Living
life trapped in the (c)rippling bodies of two relentless little boys
isn't easy.
Every
week we make plans to revisit our blinding golden youthful days of productivity, to be irresponsible, to gather our paintbrushes together and to be carefree, slender and horny again. Then we realise we've got
the gas man coming round on Tuesday evening so we cancel. This
process of constant premature ejaculation has existed in our
(self-described) 'masturbatory' process together for a while.
Thankfully the beauty of an art
career is that there are no deadlines, no commitments, no pressure to
be inspired, and no rules. Otherwise we'd have been P45'd and
humiliated in the boardroom in front of all of our sweaty peers ages
ago.
So,
in a pathetic attempt to conquer our responsible, distracted and
comfortable minds we conjured up a plan!
2
men, 2 sleeping bags, a list of painting titles, 3 bags full of high
fat foods, 2 bottles of gin, 16 beers, some pink lemonade, a blow up
doll, an Xbox, FIFA 15 and a smelly studio room in Wakefield all
combined to create the weekend from hell.
 |
| Suppries |
The
plan was that we could, in theory, shut ourselves in our studio for
an entire weekend and by stimulating our bodies with constant booze
and sweets we'd manage to create a year’s worth of new paintings in
one massive orgy explosion of creativity. The plan was fool-proof.
We
arrived Friday evening equipped with the all the important technical
tools and vigour of real life art-superiors.
The
first thing anyone notes when being forced to spend any sustained
period of time in our studio is the inconvenient importance of taking
off any clothes that matter to you. Every corner of our once shiny
white box room has been soiled with the left over crud of previous
paintings or the casual drunken cake-toss. When intending to sleep in
a room it is important to filter out the necessary hygiene hindrances
such as 4 week-old Double Cream. The wounds of last month’s messy
presentation of Miniature Hero 2015 'Mary Berry' were still sticky
and smelly - so yet another joint trip to the bogs seemed an apt way
to start our evening!
 |
| Cake Farts |
One
cake-dump later and we were set to go!
 |
| My Rifle, My Pony & Me |
8
games of FIFA later and we were set to go!
 |
| Snacks for Spacs |
One
consumption of massive pizza and chips later and we were set to go!
Ok, what we're trying to say is - old habits die hard. We fucking procrastinated for ages and ages - we drank some horrible drinks, had some perverse conversations, did some smelly farts and got very, very cold.
Eventually, at about 1am we decided we'd build a canvas with our consumption greased hands and impatient attitude.
Cue the creation of painting number 1 - The American D.ream.
Bed.
Cold, hard, worst-nights-sleep-ever bed. Well deserved prison of
shit-behaviour and poor life choices. True romance.
We
awoke dry-mouthed and shoddy - ready for the next day of our creative
marathon.
A
few awkward morning boners and a shivering desire for callousness led
us to escape to next door’s Subway for a tea and a good half hour
bitch about the other customers. We feel it is always important to
start the day with a bit of light-hearted nastiness; a bit like
brushing your teeth, it cleanses your soul of all the immoral plaque
that stains your mind. Amused by the thought of a dusty looking bloke
ordering a 6-inch Italian with "just onions" and our agreed
theme of the day 'Robots' we decided to write a poem:
Do
you wanna build a robot?
Or
ride a bike around the hall?
Do
you wanna climb a tree?
Or
just sit in here with me?
In
this room that smells like onions,
These
onions are forever,
...and
the onions shout "Hooray!"
We
fumbled our way back into the studio and decided we were going to do
a painting of grown-up geek culture (perhaps inspired by the Pokémon
t-shirt wearing onion bloke in Subway). Research is essential to the
practice of any super-scientist, and we are no exception - so we
skulked off down to our local Games Workshop to ogle the smelly ogres
and the goods on sale, and came away with a wealth of knowledge and
expressions to use.
Because
of this hard-graft, our second painting fell together nicely - Love,
Sex, Magick.
Cue
loads of self-congratulation and more FIFA. Too much FIFA in fact. We
knew we were due visitors and had only created 2 paintings in the
space of 24 hours and panicked... but we cunningly innovated a new
work out of our big blue dust sheet we had masking taped to the wall. 'Don't go Chasing Waterfalls'.
God
we're clever.
Our
visitors arrived; we welcomed them with loud hammering, spastic DIY,
pizza and winter flavoured beers (delightful). Another canvas built
and primed in the presence of our beautiful fanbase.
Then,
in a true moment of inspiration (our best of the weekend) we decided
it was time to stop all this horrible laborious art behaviour, put
our comfortable shoes back on and to go home to our warm beds.
I
think the moral of the story is - do some stuff that you want for a
bit. But don't do it for too long - because then it will become a
nuisance and you won't want to do it anymore. Everything in
moderation as they say. Spending over 24 hours in each other’s
company has further cemented our love of one another, and our dislike
of having to do as we're told (even when we're the ones telling it).
Our untameable appetite for artistic creation has to balance its self
against our desire for luxurious experiences, yet again we have
exposed ourselves for what we truly are:
Distracted,
ambitious, soft-hedonists. Art-superiors.
