Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Numerology


exercisebynumbers
Originally uploaded by wastedpapiers.
I'm thrilled to be part of this project by WM Recordings, an online independent music publishing group. Yours truly was asked to make the sleeve art which I was happy to do. I've only listened to part of the album but it sounds great and look forward listening to it at my leisure.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Slap Dab Cabbage


ascarypostbox
Originally uploaded by wastedpapiers.
My Dad used to say this from time to time long before the advent of DAB radio. I walked into town today and one of the things I bought was aan optical lead for the DAB radio so that I could plug it into the MD recorder and record onto the dozens of minidiscs I bought at the boot sale. I had this brainwave and I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before. Also got a puncture repair kit from Argos for Archie who has a flat tyre. Bobby Zimmerframe has just started wailing on TV so will return to this later.
That was great. Those idiots booing him when he played his electric set in '66. Some very funny moments too standing outside a pet shop and making up some improvised poetry using the writing on the posters outside. Brilliant.
What else I got? I got money from bank (twice). Posted a packet at post office. I got Moby Dick. I got A House With Flying Daggers from the library. I got a flying library from the bank. I got a Moby post office. I got a house with a flying packet. I got you under my chin.
The gasman cometh in the morning to replace the old one with a grand spanking new one. A digital gas meter? Bright shiny gas meter. I don't really know why but I expect it will charge us more for the gas!
I got a very heavy bag so had to get the bus home. Plugged in all the wires and it worked perfectly. Great!

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Day trip to North Wales.

At last, something to write home about! A nice day out with our old chums Tony and Penny to Talacre beach, on the mouth of the River Dee, North Wales. Such a great place with a little lighthouse , dunes and soft clean sand that stretched for miles. We took the kite that Tony and Penny had given us and after much assembling and string unknotting managed to get it aloft where it look very splendid against the blue sky. We had a picnic by the dunes and watched the dogs and people walking by and the other kites in the distance. The windmills on the horizon kept changing colour as the light hit them - from white and then dark grey so they were almost invisible.
One the way back we stopped off at the remnants cloth place for tea and cake whilst Penny and Hazel went shopping for bits of cloth.
Today it was sunny so the boot sale at Weaverham was pretty packed. I got a big stack of minidiscs for a fiver. Foolishly I bought a minidisc player a couple of years ago on the strength of getting some discs of old 78's that someone had promised me. I got a couple but they fizzled out and it's been idle ever since. So nice to have a all these to play on it. A strange mixture of 80's disco and dance tracks upto more recent things by Oasis and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Archie sounded keen to hear the latter.Also found some old postcards including a pillar box with arms and legs. Hazel got some too and a pile of Deakin crockery for 20p. She's pulled a muscle in her back and so hobbling around like an old lady going "Ooh" and "Ouch" every so often.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Blogging train late again!


Robokong
Originally uploaded by wastedpapiers.
Sorry, i seem to have been neglecting my blogs just lately, especially this one. The truth is I havent really been doing anything out of the ordinairy. The usual collaging, internet,music,shopping, cooking, etc. The collage here is another made for the iRobot group at Flickr.
I walked into town Wednesday to get a few things we were running out of- apples, bananas, milk etc. My arm had stretched about three inches by the time I got the heavy bag of shopping home! I can now pick up any dropped coins I find in the gutter without much bending!
Archie has a new piece of Spanish guitar to learn. Seems the teacher is moving away from the pop and rock stuff to more serious tricky work now. Archie seems to be coping with it quite well. He's getting another animation ready for the Exposures Film festival in Manchester soon. He just recieved a DVD of last years "Show Reel" of the best stuff which his "Light The House" is on. It's been sent round to schools and colleges all round the country so he's dead chuffed.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Wizzle, Pizzle and Drizzle.

On a robot kick just lately and making paper robots and this new collage for Flickr iRobot group that i started. There are robot groups but they are a bit messy with all kinds of odd stuff that's not related to robots as i see them. I like the old fashioned "nuts and bolts" robots that were made into tinplate toys in the 50's and 60's. Also those rubbishy ones from old Republic and Universal serials of the 40's and 50's that I remember as a kid at Saturday Morning flicks.
I should have a few links here but it's such a faff to do. I might come back later and fit them in if i have time. A little robot that would do it all for me would be a great idea. I'll make one out of this old cereal packet and some sticky backed plastic!
yesterday was a bit of a wash-out bootsale wise. There were few stalls but mostly full of old toys and not ONE robot amongst them!
Not even any records for Boot sale Sounds blog. There I did one.
Hazel and Archie cycled over to the organic farm shop to buy some eggs later on when the drizzle stopped. It's a lovely ride up a country lane and not far from us. She said the vegetables looked "a bit sad" so she didn't buy any. Big frowns on the potatoes? They bought a tea and ice cream and sat looking out over the valley and the little church beyond. I should go too but my bike still has a puncture from about two years ago and the inner tubes need replacing. I prefer to walk anyway.
Archie is off to the opera in Nantwich today. Its a special school trip. he can wear what he likes and is to take a packed lunch. I have strict orders not to put cream cheese and lettuce in the sandwiches!
Its Hazels first day back at college and the joys of moulding those new recruits into the creative folk of the future.
The sun is shining so I'm walking into town to get some shopping and see what the charity shops have added over the weekend.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Mail artist at work.


Mail artist at work. 1992.
Originally uploaded by wastedpapiers.
Here I am in 1992 surrounded by our clutter in Lambeth Walk. We used to clear the table to have meals in those days! I have a room of my own now which looks very similar if slightly smaller. At least i don't have to clear the table every five minutes. probabaly why its in such a state!
A proper photographer, Roger Birch, took this photo and several others (see Flickr) for an obscure book published by the British American Arts Association called "The Artist In The Changing City". The photo they used was a much nicer one of Hazel and me holding Archie, who must have been a few months old at the time.
I walked in to town and back yesterday and popped in the usual shops, the post office, the bank etc. Asked in the library about Ben Zander? that Hazel wanted to know about. She's going to a talk by him in Liverpool tomorrow. He is one of them motivational speakers apparently but it's all about being creative. She thought it might help her teaching.
I got a couple of cheap DVD's including Master and Commander. The woman in the charity shop asked if we had surround sound and I said no. Oh, that's good she said because she watched it at her brothers house and all you could hear was "BOOM!' and "BANG!" etc.
Found a nice website that has dozens of paper robots to print out and make up. I made one in the afternoon. It looks great. I started a robot group on Flickr on the strength of it. I might make another later though our printer seems a bit low on the yellow ink.


mizio-s.hp.infoseek.co.jp/top_e_robo-t.html

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Sunday fun and games.


snakes & ladders
Originally uploaded by wastedpapiers.
Only one boot sale today, over at the High School in Hartford , about three miles away as the starling flies (they are hundreds gathering for a mass exodus!)
I found two tin toys that I'd seen before but they were expensive for reproductions. They were cheaper this time round so bought them. They are ducks who ride round in circles with propellers on their heads ( one has his missing). Made in China like most things these days.Also got "Shaun Of The Dead" on DVD and a book to cut up for collage. Hazel got some ARP tunic buttons and a bowl of tin badges. Most were pretty new but a couple of older ones of interest which will appear on her BLOG no doubt.
Archie didn't get anything and went round with a face like a someone on the X Factor who's just been told they haven't got any talent.
Hazel has gone off there again to take her Mom and sister to get some gaudy nick-nacks and ceramic what-nots.
Hardly any records to sift through sadly so Boot Sale Sounds will have to rely on old stock.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Back to school


teachers pet
Originally uploaded by wastedpapiers.
Archie's second day back at school today. He took his guitar just incase there was a guitar lesson - he seemed unsure. Hopefully he'll settle back into the old routine again.
We went to the flea market in Crewe this morning. I was hoping for some vinyl treaures but all I got was a PC game ( Mall Tycoon) for Archie who enjoys anything with Tycoon in the title. Also "Animals" the Ricky Gervais DVD for a quid. Hazel also dodnt find much- just a small reel of Coronation Ribbon.
It was quite a nice sunny morning so surprised there weren't more stalls there.
The council men are digging up the pavement over the road again after filling in the previous holes a couple of weeks ago! How do they do it? They must go for special lessons in time wasting! One of them is pushing a wire down the hole and joining it up to the new lamp posts. I excpect someone else will come along in a couple of weeks to dig it up again so they can switch it on!

Monday, September 05, 2005

September Collaging


Work table with collages
Originally uploaded by wastedpapiers.
Have been busy the last couple of days making these collages for Dietmar and Anne's assembling mail art calendar project. They need 24 pages 10.5 x 14.5 inches. They will compile them into a calendar and each participant gets one by the end of the year so you can use it for 2006. I think it's a great idea but a lot of work! Dietmar and Anne have always made some stunning work for projects of mine in the past so thought it about time I sent them something I'd spent a lot of time on.
Yesterday we went to the boot sale at Witton Albion football club which was quite busy and more stalls that usual. I found a few cheap CD's, mostly from covers of old MOJO magazines- punk and garage bands of the 60's. Also two vinyl LP's- one of cockney songs by David Kossoff and another by a a duo called "Strange Folk" from the 80's that I'd never heard of. Listening to it now I can see why!
Hazel got some plants and a T-shirt and Archie found a fly splatting gun which fires a "net" by a spring mechanism.
In the afternoon we had a walk over at Marbury and a picnic by the lake as the weather was so hot. There was a Side Saddle horse display in the arena bit ( by the information centre) and women in fancy dress told us about the history of side saddle riding and four of them trotted round to some odd rap music which didn't really go with the clothes!? The microphone made her sound like a wheezing asthmatic which didn't help!
Archie was delighted to find out later that he didnt have to go to school on Monday and he had another day of holiday left!

Friday, September 02, 2005

Walk to Neumann's Flashes


Bluer sky over Flashes
Originally uploaded by wastedpapiers.
A pleasant stroll down the old Marbury road thats been closed off for some years now and turned into a footpath with access to the new walks around the "Flashes" or man made lakes which were once something to do with the salt mining industry. Lots of bird hides and fences with viewing slits to watch the wildfowl and other birds that use the reeds and water etc. Very few poeple around despite the beautiful weather and still the school holidays. Amazing to have such an idyllic nature trail so close to the town centre- you'd think it would be packed with people. We saw one family, one man walking his dog and one woman on a bike in the whole hour we were there.
I cleared my table a bit today you'll be glad to know so making collages is a bit easier- I even made a new one and overcame my fear of the Pritt-stick!
That sky was very Norwegian looking today with little white fluffy clouds dotted around, but I'm sure it wasn't quite the blue seen in this photo!