"restless and blood-filled"

I want my diary to be more honest and open and of-the-thought/stream of consciousness and more scrapbooky too. I want to post everything onto the internet even if it is embarrassing or I repeat myself or I feel really differently about something afterwards. It's a sort of exercise in revoking privacy in a sense, although obviously I can choose what I write in the first place. This outpouring of oneself is a thing I find really fascinating about the internet. Tumblr accounts and aliases and teen angst set free online. The fact that I attach my real name to these diaries changes things too. I wonder how my friends/people I know feel when they read about themselves or see drawings of themselves here.

I had a diary for a very brief amount of time at about 15 years old, in a little pink notebook adorned with cute animals and a little toy lock to ensure the utmost secrecy. My mum immediately read it and offered me advice about a boy I was sad about. I was humiliated and destroyed the notebook, vowing never to keep a diary again. I still feel a bit sick thinking about it. The emotional turmoil of teendom still feels fresh and stinging when I remember it. Mind you, I suppose 6 years ago wasn't very long ago.

It is interesting to think about how different my current diary is to that little pink one. I wish I still had it, but I suspect that if I still had it I'd wish I didn't.

So, in conclusion, diary goals:

• force all of my feelings uncomfortably upon the internet
• post everything regardless of embarrassment
• be human

I went to see Josie Long's pre-fringe show at The Hen And Chickens with Mark and it was really lovely and she dropped a piece of paper and I gave it back to her and I love her

Shocking Rogue Trader scandal which is very relevant to my life as Matt Allwright's number one fan (see earlier diary entries)

Lists are fun

きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ is an angel (look at me writing mangled hiragana)

"Chat with a stranger to make life better" is completely perfect advice

"Good stuff to listen to" - A very small list, but a good one nevertheless

Anime guru quest initiated (so far I quite like "Hell Girl" and "Tiger and Bunny")

In which I confess that I sleep in P.E shorts

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ 

Restlessness, metallic pleated skirt: The story of my life

What if I wrote Grimes/Corey Haim fan fiction?

Comet Gain are a cute band (my favourite Comet Gain song is "You Can Hide Your Love Forever")

I have to keep reminding myself that I am the best (it is very important)

Detail:

"I'll gain their respect now. They like rap music." - One of my many catchphrases

My drawing of Grimes

This is a cute ghost hoodie character that I would like to do something with

 Future diary pages:

Peter Gabriel

Sections of Heaven

Jeez

(◡‿◡✿)

Things are good.

How To Make Art Without Killing Yourself

How To Make Art Without Killing Yourself is an attempt to address the frustrations of being creative, particularly for those in the (often lengthy) "beginner artist" stage.  I wanted to mock the contrast between artists who are struggling, insecure, red-cheeked babies and the artists who seem to simply exhale incredible pieces of work. I wanted to tap into the more or less universal feelings of inadequacy that will be all to familiar to all but the Piers Morgans of the art world. I wanted How To Make Art Without Killing Yourself to be at once both sympathetic and tongue-in-cheek, and I wanted it to offer genuine advice and inspiration. I originally envisaged it as a pocket book.

Occult Enigmas

With Occult Enigmas my intent was to turn a book into a piece of my consciousness, my existence, and a record of my time. It feels important to have such a portable construction. I always liked small art because it could be carried around with me, becoming a part of me in the physical sense as well as the metaphorical/creative/psychological sense. This portability encourages the development of a personal emotional attachment. The book becomes a creature, a ghost of myself, a horcrux if you will. It records a progression in idea and thought, as well as in identity (it is also interesting to see those changes taking place upon a found book rather than something blank and/or new). Occult Enigmas is also an ideal outlet for my infatuation with collection and the assembly of collections. The book format necessarily demands that each page or double page spread creates a relationship with the other pages and with the book as a whole. One is forced to take the book as a book, as a collection. This can be manipulated in endless ways.

I wanted to make Occult Enigmas heavily compressed and jumbled, like a stream of consciousness (which it partially is), positing that perhaps you could pluck a swirling, tangible mass of thought from my mind and cut a cross section into it and what you would see could be these images.

It's significant to note that the textural world created by a physical collage is subject to change as the edges of paper pull up and bend and various materials may fade or rub off onto other parts of the composition. I embraced this as part of the inevitable mess of the project, but also as a metaphor for life and memory, always travelling and fading in the minds of individuals and in the collective consciousness.

Laying my own artwork on top of a found book in itself serves to symbolise the continual erasure of historical narratives in order to accommodate the realities of subsequent lives.

My name collected from received envelopes