Dec 21
I visited an exhibition. I give it 8/10. During my walkaround, a woman asked if I enjoyed the show. I replied ‘Yes, very much’ she replied ‘How could you? You’re a man’. I smiled and walked away.
Rows of Zines and Fear Fountain (30-second video)
Tap any Image to view the gallery:
The comments cards – Excellent idea:
See You Soon
Dec 10
Today’s article is profoundly personal and of significance to anyone who has entered into the shadows of mental illness. I often talk to Jon about the articles published on LizianEvents News. He is particularly interested in the articles published next week about the mental health aspect of our health.
Jon Sharpe
Jon asked if he could take a recorder and microphone to record a personal view of mental illness. Who could refuse Jon? After he made the recording, he said ‘Do not edit it too much Ian’. It is my hope people will benefit from my words. He also asked if I would listen to the recording for the first time when I was alone. No doubt I entered a place of great privilege.
If you listen to the whole of Jon’s recording, you will enter this place of potential healing yourself.
There is some minor editing because of the long spaces between his free-flowing thoughts, nothing is removed Jon talks for twenty minutes, and what a story he describes.
It is essential to recognise the bravery required to talk with such intimacy on a subject feared by many people. Jon’s ‘Words of Kindness’ is one of the most significant articles LEN has published to date. We all benefit from these ‘Words of Kindness’.
Many Faces of An Incredible Man
If you have any comments: or wish to contribute to the wellness of others by writing a similar article, please send in your submission.
All that remains is to thank Mr Jon Sharpe for this superb and intimate recollection of a painful episode most people could only imagine.
See You Soon
Dec 3
Alice Christmas Tree Interview: Listen to the interview while reading the article:
Alice On Her Way To Collect The Tree
Liz and I travelled to Littleport to see Alice and her family for the annual Christmas tree run. Alice’s father Adam likes a giant Christmas tree, and so we take the pick-up for transportation of the tree.
Alice Has No Interest in Adult Gossip
It’s one of my favourite days of the year. Collect and then watch The Stanford family decorate the tree. This year Tristan can contribute to the tradition, he loves flashing lights so the tree will be a real hit with this cheerful fellow.
Stanford Family
The pictures give an idea of how the day turned out, from collection to switch on, everyone’s happy. Once the lights are sparkling, there is time for a Christmas interview with Alice. Kids see the World in such a clear and straightforward way. We would do well to take a lesson from their integrity.
Alice and Tristan Reviewing Their Work
See You Soon
I’m about to rewrite a book I wrote three years ago. The book is about photography and I focus on the use of the 35mm camera to provide examples of how to use a film camera. I suggest any camera can be employed using the ideas I provide within the book.
Microphone and USB Interface
The book is also a handbook for an online video course. The online video course will be in three modules, and each module covers a specific area of film photography. I have already done much of the groundwork, indeed, the original book is the groundwork.
In a way, I dislike the old photography book immensely, because out of all of the books I have published on the Kindle platform: it is the one which has sold worldwide. My book “Never Let Anything Worry You” is my greatest seller. However, it only receives success in the United Kingdom. And it is a book which I spent an immense amount of time writing and editing.
The online video course is a challenging thing to put together. And to do the job properly, one has to spend an immense amount of time writing the script for each videoed section. I would imagine the predicted five hours of video will take over 150 hours to shoot and edit.
My advantage is I have many years of professional photography experience to draw upon. So the techniques being taught are second nature. Indeed, I would not embark upon an adventure such as this unless I felt that it would provide a finantial reward for the immense amount of work involved.
The three sections cover three aspects of film photography:
The first is the selection of the camera and the useful lenses which can produce solid compositions.
The second section is about composition: Or the photographic eye, this module is about perceiving the final image before taking a photograph. This is an essential aspect of photography. As a professional photographer, I realised that it is imperative for the client to see images which clearly define the object, property or portrait he or she desired to be recorded. Fail in this and you are a failed professional: Whenever someone says they are a ‘professional’ always ask if they earn a full time living from their work. If the answer is NO – then they are semi-professional: and there is a difference.
The third section considers the aspects of developing film and producing photographic prints. I am aware that there are thousands of hours of information on this subject available on the Internet. In my online video course, I will use the most basic of darkroom equipment, and I have permission from my partner to convert our kitchen into a temporary darkroom: even though I have available an excellent darkroom. You see I wish to prove to the student taking the course that you do not need to possess a dark room to enjoy the mysteries of the photographic process.
One of the most important things about my course will be the photographer is guided to use the most simple and inexpensive of equipment. I suggest for the price of a secondhand Leica the photographer can own a complete photographic system. Indeed, I feel I will be able to prove that it is the photographer who uses humble equipment will be free to experiment and produce great compositions.
That is not to say that I do not embrace modern technology. I love using my digital cameras. The ability of the digital camera to take or record perfectly exposed pictures is a fantastic feat of contemporary science. There will be some of you who can remember opening a film processing envelope to see the results of images taken weeks before ‘Had come out’ (do you remember the phrase?). I’m sure there are many of you who remember the disappointment of poorly focused underexposed images and missed memories of a happy moment in time.
This was one of the reasons that I started to learn about the photographic and darkroom process. As time passed, I learned about colour chemistry and how to print from colour negatives and colour transparencies. This is the knowledge being passed on with the new Version of my rewritten photographic book and online course
However, this course and the 680 words you’ve just read is not the reason for this article. A few words ago I mentioned that I embrace modern technology and I am doing at this at this very moment because I am dictating this article not typing it.
I read much information on the Internet about dictation. And the information guides one to persevere and work with dictation. The authors of the article’s comment: the more you use it, the better it gets. Many claim they can write 5000 words in less than an hour. This is something that I can believe because I have less than 20 minutes to write the 796 words.
I’m going to persevere with dictation instead of the keys. Because: like moving from traditional wet photography to digital camera my images became somewhat better not from the point of view that I couldn’t produce good solid and clear photos. But from the perspective that I could take many hundreds of pictures and review them in my own time. And as I considered the images I started to see areas where I was weak in my composition. Dictation will allow me to write more words and provide more drafts.
And by using this rapid method of getting words onto the screen and paper the first draft will be one which takes hours rather than days. I haven’t the slightest problem of using this excellent technology. I know it’s not new and needs improvements: But do you know something? Digital dictation seems to me to have endless possibilities.
Many authors take a high-quality dictation recorder with them when walking and as they walk, they record their rough drafts. By dictating in the open many claims their compositions and the way that their words flow when they are finally on paper – changes. I’m determined to experiment with this, and I will persevere with it because anything which can allow us to consider all world differently must be beneficial.
Forgive me if this article reads strangely. It’s my first time out using dictation, and it most certainly will not be my last.
See you soon
For the ‘tekkie’ minded:
LEM Microphone
Sennheiser PX200
Presonus Fire Studio – Mobile
Oct 24
I think of a word:
My thoughts enter ‘free-flow’ – here goes: one thousand words or thirty minutes. See you on the other side:
I’m beginning to suspect the future has more influence on my actions:
Not in the way many inspirational thinkers suggest. Their idea that the Universe provides anything a man sets his mind to possess; seems flawed to me. The child dying of hunger and thirst screams out for food and water is chosen as an example: Does the Universe listen? No Bob: the big dark vacuum has closed ears to the horrors of poverty.
Ian Timothy
For the last decade: my thoughts are most often focussed in the present moment. Tapping keys today causes ripples tomorrow. Images recorded today, memorise tomorrow. Off the cuff comments break thin glass friendship. Small offerings of kindness become welded with love and respect.
The wisdom of time changes perspective:
Today the torch of awareness shines toward the possibilities of the future. Not in the way of seeing an object which becomes a desire. I shine the light on words in my mind. Happiness, health, security, maybe wealth. As I think about the words, the possibilities and methods of achieving their meaning arise within my imagination.
I suspect considering words has more potential for realising one’s ambitions than wishing for an object. I will think about the word wealth:
Some will associate the word wealth with money. Money is nothing, earning money is easy, using the money to best advantage is difficult. Some believe cash is a gauge of success. In reality, the excess of cash is a gauge of understanding the use of a commodity.
I know a man who is rich and has a simple job; he is also mean. I know of another who believes he is rich and intelligent; the story is he is a dealer, everyone knows where his money is earned. Arrogance is evidence of his illusion; he fools no one. Fickle failure dabbling in the degradation of people. He has no wealth; he is non-human.
Wealth is getting life wrong; it is a catalogue of mistakes a lifetime long. It is buying a child a Halloween present and laughing at ghosts and spooks and wizards and witches. Wealth is the ability to make a junk shop guitar sound like Rodriguez Model FF. Wealth is the ability to guide a man out of debt, not loan him money and enter debt oneself.
I think about the word security:
Security is living within one’s means. It is working for the daily crust. Loving ones work, even though setting the alarm early is the beginning of the day. And sleep the second the head touches the pillow is the result of one’s toils. Security is a house one can afford. Security is not being impressed by another’s accumulation. Security is being without fear. Security is knowing the reality of one’s thoughts.
A woman once believed she entered my head: She suggested my written words were a deception: I saw her fear, her insecurity. I do not doubt my words; there is no need for me to make excuses. If I say or write something, I am secure and without fear. To comment my work is flawed is the perception of the critic. In my security, I do not doubt my integrity.
My moral compass spins. There is no need to be politically correct.
To my mind, the minority is the bomber, the bigot, the wrong-doer. These are minorities who should be exposed. To me the drug dealer, the drug grower, the pimp, bully, thug, racist, and bigot are all in the same sewer, they taint society with the smell of lies and deception. Their crimes cost the hard working taxpayer millions. When caught they should forfeit all they own to pay for their imprisonment. So; you do not like this? That’s fine by me, wait until you have you home ruined and destroyed by an addict. Wait until four racist hags beat your friend on a tram. Wait until your child is run down by a doped out dumb – dumb.
The grower, the supplier, are dumb dumbs who supply the dope that twists the minds of those who defile your home, rapes your daughter, kills the child on his way home from school.
Dumb – Dumbs? Yes, they are stupid and ignorant. Not geniuses who bathe in the wealth of their trade. Stupid people are unaware of the reality of their acts. Their ignorance is most often smoked-screened in arrogance and sometimes perceived intelligence. The truth is they flaunt the rules of society and are stupid to believe they are nothing other than scum.
These are the minority I do not wish to understand. My choice is to brand them for who and what they are: what are they? None humans who ruin the lives of the innocent. What? Do you not think they affect you? Well: my unknown friend: your taxes pay for the police force. The judicial system, and prisons which punish them for their crimes. I wish for them to be seen for what they are, I am secure in my mind. There is no doubt the growers, dealers and their trade are the seeds of many crimes, deaths and tragedies.
I think of the word health:
Physical health I understand. I have enjoyed being fit, enjoyed the freedom of health. I miss the pleasure of the feeling of health. I neglect my body. The possibility is there will be a price to pay. And I was a hypocrite because I organise and promote shows which are focussed on becoming a Well Being. With this in mind, I have changed my thoughts to tomorrow and the future. I have taken steps to move into health and become a Well Being. In twelve months time, I will be five stones lighter and bicycle fit. I am secure in the wealth of this knowledge.
The dog of depression once infiltrated my mental health. It is a disease of the mind which cannot be portrayed. The howling jackal is unique to each victim. We know what it is, how it feels, its effects. Truth to tell, the victim of the tearing teeth does not know the ‘why’ of the disease. You see; if the ‘why’ were identified, the ‘how’ to silence the dog would be recognised. Notice I write ‘was once infiltrated’: depression no longer concerns me, it cannot sink its fangs into my existence, you see, reality and strength and courage and confidence quell its potential to destroy life hours.
The seed word was Depression: It has taken me on a journey of enlightenment.
See You Soon
Oct 18
Just Keep Walking Bye
I’m beginning to wonder if we are gardeners of the planet who have misunderstood our part in the eco-system. A lifetime of factory, office work, driving a truck, working at sea, and a million other occupations and for what purpose? Birth, labour and taxes, death, all which is accumulated becomes someone else’s to squander. In two generations all which is left is gone. What a pointless exercise.
I suggest an African warrior/hunters existence contains greater pleasure and happiness than a millionaire drinking champagne on a seagoing yacht: And what is the response? Probably ‘apparent’ indifference. Most are openly caring for the plight of the warrior and secretly envious of the tycoon. A penny in the charity box and a vote for equality is the way we deal with conscience and suspicion of injustice.
Walk on Bye – Ignore The View
There is a seed of truth within the idea of a race of gardeners. Although, society, and civilisation’s evolution dissolves any possibility of a human race dedicated to caring for the planet. The majority does not care and applauds and aligns themselves with the minority who are environmentalist. For example, everyone is shocked by the suffocating plastic saturated oceans, and most continue to fill shopping baskets with polymer water vessels. One day soon shoppers will pay twenty per cent of each grocery bill for eco-packaging: glass bottles and recycled paper packaging is the future. Once this is instigated: the oceans will have a reprieve. Money counts, money is the tipping point, money is the influence. What a paradox.
Could an individual be an ecological gardener? I suggest it is near impossible. Because every individual is forced to make a taxable contribution. Maybe rateable taxation on property. A contribution to health treatment, payment for water or drainage. In some way, the gardener will have pay for a service. Therefore the need to earn an amount of money is enforced. And with earnings comes taxes, with taxes comes to control, with taxes comes to waste, with waste pollution, with pollution comes death. Death of ethos, the death of reality. All becomes an illusion.
Unless of course, you’re the warrior/hunter, the proud man in his Savannah, the tribe member in his Amazonian forest. These humans are the last of the truth, real humans, knowing and understanding life purpose. Unfortunately, for the tribes, people have or are stealing their birthright. His land is stolen, and his tribe is cast to the winds.
Cast to the winds for your food, for your fuel, for your trinkets. Next time you fill your car with fuel, eat your imported fruit and meat, sigh at the sparkling carbon called diamond, pay fifteen grand for a gold watch. Remember, the cost is more significant than the money exchanges for the goods: The price is millennia of tribes and culture, their land, their birthrights.
ten-minute writing exercise
Historian Jon Sharpe has a well-kept secret (not any more). He is a sought after artists model. In this podcast, he talks about modelling and as usual, we go off on a tangent.
Jon Sharpe
See You Soon
Sep 30
Sometimes we encounter a memorable experience which opens the mind to the potential of creativity. The artist has a responsibility to review the world from a different perspective: and then work with the utmost imagination to express their view of a situation, individual, or life moment in creation: a book, a photo, an abstract image, song, poem, painting or sculpture. However, the work has to have a potential to explode or captive. To explode is the opposite of capture, and when considering art, both words are valid expressions of viable and active creations. A creative mind must affect the mind of another human to such a degree, the life of the viewer is changed. Possibly forever.
I’m not writing of the shock tactics of a tent full of the artist’s possessions representing episodes of life. (an adolescents bedroom does this well). Or the shocking sculpture of half a cow in formaldehyde. (the slaughterhouse is full of swinging carcass’s awaiting the saw). I’m writing of the ability of an artist to create an artistic ‘piece’ where art and life meet in such a way that one aspect (art) is bound to affect the other (life).
I am not an artist, nor academic, nor genius. I write as an observer of life. There is no concern if no one has interest in my words. I write because I can, not for gain or fame. Today my words are focussed on a day at an exhibition. A beautifully created and well-conceived presentation. As a visitor, I could sense every aspect of the display. The curator, the staff, the building, the cafe, the art, the artists. All came together during my visit, as I climbed the thirteen steps, leading to the paving before the doors, how could I have expected to become so captivated with an exhibition?
My visit to The Turner Contemporary Gallery in the Kent sea town of Margate turned out to be one of the most memorable artistic experiences of my life. The simplicity of the exhibits would for a moment disguise the creative symbolism. And like the near-bye sea, they would soon draw me into a theatre of imaginations.
Perpetual Canon is an installation by Cornelia Parker RA. It is made up of sixty flattened instruments once belonging to a brass band. The artwork will be installed in Turner Contemporary’s Sunley Gallery which overlooks the North Sea.
The result is a magnificence which captures the imagination. Who played? How old? What tunes? Where? When? Why were the instruments given to the artist, did Cornelia ‘pay for’ or was she given the hapless tubes? Were they broken? Too old? No longer in tune?
And then you review the sixty flattened pieces. They become pieces of the artistic jigsaw. The hydraulic press erased the electroplated brass’s purpose. Never to be blown again, now art, not scrap metal. There is sadness, the murder of the sound instrument, to metamorphose into another visual art, from sound to visual:
I view the pressed bassoons, cornets, trumpets and trombones and wonder if Cornelia’s masterpiece demonstrates the madness of humankind?
Does this piece prove the ease with which humans destroy the functional, into pipe dream? Maybe, this is not what the artist desired to portray. However, in my mind, I asked: do we have the reasons for the damming of rivers to produce artificial light? The decimation of rainforests to rich man’s furniture, the land becomes grazing for the fat man’s beef? Sterile landscape atom bomb test site? Millions of miles of asphalt roadways, taking millions of people to nowhere for no reason? Plastic water bottle pollution is decimating the oceans and sea life. Man-unkind’s greed, destroying beauty and nature, for short-term satisfaction.
When a work of art opens the mind to the how and the why: and the art expands the mind into hundreds of parallels. It has succeeded. Perpetual Canon hits all the right notes.
Animals & Us is a major exhibition exploring artists’ reflections on the relationship between humans and other animals. And yes, you have probably missed it! The presentation was an excellent blend of photography, sculpture, painting, videos and written comments.
The sadness of man’s cruelty and ignorance toward animals is snapped into close focus when we see the ‘google maps’ image of the Texan Cattle yards, which are protected by photographic bans. Having driven by a cattle railhead in Texas, I can vouchsafe for the inference of animal degradation involved in this aspect of the meat trade. There was a reference to other cruelties and also to the love and bonding between man and his pets.
Here again, the visitor had the vaults of their imagination opened. Art is like a key to expanded thought. It is not the splashing of paint on canvas or the ability to recreate a landscape or portrait to almost photographic reproduction. Art is the symbolic representation of the artist’s thoughts. Art can sometimes have the capacity to change another humans ideas, beliefs, morals. This exhibition achieved this with ease; it is rare to fulfil this artistic goal.
Artists featured: Cory Arcangel, Keith Arnatt, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Beuys, William Burch, Marc Chagall, Marcus Coates, Mark Dion, Charlotte Dumas, Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan, Laura Ford, Lucian Freud, Henri Gaudier Brzeska, Conradi Gesneri, Laura Gustafsson & Terike Haapoja, Paul Hazelton, Mishka Henner, Candida Höfer, Andy Holden, Marguerite Humeau, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Permindar Kaur, Laura Knight, Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Stephen Melton, Alice Neel, Pablo Picasso, Kananginak Pootoogook, Beatrix Potter, Stephanie Quayle, Paula Rego, Michal Rovner, Khvay Samnang, Roelandt Savery, Raqib Shaw, Ernest Howard Shepard, Maria Sibylla, Shimabuku, Gilbert Soest, George Stubbs, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, JMW Turner.
The curator and staff of The Turner Contemporary in Margate produced a remarkable visitor experience. I will return in 2019 to enjoy another.
See You Soon
Sep 20
Jon Sharpe Listens to Podcast
Liz and I organise Well Being Events, and Jon is the kingpin of the promotional regime. Over the weekend of 15 and 16 September, we opened the doors to our Newark Well Being Show. How each show ‘works’ is a reflection of the accumulated energy or potential of the pre-event endeavours.
Newark Well Being Show – One
Not only do we enjoy organising and promoting the shows. We love working with the members of the Community who join together to make these events so fantastic. The reputation of The Well Being Shows grows with every event. And this podcast is a reflection on our work and the ideas for the future. Jon and I enjoy random thoughts and conversations. If you have an interest in our Well Being it is worth a listen.
Newark Well Being Show – Two
Jon is one of the most intelligent people I have encountered in my six decades of existence. Not only is he a brilliant historian, with a 50 terabyte memory: he balances this formal intelligence with a desire for secret wisdom. He is an esoteric junkie: Do not run shy from listening to or reading Jon’s work, he believes the juxtaposition of belief, social and moral ideas are very much part of our historical evolution. This quest for knowledge is why he enjoys experiencing every aspect of The Well Being Shows.
Sep 12
There are stories which once read, can affect the way we think about how we act. One such anecdote is how the hierarchy of the late 1970’s Xerox company, dismissed the work of one of the research and development arms of the corporation (XEROX PARC).
Not only did they demean the researchers: they chose to ridicule the development by placing the information into the public domain. By doing so, they believed they could demonstrate their lack of faith in the development and prove its insignificance. They hoped the peers of the computing industry would confirm the idea as worthless.
Mr Steven Jobs reviewed the research and realised the software designed by the Xerox geniuses as a turning point to the way computers would be used by their operators. Apple did not have the resources of Xerox, and could not fund the development of the solution to a basic aspect of computer operation. Indeed, the Xerox team had seen a need, and overcome the immense difficulties in finding the answer.
It is not an understatement to write that without the Xerox contribution: neither Jobs or even Bill Gates would be in the positions they have attained in the computing world. Indeed, without this Xerox invention, it is possible the personal computer would not be at the stage it is at today.
The two reasons the Xerox executives dismissed the geeks were: one: they did not believe the development had any practical use: two: they rejected the geeks as scruffy drop-outs, who had no part in the Xerox Corporation. The Xerox executives judged the research geeks by their appearance and from the perspective of their own beliefs. They were dinosaurs doomed to extinction.
A combination of arrogance and closed minded thinking has cost Xerox billions of dollars. In the realms of business decisions, this has to rank as one of the worse in history. Shareholders would have seen, and continued to see, dividends and increase in share values beyond the wildest of dreams.
Steve Jobs purchased the right to use the development, not for money, but for a few thousand Apple Shares. Yes! No money changed hands, and it is believed that the shares were sold as insignificant assets, by Xerox’s accountants.
The anecdote guides us to remember: much of our thinking is flawed. You see: the truth is many of us have the Xerox executives mindset. Believing our method is the right one, and all others are flawed. Of course, if you shout up and comment: “No! I’m always open-minded and listen to other people’s opinions” Then, I’ll accept your word and bow to your success. Because there is a suspicion: the majority of those who are open-minded and listen to the opinions of others will be successful.
Steve Jobs knew how to watch and listen: He could take the best of any situation and turn it to his advantage. Jobs also made significant mistakes and misjudged the market, the difference for Jobs was, he did not reflect on the past. In the end, he sifted the chaff from the wheat and changed the world.
If there is a lesson to learn: It is this: Take time to look around your life and environment. If you see something which is different and is changing the way many think about a subject. Do not dismiss it with “It’ll never work”. Yes, you are safe in your cocoon today, and you may be safe in your ‘place’ in ten years time. Although, the possibility is, you may be the only one of an old tribe, living in the past, envying those who believed in the potentials held in the word ‘improvement’.
When The Xerox executives dismissed the geeks and gave way their work for a few shares, they made what is accepted as the most significant strategic blunders in the history of commerce. The geeks at Xerox PARC invented the graphic interface which connected the mouse to the desktop. For twenty years it was used in every computer running Windows or IoS. Imagine if the interface had been patented and Xerox earns $20 for every computer sold. The figure runs into hundreds if not thousands of billions…
TrackPad
