So, as I mentioned, even though education had given way to full time employment, I did still have an interest in the visual. Id kept diaries or journals since around 14/15 which y'know is kind of a gothy Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice but with a penis thing to do. Being that age, what the hell did I have to say about anything. Maybe who'd bullied me that week, who i liked that week, what cd I'd bought. Yawn. I think i even had one of those with a lock on at some point, the type you could probably crack open with a safety pin. I remember when shit hit the fan with parents around the later stages of 15 I ripped up a full diary and threw it away as I drank cider and walked through the park with my one other fucked up friend. I doubt it was a big loss.
I didnt start writing again untill 17/18 when my parents were fighting and I was drinking all day instead of attending college. I had a posse by that stage and we were pretty much all the result of disfunctional families. We drank and were punk rock cool. Or atleast that was what we were aiming for. And even though I had people around me, and for the most part, good people, there was still things that didnt need to be spoken outside of my head. So i wrote.
From there it progressed and I would stick in pictures or fliers, gig tickets, clippings out of magazines etc and somehow it led to me finding some kind of art form in it. The picture below is the cover of one of my journals from around 2002-3 when I was living in London but it took a breakdown, some harsh lessons learnt and returning home to get to some of the other pieces I will post over the next few days/weeks/whatever. None of what I made was intended to be seen, it was for me and no one else, but through the persuasion and encouragement of a person who has supported me from the moment we met, the work I'll post was a main part of my portfolio that got me accepted into college for my foundation course.
Sadly I've not done anything in terms of writing, journals or collage in a long while. Having work to do for college has kind of tied me up in terms of time and energy and having to focus on actual assigned work. I still have boxes full of clippings and photos and stuff i want to create pages with and hopefully once my final major project is completed I will have the summer to try and indulge myself in my own personal art.
