Nothing is lost

When I use a word, says Humpty Dumpty in Wonderland, it means just what I choose it to mean.

When I hear Humpty Dumpty's word it means whatever I understand it to mean.  It isn't necessarily the same thing.

When I look at a painting it means what I want it to mean.  Regardless of what the painter intended.  Anyway a painting that only had one interpretation would be a pretty lame painting.

My Dog Sighs & Midge, Angels ever Bright and Fair

A couple of years ago I bought a print of a picture by My Dog Sighs and Midge.  It showed two figures, kind of like mother and child.  It was painted on a page of sheet music, a piece of music called Angels, ever Bright and Fair, by Handel, c1750.

Angels are not really part of my belief system, my world view is basically This Earth The Only Heaven.  I don't feel the need for cherubim and seraphim. I bought the picture for the picture, not for any deeper reason.  But something special happened.

Earlier that year my daughter had given birth to a very premature baby. Twenty weeks. Baby Aubrey was not ready for the world.  It was the worst day of all of our lives.  After a little while when I looked at Angels, ever Bright and Fair I saw my daughter holding Aubrey.  Keeping her safe for ever more.  My love for the picture deepened.

And then my daughter told us she was expecting again. And once again she gave birth prematurely.  This time at 25 weeks, a month before Christmas. This time was different.  Thanks to the NHS, and Little Miss Fury's own fighting spirit, she made it. It wasn't an easy ride but she did it.  Then, whenever I looked at Angels, ever Bright and Fair, I started to see a different picture.  I saw Aubrey looking out for Little Miss Fury, keeping her safe.

It's nearly a year later.  Little Miss Fury is stronger and stronger, Now when I look at Angels, ever Bright and Fair the roles have changed.  Now Little Miss Fury is looking after her older sister, who will remain forever young.

Midge currently has an exhibition in Southsea.  My Dog Sighs spans the world.

Frankly, Mr Shankly

I grew up on Merseyside in the 1960s and 70s; the Beatles were Number 1 and Liverpool FC won the League in 1963-4, again in 65-66 and didn't finish outside the top 6 until 1993-94 when they were top again.  Between 1972 and 1992 they won the league 11 times and were runners up 7 times.

I supported Liverpool, because they were local, but also because they were, self evidently, the best. Liverpool managers Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley were not merely respected for their winning ways, they were loved.  No-one ever loved Alex Ferguson or Harry Rednapp. No-one.

Growing up I sometimes wondered why some other people didn't support Liverpool. Obviously Scouse Catholics supported Everton, but, as I understood it, there was some catechism that said they had to.

Finding myself in Portsmouth this afternoon, as Pompey fans left Fratton Park, following a home defeat by Notts County, I reflected on this.  What a noble thing it is, I thought, to drag yourself to Fratton Park and watch your team being beaten by a team that isn't even the best team in Nottingham. (Forest were beaten at home by Cardiff City)

But it wasn't always this way.  Once upon a time Portsmouth FC won the FA Cup.

Reflected in My Dog Sigh's latest, and possibly largest, eye is the Portsmouth team of 1939, holding captain Jimmy Guthrie aloft, brandishing the FA Cup.  Portsmouth beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 4:1 in the FA Cup final at Wembley.  As there were no cup finals during WW2 Portsmouth got to keep hold of the cup for a few years, allowing them to boast they have held the cup for longer than anyone else.  (For the record LFC have won it 7 times)

Jimmy Guthrie and his team mates were paid £20 each for their Cup Final appearance.  While that was probably a better day's pay than your average working man it was still less than the members of the band who played before the match received.  Quipped Jimmy "I'd have been better off playing the cornet".

This latest My Dog Sighs mural is a collaboration with Snub23 although there's no transformer style robots to be seen.  The wall, despite the T*sco sign, belongs to http://brilens.co.uk/

Another feather in Portsmouth's cap

New York, Shanghai, Stoke-onTrent - My Dog Sighs, Flora Borsi and Jimmy Cauty

New York Loneliness, My Dog Sighs, 2016

The last few posts here have been pretty negative about the state of both Art with a capital A and the sort of art you find on bus shelters.  The good news is there is still plenty of good stuff around.  Here's three of the best, currently exhibiting around the world: New York, Shanghai and Stoke-on-Trent.

First off, our old friend My Dog Sighs. In New York. And in Southsea.

My Dog Sighs, Brooklyn, photo by @zurburan1 

 The day the world turned day-glo, My Dog Sighs

 available now from www.mydogsighs.co.uk - going, going, gone

The day my pad went mad, My Dog Sighs in the Dog House, Southsea

Next up, the very wonderful Flora Borsi, from Hungary. She's been to Austria this week picking up awards for her amazing photos.  At the same time her art has been displayed in Shanghai as part of a celebration of Hungarian culture.  Photos below are from her FB page.  Find out more at www.floraborsi.com. 

Jimmy Cauty was once half of the KLF, the K Foundation, The Justified Ancients of MuMu and all the rest with Big Bill Drummond.  For the past few years he's been working big time with small scale (1:87) figures having a riot, a riot of his own.  He has created a post apocalyptic world in miniature.

Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP) Riot tour, Jimmy Cauty

picture from L-13

The exhibition is housed in a 40ft shipping container, travelling around the country, visiting 36 towns and cities that have riots in their story,  Currently in Stoke on Trent, I caught up with it a couple of weeks ago in Nottingham.

ADP Riot Tour, Nottingham

Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP) Riot tour, Jimmy Cauty

To view Cauty's work there are peepholes strategically placed in the container.  

graffiti added by the Great British public

It is part funded by the Arts Council -

AS OF 16TH JUNE THE ADP RIOT TOUR HAS BEEN AWARDED £49,000 BY THE ARTS COUNCIL OF ENGLAND IN SUPPORT OF WHAT THEY'VE DESCRIBED AS AN OUTSTANDING PROJECT.
So, as predicted we are now FUNDED BY THE STATE FOR THE STATE or FUNDED BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE or maybe WASTING TAX PAYERS MONEY AT 36 HISTORIC RIOT SITES AROUND THE COUNTRY, or even: PROVIDING AN OUTSTANDING and CRITICALLY ENGAGING ARTWORK FOR FREE TO A DIVERSE RANGE OF COMMUNITIES ON A NATIONWIDE SCALE...

all pictures by The Corn Poppy unless otherwise stated

Vinyl countdown

Exhibition at Play Dead, Southsea, July 2016

Eins, What is love?

When all else fails, play dead

 Tim Childs, This Kiss

Never speak words you don't mean

 Dice 67

 You have to be careful creating your own reality; you can get lost in it, so lost that it is hard to get back in the real word

 Korp, Worms

I said I was sorry

Midge, To sleep, to dream 

Peace will come and with it sleep

 Miss Wah

The past is not ever dead, it's not even past

 M-One, Hell is round the corner

Evil doesn't need a reason to exist

My Dog Sighs, Soul Girl 

Do right woman, do right man

 Nova, Sharron

What doesn't kill you makes you bitter

Angela Chick, Radical in paradise

Play dead. Rest in peace

art on vinyl from Play Dead and Pie & Vinyl present 33rpm, July 2016

quotes mainly from Play Dead by Anne Frasier

The Monochrome Set

I wanna be yours

John Cooper Clarke and My Dog Sighs

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner

breathing in your dust

I wanna be your Ford Cortina

I will never rust

If you like your coffee hot

let me be your coffee pot

You call the shots

I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat

for those frequent rainy days

I wanna be your dreamboat

when you want to sail away

Let me be your teddy bear

take me with you anywhere

I don’t care

I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter

I will not run out

I wanna be the electric heater

you’ll get cold without

I wanna be your setting lotion

hold your hair in deep devotion

Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean

that’s how deep is my devotion

John Cooper Clarke will be appearing at Portsmouth New Theatre Royal June 23rd

Words by national treasure: Dr John Cooper Clarke

Art by emerging national treasure: My Dog Sighs

and a fish credit to:  The Corn Poppy

A Southsea Hug

 A busy day for My Dog Sighs yesterday.  Free Art, charity art and Art with a capital A.  

Why be an artist? Because you want to produce stuff, you have a song you want to sing, you have a book bursting to get out of you, you know you can do it better than they can, you want to be rich and popular, you want your songs to be heard, your photos to be admired, your paintings to be seen. 

And you have to eat.  You can be a telephone engineer by day and a bass player in a covers band in the evening, you can spend your tea breaks at the bank writing the Last Great Novel, you can run the night shift at the factory but be photographing the sunrise and sunset  on weekends.  But do you want to make a living out of your art? You have to sell it.  

I was at a gig last night, the guy I went to see had just produced a cd.  He told me he finds it hard to say "Buy my cd" when he's performing, he just wants to play the songs.  That's ok, but if you want to make a living you have to sell yourself. As The Pop Group said nearly 40 years ago: we are all prostitutes.

Just because you're good doesn't mean you'll sell well.  There's a grand tradition of great artists who sold nothing, died penniless.  So how do you break through?  You can be good and not get noticed: wrong haircut, no MTV, no airplay, no hit.  You can be good, be the right fit, be picked up, promoted -and make money.  Flora Borsi is a great photographic artist. It's not just me who thinks so - the  Saatchi Gallery think so too.  Two years ago you could pick up a print of her Corn Poppy for thirty quid, now you can't get anything for less than a grand.  Her work has matured and improved but that isn't the only reason the price has gone up.  Saatchi, Adobe and others have given her the seal of approval, the market knows her, the market sets her new price.  As an artist I'm sure she'll go from strength to strength.  I bet you any money other people make more money from her (with less skill or effort) than she does.

How do you get noticed? How do you get press? But how do you get into galleries?  It isn't enough to be good.  

My Dog Sighs hit on a way of getting his art out there - by giving it away.  He started leaving pieces of art around and about, inviting people to help themselves to it.  Free Art Friday.  Great idea, except you might work for hours on a piece only for it to be thrown in a bin by a an over zealous street sweeper. But perseverance is the key and after a few years and a few hundred pieces - and the rise of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - the name My Dog Sighs is well known around Portsmouth. Commissioned pieces, collaborations, exhibitions; some very visible pieces, working with the council, working in schools, working with community groups My Dog Sighs has got his name out there at a grassroots level, building up an increasingly fanatical local following.  

His involvement with Bristol's Upfest last year put him on another stage - and brought national press coverage.  At the same time there have been gallery shows at home and abroad.  The prices for exhibition pieces are relatively high but they get snapped up so that's what the market says.  That local following may soon be priced out of the market.

But. MDS has made a point of staying local.  At his Portsmouth exhibitions (Together in Solitude with Midge, 2014 and Quiet Little Voices, 2015) he has involved other local artists, printers, picture framers, caterers, photographers.  He has made a point of noting and naming these collaborators - so everyone knows there's a good picture framer locally, there's independent coffee shops, there's a local scene.  So why was yesterday a busy day?  

Actually I don't know how busy he was but he did put out three Free Art pieces celebrating Record Store Day - in the vicinity of Southsea's independent record shop Pie & Vinyl of course . . . .

and he offered for sale 45 Southsea Hug prints with all the profits going to two local charities, Tonic and St James.  [See below for more on this]

If that wasn't enough, to round off the day yer man was back in the studio doing this:

This is from My Dog Sighs Fb page as are most of the images on this page (except the church and the sunset):

Some of you may have seen my Southsea Hug wall painted in Albert road recently. On painting it I had the opportunity to 'chat' to quite a lot of people wandering up and down the street. Many of which who seemed either vulnerable, homeless or both. And this gave me an idea. 

I have produced a high quality limited edition giclee print. It's an easily frameable A3 in size, an edition of 45, all signed, stamped and numbered for sale for £50 each. 

All the profits of the sale of this print will be donated to the society of St James homeless charity and the Tonic charity, both very worthy local charities helping vulnerable people. 

Tonic is A charity that raises awareness and challenges the stigma often associated with mental illness through music and arts based activities in association with an array or established and local artists.  

Society of St James is a Hampshire-based homelessness charity, providing accommodation and support to over 2500 people each year. 

The print will only be available to purchase in person from Saturday 16th April (this Saturday) via  @playdeadstudio in highland road;  @strongislanduk in Albert road;  @homecoffeesouthsea in Albert road; @southseacoffee in Osborne road and my studio (above the Wedgewood rooms in Albert road). 

If you can help by sharing this post and getting the prints sold I'd be grateful. #print #southsea#southseahug #southseaghetto #art #charity#portsmouth #portsmouthartist