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I’d been looking forward to watching this movie for a while. I finally watched it last night and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a moving cinematic masterpiece directed by Wim Wenders, and I’m currently working through a boxed-set of some of his best movies that’s been lent to me by a friend. This award winning film is an unusual road movie that tells the story of Travis, presumed dead, who reappears after four years wandering in the desert on the Mexico border as an amnesiac. It’s a slow-burner that holds your attention through an excellent screenplay by the acclaimed playwright Sam Shepard, great acting, lovingly crafted photography and tracking shots, and an atmospheric score by Ry Cooder that’s integral to the whole movie. The story unfolds gently, mirroring the experience of Travis (and those around him) as he seeks to reconstruct his memories, and many of the scenes are so good you’re just transfixed on the screen. This is a movie I can wholeheartedly recommend.

I love the delicate quality of light in this photograph taken in York 2008. It was part of a site-specific art installation by Keiko Mukaide in St. Mary’s Church. If you enjoy my photos, please check out my Facebook photography page and click the [Like] button, John Ager’s Art & Photography.

This is first of a number of my favourite photographs I’ll be showcasing on this site. I really like this one of my daughter that was taken in dark surroundings on a low specification mobile phone camera in 2008, it shows that good results can be achieved without expensive equipment. It was originally a colour photo which I changed to monochrome and then tweaked to give some soft-focus and grainy effects. I hope you like it!

I’ve also set up a Facebook page for my photography – so if you enjoy my photos please check it out and click the [Like] button, John Ager’s Art & Photography.

It’s been a few day since I posted, so I thought I’d share some photos I took today on a beautiful spring afternoon. This is my favourite from the whole photoshoot, but you can see the whole set here! You can use any of these images in accordance with the Creative Commons licence on each photo page, and they can also be licensed through Getty Images.

This guest post comes from Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media at De Montfort University in Leicester.

In today’s networked world, many skills which we may already have but not recognise as special are coming to the fore. The Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California, have identified a skill set which they call ‘amplified’. It features qualities such as ‘Cooperation Radar’  - the ability to sense, almost intuitively, who would make the best collaborators on a particular task, and ‘High Ping Quotient’ – responsiveness to other people’s requests for engagement; propensity to reach out to others in a network. You can read all ten of them here. The language may be very Californian, but the skills are ones we would all recognise. And social media is helping us to do them even better.

In 2009 I ran a project called ‘Amplified Leicester’ which brought together 30 very different Leicester people and helped them develop their ‘amplified skills’. That project is now over but this year we’ve been hosting a series of talks and panels at Phoenix Square where we look at ‘amplified’ approaches and discuss how they can be used in specific contexts. So far we’ve looked at politics, police, and crafts (see embedded video), and this month we’re considering faith (or not) in an panel discussion convened by George Ballentyne of the Council of Faiths and called Amplified Communities of Faith or Belief.

George’s guests are a very varied group – Sughra Ahmed of the Islamic Foundation, Richard Hopper of Leicester Secular Society, and Matthew Hughes of Samworth Enterprise Academy, a Church of England school. It takes place at 7.00 pm Wednesday 23 March 2011 at Phoenix Square. Do come along to hear what they have to say and join us in the Screen Lounge afterwards to continue the discussion. It’s free and open to all. Book online here and join the Amplified Leicester community here. We look forward to seeing you! The Twitter hashtag is #ampleic for all Amplified Leicester related tweets.

Note: In the video, David says “anti-feminist” at one point when he clearly means “anti-sexist”, he’s not being allowed to live it down! (John)

When John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) was on BBC The One Show last evening and mentioned PiL, the presenters didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and clearly hadn’t done their homework! This video may enlighten them! A great song, amazing bass by Jah Wobble, and excellent lyrics!

Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha.
You never listen to word that I said
You only seen me
For the clothes that I wear
Or did the intrest go so much deeper
It must have been
The colour of my hair.

Public Image.

What you wanted was never made clear
Behind the image was ignorance and fear
You hide behind his public machine
Still follow the same old scheme.

Public Image.

Two sides to evrey story
Somebody had to stop me
I’m not the same as when I began
I will not be treated as property.

Public Image.

Two sides to evrey story
Somebody had to stop me
I’m not the same as when I began
It’s not a game of Monopoly.

Public Image.

Public Image you got what you wanted
The Public Image belongs to me
It’s my entrance
My own creation
My grand finale
My goodbye

Public Image.

Public Image.

Goodbye.

[strange growling/roaring noise at the end.]

…this is Part 2 of a post by Adam Howie. Click here for Part 1.

Staring into the abyss

So, let’s say the idea has come, the muses have whispered their sweet musings into my mind’s eye and I have an idea, but now comes the greatest enemy of creation (well second, apathy/inertia is probably the biggest), the blank page. The void, the abyss if you will, where nothing yet exists on the page (ignoring the scientific view of the microorganisms, or the atomic structure, of the mind warping reality of the quantum world within… ahem…I digress). The blank page is always daunting I think, especially if the idea is still forming. I also do art live in stage during events and sometimes inspiration does not strike at all leading up to the event (or worse I don’t know what to expect) and as it begins all I have are paints and a blank canvas. At one of my art courses I was taught, if you have a blank canvas and no idea how to start throw down some colour, or something, to start the process and remove the blank canvas. It’s strange but sometime just putting down a background of colour or texture is enough to ignite the inspiration. Effectively it removes the nothing and replaces it with something… kinda. Once started the process fuels itself but sometimes the fuel runs out and I am slowly learning that a good habit is to sometimes stop and leave a piece for a while and then return to it later with fresh ideas.

Walk away, just walk away…

One of the biggest things that I struggle with is when to stop. When is enough, enough? With my digital works I have a bit of a security blanket as I have the undo function. With paints/inks/etc it’s a lot harder, a mistake or doing too much could result in total failure (or at least a less effective piece). I am trying to learn when, in the words of my cooking sensei Alton Brown to “walk away, just walk away” and accept that enough has been done. For me the creative process doesn’t end, I tend not to “finish” a piece; I just have to leave it. Either because there Is nothing more I can do, or want to do, but that piece will stay with me and it will be used either to inspire another piece or when I have more skill and understanding I can perhaps revisit it and recreate it inspired by the old one and bringing new life to in a new piece.

So yeah, that’s a very quick look at creative inspiration and me, it’s something that I think will change, and evolve as I do. It comes and goes like the tides, and at times it feels like it’s so very far away.

Well I should do some plugging since I am here…

If you would like to see any of my work you can. See my work at my website: www.illusionaryconstructs.com or visit my personal blog: www.realityofdreams.org.uk which has links to most of the places that I haunt on the web, including where my work is for sale, such as, Redbubble: www.redbubble.com/people/lurchkimded

Thanks to John for the space on his blog and the opportunity to write this, hope it made sense and was an enjoyable read for you. Catch ya all on the flip side, laters.

…or how I wish I learned to stop worrying and just draw already!

I suppose since this is a guest post I should say hi before I delve in… Hi!

What? OK, a bit more of an introduction then, my name is Adam Howie, although I often go by the nickname Kimded online, and I am, for better or worse, an artist. John has been kind enough to give me some space on his blog to blether about my art and my inspiration/motivation behind it. In many ways this is not a “how to be inspired” or “how to be creative” post, there are way better courses, blogs, and the like out there for that, this is just a guy trying to explain what goes on in his head. Hopefully this will be at the very least interesting, and perhaps helpful to some. This of course means that I’ve been trying to figure out how best to do write this, and since I am a preacher’s son, it shall be a three point blog post.

But before I begin… well it’s a bit late for that but anyway, probably good to set out what I think about being creative and its place in our lives. I firmly believe that humanity is a creative species; we have an innate drive to create and appreciate created things. This desire takes many forms, painting, music, architecture, engineering, science, relationships, and so much more.  An odd list to be sure but in each of these there is found, when it is at its highest zenith, creativity, and creation. So I see art as only being a part of the larger act of creativity we can do, but it’s the one I shall be focusing on here. So yeah, a brief exploration of creative inspiration and me…

Finding Me… I mean, Inspiration

So, where do I find inspiration? Well the short answer is that, for me, inspiration is everywhere. Some of my art work is inspired by scripture verses, songs, lyrics, scientific theories, and quotes. A lot of it comes from various places and stews and simmers in my mind and then one thing with suddenly cause the various thoughts and ideas to coalesce into a distinct idea.

For me there is also a kind of tangential inspiration, those things that fuel these creative nexuses but not directly. Mainly this comes from looking at other people’s artworks and allowing their style, their use of colour, technique, and even what they have used to represent the ideas they are trying to convey to influence me and create new links in my mind. Also music is a great fuel for the creative fires for me; I almost always have music on when I am painting. I suppose in some ways it’s a noise that keeps my brain from running off to wildly or jumping around too much, as it has want to do. Even writing this I find myself jumping between writing, surfing, tweeting, and other things… just the way what counts as my mind works I guess.

I have been going to various art courses since deciding (perhaps foolishly) to try and make a living being an artist, these courses have been great for fuelling the background to inspiration as well as giving ideas for jump starting the creative process. One thing that I have found key is always having a pen or pencil and a sketchbook with me. If I get an idea almost no matter when or where (within reason of course) I try and do a quick sketch or even just jot down some notes. Of course I still need to do this more and develop the habit of sketching things I see for reference of later inspiration.

Click here for Part 2

Please excuse another Radiohead post (this will be the last one for a while), but I decided to listen to all their studio albums today in chronological order – plus a live album and a solo album by Thom Yorke. I was inspired to max-out on Radiohead following the release of their latest album yesterday and because I was going nowhere on a wet Saturday! I listened while doing bits and pieces round the house.

Their music is an acquired taste, but like all acquired tastes, well worth it in the end! I also like the fact that there’s an integrity in their music, with an unwillingness to bow to commercial pressure in the artistic process. Having said that, they are clearly very commercially ‘savvy’ in the way they market and release their stuff. The NME has said of the new album:

This is an avant-garde record, and most definitely not a return to the crowd-pleasing songwriting of the OK Computer era. In a sense it’s a continuation of In Rainbows in that Radiohead have now worked out how to be experimental without sacrificing the human element. As on that record, they display the knack of sounding deceptively machine-like. It sounds electronic even when it isn’t – but there’s always a pearl of soulfulness hidden within.

I’m now off to bed to listen to this final record of the day on my best Sennheiser headphones!

Update: After this close listen on headphones, I would say it has amazing richness, depth and humanity!

I love song lyrics as they can be hugely expressive, comparing favourably with the best poetry! I also enjoy sharing lyrics (and I know other people do as well), so I’ve created this special day for sharing lyrics on social media as updates. Put February 16 in your diary and start thinking of your favourite lyrics! There’s a Facebook Event which you can join and invite others to join. Please spread the word! The hashtag to use for anything related to the day is #songlyricsday and this is especially important on Twitter.