Eihei Dōgen is a famous zen monk who lived in 13th century Japan. In his time he was a great teacher and established the Soto Zen sect in Japan after first training in China for many years under numerous great Buddhist masters. Part of his legacy is the ‘Shobogenzo’ in which contains the chapter called ‘Zazenshin’ which translates as ‘A Needle For Zazen’. Zazen being the type of sitting meditation that forms the core practice of Soto Zen Buddhism. In his translation of master Dogen’s Shobogenzo’, Gudo Nishijima writes the following at the start of the Zazenshin Chapter. “Shin means a bamboo needle that was used for acupuncture in ancient China. So shin means a method of healing the body and mind, and the word came to be used for a maxim that has the power to cure a human being of physical and mental discomfort. Subsequently, the word shin was used to describe short verses useful in teaching the important points of a method of training. In this chapter Master Dogen… …praises a zazenshin by Master Wanshi Shokaku, and finally, he wrote his own Zazenshin.” which is the one you now see above.

I’ve had to remove my pattern library, color gizmo and related elements from this site due to problems they were creating for my server. I will be moving these parts to a new pattern orientated site sometime in the future. This has also prompted me to purge my site of various bits that were only here to drive traffic, but traffic I now figure on reflection, that is not really interested in the core theme of my site.

Generally however, over the coming months I will be taking some time away from creating artwork and other projects to concentrate on deepening my Buddhist meditation practice.

I haven’t posted anything in a few weeks, the simple reason being: I have made nothing worth posting. I’ve been going through old simple motifs looking for suitable material to print on t-shirts.

I wish I could think of something intelligent to write on my pictures.

Yes, i’ve been making a new homepage. The top is the same, but if you scroll down you’ll see I’ve had a tidy up. My site has become a bit messy over the last year with lots of pages left over from older versions of this site. The new home pages marks the start of a concerted effort to unify and condense the different parts of this domain.

The picture above is nothing really, I just liked the retro brown vibe going on.

Im not sure how retro my designs really are, but they might appeal to someone looking for retro-esk garments.

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I guess designing t-shirts appeals to me as it is such a pure medium. From my point of view, as a vehicle for carrying artwork, the tee is like a pure white blank canvas: its hard to imagine how it could be made less fussy or more efficient at what it does. I wonder if the t-shirt will still be around in 100, 500, 1000 years. The blank canvas probably will be. Maybe more of us will be wearing unique designs in the future, and the boundaries between art, design and the clothing will become less clear.

The other reason I’m becoming increasingly keen to design some good shirts is that it is a way for just about anyone who likes my work to own and enjoy it on a personal level. I’d get more of a kick from going to a big city and seeing a stranger wearing one of my t-shirts than going into a big commercial gallery and seeing my art on the wall. Its still a very, very slim percentage of individuals who every set foot in a commercial gallery. Nearly all of us however enjoy wearing a t-shirts on a regular basis regardless of our demographic. In a sense it is one of societies levelers: the fact that we can all gain access to unique and inspiring t-shirts and make a statement with design.

I’m finally getting round to ditching my Cafepress store and getting some new shirt designs made here in the UK with a quality screen printer. My new retro shirts will be for sale in my new print shop within a couple of weeks.

I’ve been quiet on my blog these past few weeks because I’ve been busy building a new print shop. All being well it will be live within a week or two. In an attempt to offer a range of one off and limited edition ‘lounge friendly’ works (as apposed works suitable for gallery settings) I’ve also started designing some ‘color field’ formats for my work. These graduated color foils combined with the face mounted medium produces a deep, dynamic and sensual effect. The Dutch print and face mounting company I will be using is PlexiPhoto.com

Here is what they say about the visual quality of their face mount technique:-

‘By directly gluing the front side of the photograph to the back of a sheet of Plexiglas, any light reflections between the photograph and the glazing of an ordinary frame is eliminated, thus increasing image sharpness, contrast, and colour saturation.

When light penetrates the layer of acrylic glass, the light reflection on the prints surface is completely different from the effect when a print is framed with a passe-partout and ordinary glass. With this unique production method the diffusion of light diminishes because of the homogeneous quality of acrylic glass. As a result the colours seem sharper, more brilliant, more intense and more immediate.’

The image above, (if its not obvious), is computer generated. I’ll be placing some orders of my own home soon which will give me the opportunity to get some real photos of the artworks in settings.

This method of presenting, enhancing and protecting prints is also know as Diasec.

Prints from PlexiPhoto also come complete with back mounting that holds the print off the wall and hangers.

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The guy reading the low-down in the photo looks like a fat Matthew Collings. It would be nice if it was and also if the picture was real. Surely he’d have something to say about it. Or maybe he’d pass it by thinking it was something other than art. You know that’s not as dumb as it sounds. Most of the art of our time seems to revolve around the single idea and the single theme. We are all trying to make art sound bites. There are no epic stories being told in art anymore - well very few. Take Damien Hirst’s latest work: the diamond encrusted platinum skull. Its a pure and distilled idea realised by expensive yet simple means. Don’t get me wrong I really like it, and think its a work that sits at the pinnacle of the present canon of art his work occupies.

My approach, of course, is very different from this and the trend Damien’s work so perfectly demonstrates. My work has never been about reducing and distilling, but rather evolving and building. I feel my themes are like characters in a novel, each with an individual history and each enabling a complex narrative to be constructed. I’ve always wanted to make a work that tells the story of Root2Art in all is complexity. The story twists and characters have idiosyncrasies I could never have imagined ten years ago. I could never create a sound bite art work that encapsulates this rich history. The essences of Root2Art is only really visible when seen in its full complexity. Organizing this complexity into a coherent narrative is the big challenge.

The ‘big ass’ title is not a reference to the Matthew Collings look-alike.

Click image for full color version

The Saatchi Online Gallery Showdown is an exciting monthly competition run on the massively popular www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk. Visitors to the site can vote on artworks from an open submission with numerous rounds of voting determining a winner that gets to have his/her picture hung in the new Saatchi Gallery. A quick scan of the submissions that received the most votes last month reveals a marked preference for figurative painting. No digital art as yet, which is not really a surprise.

Wanting to enter this great Showdown I’ve decided to draw on my archive of paintings from my pre root2art days fancying my chances more with this medium. I’m very fond of this painting and have it hanging in my studio. It has a history of some personal significance. It was the painting I made directly after being rejected from art school for the second time. It was my attempt to confirm my artistic ambition and self-belief when it was being called into question by my contact with the academic world. I brought together everything I thought I had learnt at the tender age of 19 and produced something that maybe is a little naive, but still has a spirit I think I will always be proud of.

It would be marvelously ironic if this painting was to do well in this showdown and be the first of my works to catch the attention of someone as influential as Charles Saatchi. I’ve read he has a liking for painting so this could be my best chance at wetting his appetite. Of course there is a vast amount of good competition so its all a bit hypothetical to talk about doing well. Early indications however are showing it is getting a thumbs up from the voters.