Quintadagio - 67

I love it when people ask me where my ideas for my work come from.Yesterday Jeanette very kindly said in the comments section that my ideas come from a "Wondrous place". Virtually all my inspiration (at least for my more surreal works) comes from my experiences and memories of my life.Significant events and people. I my mind, characters, events..feelings sit like chocolates in a box which is at the bottom of the sea. I like to gaze into the sea and hear the waves....I love to listen to music and I find that from time to time..certain 'chocolates' from the box float towards the surface...or near the surface...sometimes I 'dive' and look for a particular sweetie. Incidentally, I hope you don't mind me writing in metaphores like this...I find it easier to think in terms of images as opposed to words..this is something Jan cannot understand..I wonder, is it common ? Do you think in words or pictures?

I also find it amusing when (as happened not long ago whilst chatting to one of my son's friends) I'm asked if I 'do' drugs.I hereby state categorically here and now, that i have never used cannabis,speed ,LSD, Ecstasy or magic mushrooms or any other 'drug other than caffeine and alcohol. I used to smoke cigarettes for a few years but gave up as it is an irrationally stupid thing to do to your body and finances, and I do enjoy alcohol...sometimes in large amounts!!But I deplore the use of illegal substances having known around 7 people die as a result of heroin use, and others suffer irreversible mental health problems deriving from cannabis use. My mind is a freaky place sometimes and goodness only knows what hallucinogenics would do to it...i do not need that kind of rubbish in my life when I'm able to create the kind of works I already do!!..there is so much wrong with society because of the drug market causing crime , fear, pain and ill health.

Anyway, (going back to my original theme) I think it's true to say that amongst these chocolates are probably more staple and essential components.These might be characters and objects...there are various 'tastes' which predominate and are more prominent. But there are undertastes..complementary slights which add to the overall imame.Sometimes the 'meal' might be a heavy protein rich dish, of it might be a little snack....

Contained in my work are very personal and private aspects of my experience. Often given in symbolic code, I find it awkward to explain , but in a compelling sense, something that excites me to pin my most intimate memories on a wall for the public to see but not necessarily understand.Despite the fact that my more erotic and fetishistic pictures are popular, they also draw some derision from some observers who probably have me written off as just another dirty old man with a panty fetish. There are very real reasons and events in my life why I have particular preoccupations with things, and I am forever in search of the reasons and the events in my life that prompt such things. I use these things as a visual vocabulary of statement and musings. A little like composing a poem where the sound of a word is as more important to the overall meaning of the poem as the dictionary definition of that word.But each fascination has a back story...not always good and wholesome.I am after all a mixture of the the things that have happened to me.

I often hesitate to discus in public these things as I've lived in a world where ridicule and prejudice cloud and devalue a person's makeup if they are in anyway different to 'the Norm' whatever the hell that is!!, but if you want me to, I'll can be coaxed into being a little more unguarded..if not, I'll understand.