On Notebooks
Thursday I have always kept notebooks. There are many, many notebooks. Some are new, but given time, most of course are old. These old ones are held together with tape and twine and elastic. They are tattered and broken-spined, misplaced, lost, filled with meandering thoughts, idiocy, proclamations, damnations and untold misery. I suspect, in many, many ways, they are the truest reflection of me.
I will try to catalogue a few here. Please forgive me if they are too ruined for although I have many notebooks, I am not that good at book keeping.
BIOILLOGICA - BARCELONA - notebook - 1992
Spain, Barcelona: In 1992 DAAS were invited to the Barcelona Olympics as an entertainment. It was a period of high European strangeness that bore witness to a number of bizarre events*. The highlight of the horror was at the final performance in the park where a painted bedsheet from our poorly finished hotel featured the Olympic mascot COBI. The much loved COBI had a cartoon noose around his cartoon neck with a banner that read "COBI MUERTE". Attempting to combine biological accuracy with the puerile I'd gifted COBI with an obligatory (and impressive) tumescence down below. He was in the process of splurting out a seminal death throw. It was grotesque. And I should have been more conscious of the reactions of the stage crew whow were universally appalled. When we revealed the bedsheet at midnight half the park loved it, and half the park hated it. They really hated it. I thought for a second we'd suffer a similar fate. The noise from the crowd was deafening. It was shock and horror and shame and disgust and unsettling hilarity all mixed in with great oceans of sangria.
It was only when the wailing mothers attempted to cover the eyes of the innocence that I noticed the children. There were so many children.
*There was also "The case of mistaken sodomy". The two major players involved in this incident have failed to reveal the truth of that torrid night.
The sketches from this period concern themselves with death and life, life and death. 
There are flowers growing out of bodies and about bones.
There are hybrid, imagined dark flowering monstrosities.
There are moments of humour.
(All this is subjective)
Some of the notebooks I used around this time were reclaimed autograph books. I'd find them in second hand stores and stalls. The collecting of signatures was a popular pastime pre-TV and the books are crammed with forgotten and unknown hands scribbling pithy odes. Everyone it seems had a poem or adage or cliché they could employ to dazzle the object of their affection, their family or their friends. Some are familar, and have endured, some are lost to time and only found in these yellowed pages now.
I like the writing beneath the image, connecting the drawing to a specific moment in the past, generally a moment of kindness, and combining to create something new.
These are some of less esoteric pages.
Reader Comments (5)
These are so beautiful. Truly wonderful.
I hope you will update soon with more of your drawings, sketches and artwork.
Wishing you a Happy Birthday for today. Hope you have a wonderful day with those you bring you joy and happiness :)
x
Learning about this community and cold computer world is not so soul destroying with your pictures and words. Thanx for sharing. Have a beautiful day people!
I a few years ago I saw a video of you very upset at not having a window in your office. I toyed with the idea of painting you one and sending it to you. Now I see that you could do that for yourself much better than I could dream of.
I love them. Thanks for sharing them. x
Hi Paul,
I too love old autograph books...most treasured are some from my mother's early years.. with pages of beautiful script and heart felt (and often quirky) messages... most written in pencil with creative sketches and drawings added to each page.
CC