 inches.

After visiting the site, which is simply a blog that is updated weekly, I was inclined to see the book. The only problem was that it wasn’t on sale in the UK and so I had to buy it through the American Amazon site where I ended up paying almost as much for postage as I did for the books itself. The price we pay for art... anyway I am really glad I did, it arrived at my flat a few weeks later in the morning around 11am and by 2pm I had read it all, cried, cringed and laughed my way through its 276 pages. I was amazed at peoples ability to open themselves up when the chance arrived in which they could spill their deepest secrets safe with the knowledge that no one would ever know who had sent in the card. I suppose this concept already exists in the world as a helping agent to people with charities such as The Samaritans. The whole concept of PostSecret is in fact strongly linked with an American charity called Hope which is advertised on the site offering help similar to that of The Samaritans but focusing strongly on helping the suicidal. PostSecret is, in a way, a form of counselling allowing people to externalise things they may have held inside for years, lightening their burdens and their souls.

One of the post cards contained in the book tells of how a woman decided to write down six secrets she was never able to tell the one person she told everything to - her partner. On a spur of the moment feeling she didn’t post the cards but instead placed them on her pillow in their bed next to her partners head and left for work, a few hours later he turned up at her work and proposed to her... human nature at its best.

One thing I keep wondering about is how much more interesting the postman’s job would have been when given the route that had the address that the cards went to. I wonder what the postmen must think when they read some of the postcards that were sent...



the website is updated every week on either Sunday or Monday with new postcards and updating information about exhibitions and events

The book can be bought from here (beware P&P)

The book is amazing, in fact no... the book is a book, it is pages and images and writing. It is the concept behind it, the nature of humans... it never fails to amaze me...

Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley was born in 1950 in London, where he continues to live and work. Since his first exhibition in 1981 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, he has exhibited extensively in Britain and abroad. He was awarded the Tate Gallery Turner Prize in 1994.




In the 1960s he studied archaeology, anthropology and art history at Trinity College in Cambridge. He also spent three years in India where he studied Buddhist Meditation. Gormley’s early studies and his knowledge and interest in religions, philosophy and literature underpin his work to this day.



It was in the last 1970s that Gormley first used lead as a medium for his work while he studied sculpture at the Slade School of Art. He branched out into various other mediums such as concrete, iron and clay during the mid 1980s. It was during this period and his work with clay that saw the development of his so-called Fields; a group of clay figures made by communities in Australia, North America, South America, Europe and Britain.




Gormley is interested in the human figure and much of his work explores the body. He uses only one model for his body casts, one form giving a sense of constancy and intimacy; he uses the one model he knows better than any he could employ – his own frame. He knows the shapes and sizes that it will appear in the finished product. He knows what to expect and so his work has very intimate feeling of surveillance. He sees this starting point at a lived moment – a real body in real time. The human figure has been the dominant theme in Gormley’s work since the 1980s. He has said that ‘objects cannot talk of experiences’ but yet uses objects formed from his own figure to express emotions, thoughts and feelings.



Gormley’s best know work, the towering figure The Angel of the North was completed in 1998 and stands outside Gateshead on the A1. I saw it for the first time on our way back from Newcastle and for some inexplicable reason felt incredibly moved upon viewing it even for those few seconds as we drove past. It is constructed from the dimensions of his body and mathematically enlarged to around 65 feet high with a wingspan of 177 feet.

We, as the viewer, are essential to Gormley’s work. As the artist says there is ‘the work, the space and the viewer’. For Gormley it is the activity of looking and feeling that’s important, he wants us to create a context or meaning with ‘this raw material’. He talks about the work being a catalyst or waiting ‘like a trap’ for the life of the viewer to come and fill it.



“I want to deal with existence and I want to use my own existence” he says, “in a sense, as the raw material. It is important to me that each of these works comes from a lived moment. It isn’t an invention; it’s not an attempt to make a significant abstract form; it is a testament to a lived moment that has been transformed from flesh and its mortality into another zone of time.”



This can be compared to the way a person collects fragments from a day out as a reminder of that time. They stand alone as a memento, a scar left on view to conjure memories of that moment so that internal confusion can be released and no longer must be held inside to torment the mind. Along with the internal aspects of his work Gormley allows the viewer to feel less alone with their emotions - a support group – if you will, by viewing his work.



The models secret quests, missions are forever ongoing, forever unfulfilled, they hold their positions, waiting to continue with their journeys. There is a sense of foreboding, a sense of ominous happenings although they never reach a conclusion, an end of any type, they never show their beginning; they’re stuck in a continual loop that never moves, but emits the sense of movements both past and future.




All in all I cannot explain how it is that Gormleys work makes me feel, they are so calming and yet so hostile, we – the viewer - stand there and look at them, waiting for something to happen, but we know nothing ever will, it is an endless cycle, never moving, never changing, just waiting.



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