Seven Summers Too Long...

It has been far too long since I last posted here and I am glad to say that's because I have been very busy creating some new work.

I have been exploring the art of writing, not the prose poetry that I have been chipping away at with my songs but full on big time book writing. Yes I am pleased to say that I have emerged from the cave on the hill with over 70,000 words in the form of a illustrated novel. So inspired by this momentum of creativity I knocked off a short story and illustrated that too!

Seven Summers Short is a short story of a teenagers rights of passage. As told through the eyes of Charlie Hush who spends his teenage summers on holiday with his sisters, cousins and grandparents. This is a short story of one life growing and exploring while the other is growing weary and failing. I wanted to capture in words and image the quiet and fragile, yet profound and powerful moments that can happen between a grandfather and his grandson.

This inspired seven paintings that are now installed in a temporary exhibition in a suite of offices in Cardiff city centre. The paintings are 2x4 feet and framed in black timber. They are boards of marine ply with coated and uncoated areas of oil paint in order to reveal the exposed grain of the wood. I use a mixture of gold and silver enamel paint with oils and biro pen.

Please visit the website to see all the images....Bill Taylor-Beales

Concrete Sun

Today I am listening to Rachel Taylor-Beales and everywindow is open...


Every window is open.
Every TV is on.
Every fan is spinning.


I am Breathing air like concrete.
I am the last corners of an ice cream carton.
I am no longer attached by gravity to this particular planet.
I am a glorious line of washing drying in seconds hanging high and without motion.
I am a haze encasing a view from an old Welsh hill.
I wish I was Eddie Vedder singing an Indio cover.
I am remembering that if no one speaks of remarkable things Jon McGregor will.
I am waiting for the last Dr Who as one waits for a pizza to arrive.
I am running out of battery on my mac and I am away from main line civilisation.


I am not watching one of the many grass based activities.

I am not legend.

will the real me please slow down

Today I am listening to Mike Scott and it was a wonderful disguise.


Being busy.
Being very busy.
The faster we move the less we see the less others see us.


There is an HG Wells story about speeding up your own time frame, so that everyone else seems to be moving very slowly, Mr. Wells likens it to how a Bee must feel: as though it exists in a parallel universe.
In the story the character who gains this power realises that he can now intercept peoples lives now for good. He can move obstacles out the way of folk before they trip and fall. He can now observe that which passed him by before, a lady of poor means staring into a shop window with longing for the item within and he can really take time to see her and to understand her and help her.


Speed is a wonderful disguise. 


I re-read an old children's book from the fifties 'The Fitton Fourposter' this week. I had bought it from a charity shop in Nottingham during a time of recovery from acute anxiety.It held within it a strong timeless tonic. A soothing balm. A steadfast panacea. The pages were thick and tanned and in it four high school kids foil a bank robbery and capture the robbers who had hid 'the loot' in a museum.


Rose tinted spectacles are a wonderful disguise.


Once upon a time, a long long time ago. So long ago that it was in black and white. So long ago that only I and my invisible friend remember it. 
Well once upon a time there was a thing called Sunday.
The day once called Sunday was a pretend day.
It was a day you could use to hide from the other days. 


Eliminating the pause button is a wonderful disguise.


Mike Scott explains his inspiration  “I was living in the Findhorn community in the mid 1990s and started to see divinity in peoples’ faces, in their eyes... changed the way I look at life and other people forever, ... I realized everyone really is the same deep underneath, with the same longing to love and be loved. Behind all our appearances, as one writer says, ‘There is only one of us here.’ 

Good reasons to cry

Today I am listening to Rachel Taylor-Beales and feathers and flowers lay on the floor...

Reason 01: Seeing your future, and loving it!

In actual fact as i sit writing this I am listening to Rachel performing a cover of the Indigo girls song Closer to Fine in the living room, one of the many bonuses of living with a talented guitarist and vocalist. I recently bought a replacement copy of the Indigo girls CD and had forgotten how good it was. I actually performed the same song as Rachel walked down the aisle on our wedding day.

Reason 02: An audience who gets your art!

But Feathers and Flowers lay on the floor...the scattered debris left over from last weeks CD launch of Rachels new offering 'Dust and Gold'. Last week saw over a hundred folk enthusiastically chanting for more as Rachel drew her set to a close. Rachel had written all the material, created a highly dynamic and talented band, and performed the songs with conviction - it was a place to be  - as Nick Drake once said.

Reason 03: The exposure of human nature at its best.

I had yesterday off and managed to finish "The Book Thief', a stunningly beautiful book written by 'death' about a 13 yr old girl in Nazi germany during the second world war who befriends a jewish man. The prose is original and 

poetic -  the story is unflinching and the characters made me care!

Reason 04: The Dr. and a brilliant use of time travel.

Last night was the surprise reason to shed a tear, I usually applaud and smile as the end credits of Dr Who roll up especially in this 'boys own adventure' stylee series of the Dr. But last night after a rogue beasty was demised came a beautiful scene with Vincent van Gogh - Bill Nighy - the Dr and his lady: what aline up! The Dr. decided to show VAn the man just how appreciated his art was. My personal thanks to Richard Curtis.

The elevator is moving

Today I am listening to Vaughn Williams and the lark is ascending...


Someone somewhere chose some wood and nylon string and crafted a violin.
Someone somewhere chose a series of notes and placed them in an order and created a song.
Someone somewhere chose to give up their time to practice playing the violin and learn to play the song.


I chose to listen to the song.
This was one of my better choices.
My choice was rewarded with an ascension of mind and spirit. 


Other choices I have made have not been rewarded.
The choices were not bad ones.
They were not ill informed.
They were not malicious.
They were simply not rewarded.
They were simply my choices.


"I bid thee grapple chaos" said Ezra Pounds.
"I bid thee make choices" said Me.
"I bid thee choose to grapple the chaos, wrestle with it and sometime, somewhere, you will ascend.


You may only ascend a little way but in a world in constant descent this becomes important.


In 1727 Antonio Stradivari chose to make a violin
In 1914 Vaughn Williams chose to write The lark Ascending
In 2007 Janine Jensen chose to perform The lark Ascending on the Stradivari violin.
In 2010 I chose to listen.


The next 8 mins are all yours... enjoy.

Under a Plane-less sky...

Today I am Listening to the sound of the bank holiday...Nick Drake, My dog crunching its' new bone, Rachel turning the pages of the Uncut magazine, The washing machine from the other room on spin cycle...


Today I am watching the blossom from our cherry tree cascade down in the light breeze and fall onto the freshly hung-out washing on the line.


The sun is blooming...


Last weekend I was listening to songs by people I had never heard of from a very small mobile phone with a surprisingly powerful speaker. I was up a very tall ladder tied onto a railing and I was painting the awkward bits of a large mural. The r'n'b phone noise belonged to one of the teenagers who had turned up to paint a mural they had designed inspired by listening to stories from the over 50's in their community.  This is what is known as an intergenerational community art project. This is one of the things I do for a living. This is a very good thing.


The sun was illuminating...


The weekend before that I was laying on the grass surrounded by some friends at the Reading services. We were on our way to our friends daughters 1st birthday on the Kent coast and pausing for a little half time picnic. I lay listening to the animated conversation segueing between the leaders debate - the volcanic ash - the quality of writing in the girl with the dragon tattoo - the way people open their prepacked sandwiches (deciding to follow the printed instructions or find their own way in).


We were not there yet.
We were miles from home.
We were at a place where no one stays too long.
We were amongst strangers.
We were in transit.
We were under a plane-less sky.


I lay on the grass and the sun was stretching itself out.

Who pays the piper?

Today I am listening to Gillian Welch and everything is free now...

Come gather around the tribal fire and listen to the story teller, dance to the rhythms and be transported to the world that exists as bookends to this 'elementally physical' one. The role of the shaman, the witch doctor, the gospel priest is to gather us and unpack us in a community place so that we can release and engage with the spirit - soul - energy - id - of what it is to be alive and mortal. We are born and we will die on our own as individuals, but in-between we collide and stick and come apart and fight and love each other. We desperately try and work out who we are and how we fit into existence by sharing our hopes - dreams - thoughts - fears - of what it is to be alive.

Artists also play the role of the shaman - the witch-doctor and the priest, they explore the high mountains and the dark caves of being alive the pure and the plastic of people. They digest experience and they ruminate and they expel ideas  in image and sound. These images and sounds can arrest us - transfix us and transport us. They can connect us. They can unite us.

So who pays the piper?

If we want the artist to be true and to tell us what they have found in the high places and dark caves, we must value the time and energy and material cost to their artistic production.

In other words, and I hope I'm not sounding to radical here, we must pay them for the art they produce.

If a recording artist has made a piece of music for £x then that is what we pay to have that piece of music.

This is not a new concept it is "not stealing" an old fashioned idea maybe but one that I think works.

I too have 'borrowed' cd's, but I too have bought them after I have decided this is something I like and want to add to my collection.

Music matters which means so does the artist who made it.

Please support all artists buy encouraging everyone to honour the fact that they spent time and money on producing the artifact and should be paid accordingly.

Please enjoy Gillian Welch who says it so brilliantly and poignantly below.

Please visit the music matters website.

Please honour the music you love.

http://www.whymusicmatters.org/

Everything is free now,
That's what they say.
Everything I ever done,
Gotta give it away.
Someone hit the big score.
They figured it out,
That we're gonna do it anyway,
Even if doesn't pay.

I can get a tip jar,
Gas up the car,
And try to make a little change
Down at the bar.

Or I can get a straight job,
I've done it before.
I never minded working hard,
It's who I'm working for.

(Chorus)

Every day I wake up,
Hummin' a song.
But I don't need to run around,
I just stay home.

And sing a little love song,
My love, to myself.
If there's something that you want to hear,
You can sing it yourself.

'Cause everything is free now,
That what I say.
No one's got to listen to
The words in my head.
Someone hit the big score,
And I figured it out,
That we're gonna do it anyway,
Even if doesn't pay.