Blog Archives

Before I Knew You

6/30/2013

Sleepless the soul
That holds you
And wary minds confess
The binds that hold us fast

From the dust of the Sinai
Where the bones of long gone camels lay
To the high art of Vienna and Mozart and Champagne
I sought you, the mirage on the horizon
The water, in a soul so desert dry
Parched by way of neglect
Until you appeared

Through all the streets of long forgotten
Memories of kindness and Arabians and shoeless feet
Where the children run along with the dust in their hair
And black veiled mothers shy away in the streets

I willed you by my side
To exist in me at the setting of every sun
And you know i am a dreamer
Yet i think you feel those dreams too
Though i had remained quiet for some time
Unsure of what to say

Sleepless now the soul
That loves you
And wary hearts do ask after
Love and all it might reveal
A true heart, one that can soothe
The wounds i wear beneath my skin
And the dimness in your eyes
That they might see anew
Our spirits journeyed here
Unknowingly , blindly i suppose
Yet never forsaking all hope

And when you reveal to me
The things you tell no others
I drift upon the seas of a peaceful reverie
When in times there is nothing but calm
Where hearts, though fragile, find shelter
Underneath this thing we've built for ourselves
An understanding, a trust, a place away from the cold
I love you

James Battersby
June 30th 2013

The New Feeling

6/25/2013

A magnificent fear takes me
As I think of her
And the knowledge that I have opened
The doors of my soul to her
Though creaky at best
For it has been some time

This touch of beauty
Upon the soul of me
With a word love can break
And with a word love can take
All dreams, dashed through
Like broken pottery
It is no surprise, no strange concept to me
That risking true, unrestrained emotion
Can be a man’s downfall
Though with age, I can see
My faith in you is not misplaced

All of this talk of fragile hearts
Easily broken and to be handled with care
And dreams like fine china so close to the edge
These are the things
That the ordinary faces
Of the ordinary public
Of an ordinary standing
Never seem to inform one of

I look around the valley here
And upon the town down there
Wondering, is love a boat that never rocks?
With no waters of discontent ever moving them
To feel different in the morn
Are nights restless like a thorn
With evenings filled with confliction?

I look into the faces of the unknown masses
And I wonder what lies behind those eyes
Does a man’s mind work like clockwork
With no hand that hesitates?
Does a man dream her, dancing through
The wilderness of his mind, a whisper in his ear
Beyond the veil of sleep?
And what goes on in the minds of those bound to one another
After the wedding cakes are cut and photos taken
To be pressed into photograph albums
So precise and new
Beyond the utility bills and the governments steel boot
That pervades the steadiest of minds
Is there a love that abounds across time and space?
That traverses the stars?
For seldom is our true measure tested
With distance and uncertainty
Like a mother’s love for a child lost, forever missing
Or a father’s will to forgive his son’s killers
The true measure of love is often untested

I look to the people of my country
Caught in the gray days of a summer too short
And I long to see a passion in them again
The community spirit that could inspire and foster
An unbreakable love
Like the one I am forming for this woman dear to me

25/06/13
James Battersby

The Overhaul

6/21/2013

I needed to start again, to get back to basics. I’d spent years illustrating projects for other people, using the same style, the same tools, the same mindset. If you’re not careful you fall into a state where you don’t really progress artistically. Sometimes you need to take a “stock check” as it were. In terms of the tools you use, you sometimes discover that there are actually precision tools available to you…If you spend the time researching into it. My first inkling that such tools existed was standing in the portfolio review line for Marvel Comics in Chicago
Penciled artwork was required, but the pencil lines my peers were creating were so crisp and clean. Despite the fact that at this stage I was using a mechanical pencil, as opposed to the traditional “sharpen every five bloody minutes” variety, my line work still left a lot to be desired.

It was down to the eraser. How did they get the eraser to clean up the areas between the fine lines? Whenever I would erase unwanted lines, the eraser would take out lines that I wanted kept. In truth, I had never seen an eraser that could fit between the lines. Yet I suspected that something was out there. In hindsight if I had fully absorbed myself in online comic book art forums, I would probably have learned about a lot of the tools my peers had been using, but I felt myself drifting further and further away from the idea of illustrating comic books. With a few failed attempts at trying to locate such an elusive tool, I resigned myself to having sketchy pencil illustrations. At that point in time it didn’t matter too much to me. I was going over the pencils with pigment liners anyway.

My tools of the trade for the best part of a decade were as follows:

A4 and A3 printer paper

Mechanical pencil (a cheap black Pentel 0.5 which I’ve used for over a decade)

Staedtler pigment liners;0.3, 0.5 and 0.7

A thick chunky eraser

A smaller eraser that although small, was the bane of my life, lifting a lot of the finer pencil lines along with the main problem lines during it’s assault on my page.

And of course, last but not least, Photoshop to colour the illustrations

Granted around the year 2007 to 2009 I was mainly a painter of acrylics, and so my tools were brushes and canvases, but I never felt that I could get enough detail in my acrylics paintings, especially in terms of facial moods. I look back and I partially feel it was the composition of the forms within the actual paintings. That, and I probably needed to be working on bigger canvases.

I found I was able to convey moods better in illustration work. Long before I coloured my first artwork digitally (which is nearly a signature nowadays for me), my brother borrowed one of my inked artworks for his art class in the hopes of getting good grades.

A page from Revelation: The Comic, complete with bad grammar, dodgy colouring and grumpy
characters! :D Art and Story by James Battersby

Illustrating in my late teens, I had no qualms with that. I have always found art classes in schools to be mediocre and of little importance anyway, so in my view it didn’t matter if the art was my brothers or not. My brother used what’s called the “paint bucket tool” and filled a “caucasian” colour onto the face of one of my male illustrations. That sealed the deal for me. It turned out very good and I was impressed.

From there I worked on “Revelation: The Comic”, my own creation of homeless outcasts surviving in an anti-religious future and drew from the influence I had seen in my brother’s colouring of my artwork. It had never occurred to me then that colouring my artwork via computer was a possibility…it saved on ink for a start, and things could be edited easily. I had just turned twenty and my head was full of ideas. My work was admittedly a little rough around the edges, but a good effort. As for “Revelation: The Comic”…I would never dream of releasing that to the public nowadays.

Harvest Thanksgiving Line Art by James Battersby. Devoid of all colour, and any real
body of shading and blacks, it would have been unsuitable for galleries

After finishing those early pieces, I began working on other artworks but as the years passed, I found myself honing my skill of colouring images digitally. My romantic medieval artworks carried on through into illustrating King’s Journey Tarot and Simply Deep Tarot. Digital colour was the way…I never considered anything else.

Yet…over the years when I saw the various galleries throughout the north coast sitting there vacant of my artwork, or I’d hear of exhibitions that I was invited to but declined, I realized that I had nothing to offer them. Sure, I had paintings from 2006-2009, and indeed I could have showcased them (thinking back now, I’m not sure what stopped me)….but my illustration work could never be accepted by the galleries. In fact, I knew there was no point. Galleries need two things in my view….originals and colour. I had originals, but they lacked the colour, the one thing my art was known for. They also lacked solid blacks, which is something essential I feel to a colourless work, because I had grown accustomed to using little blacks in my digital colouring. I felt that things just needed to change!

A new start I thought to myself. I wanted to reinvent myself.

I would say over the past few years I’ve gradually kitted myself out with what I probably should have been using all along. They say a workman never blames his tools, but nowadays that saying doesn’t hold much weight anymore. I’ve learned that in a very competitive world nowadays, everyone demands a certain level of expertise from you. Tools can make you or break you.

First up was the elusive eraser. It had to be out there somewhere and i was determined to find it…

Tombow's Mono-Eraser 2.3 is great for erasing unwanted pencil lines in tight spaces

It’s only been in the last few years that I found, after much online research, two types of eraser pen from Tombow called Mono-Zero; one is a broad shaped eraser (2.5x5) and the other is a smaller thin version (2.3). Thank God for the Japanese I remembered thinking, they certainly do take their art and art tools seriously. When I found these erasers in the shape of a pen I realized then that these were most likely the same tools my peers had been using years before.

That was the erasers down. I then discovered French curves, which I suspect will take a more prominent role in some of my future work, and Strathmore Bristol board. I’d heard of this board over the years but in my youth I did not purchase anything online. Instead I browsed art stores throughout the local towns, or whenever I was in Belfast city. Nothing….nothing of the sort could be found. I often wished something similar to Michaels (a U.S art store) would open in northern Ireland. Most art supply shops here are stuffy and considerably lacking in anything useful to any artist below the age of ninety. In recent times I invested in Bristol board, with my first illustration being a portrait of someone close to me. Take a look.

Finally I came to the last thing on my list of things to find. A decent pen. Ah, Staedtler, you were the bane of my life for many years, and like a fool I kept coming back to you time and again. To be fair, Staedtler’s pigment liners served their purpose. Sure enough they are indelible and waterproof and can bring your artwork to life. I always found though that they were pretty useless when it came to inking around curves, as the sample images here show. The ink cuts out when the side of the pen is relied on. I always found myself having to go over the line again a second time, trying to match up the black line to be seamless…with mixed results. Such a task called on excellent dexterity.

Rather than tell myself that that’s just how it is I decided to look into what was available. Then I discovered the brush pen. To be honest I had never heard of a pen with a brush for a nib. I honestly had got it into my head that as far as an ink pen went, I had three options…all of which I had already tried with varying degrees of success. You’ve got the ballpoint, most commonly know as a biro, but they can also come in what’s called a “Gel pen” form. Then you’ve got the dip pen, which I used to use with Indian ink. They use steel tipped nibs. I always found the nibs would bend far too easily, though admittedly as a young artist years ago, I may have been buying the low quality kind. Then you had the risk of the ink falling out of the open top nib itself onto an illustration you'd spent hours creating. Finally you had the pigment liner, as seen in the sample images to the left, a type of pen I had been using up until now. The pigment liner was never flexible enough for sweeping, curving lines and so on.

Pental fudepen or brush pen

I discovered the brush pen, known as the fudepen, about a month ago. After having taken a hiatus for almost a year, I needed an incentive to get back to the drawing board. I had the muse, but I also needed to reorganize my utility belt! I discovered Pentel’s GFKP brush pen, along with Zebra’s own line of brush pens. I decided to order a variety of different brands in the hopes of finding the right one. I’m really pleased with the results of all the pens. Pental's brush pen i use for more bolder lines while the smaller Zebra branded pens are good for more thin, detailed lines. They do the exact thing I wanted them to do. Like I say, I really wish art stores loved art as much as the artists who frequent their stores in order that we wouldn't have to seek out supplies online. I love to support local businesses. Unfortunalty it's difficult to keep a stock of things that only a few individuals might take advantage of. Then again, the arts in Northern Ireland are not exactly promoted within our own country (oh you know what I mean, don’t pretend like you don’t know! Hahaha) so the materials themselves are more than likely not in demand.

I’m always happy to answer questions about art materials from anyone who is interested.

Thanks

James

An Experiment in Art

6/20/2013

When you put pencil to paper, you wonder if you are going to be able to convey the same vision you see in your mind. Many things can happen when you illustrate freehand without the aid of some pre-prepared program on the PC. Is your hand steady enough to render the thin lines in ink when your penciled work is complete? Is the pen going to cut out with you on rounding that one awkward curve, just as the graphite below collides with the ink? Are you going to have to attempt to redraw broken lines if such a thing occurs? These are things that sometimes have to be dealt with in drawing freehand.

Admittedly this experiment I undertook in the small hours of last night/morning cannot really be considered a “freehand” drawing in it's entirety since. I openly admit using the lovely Christine’s photo both as photo reference and an aid to place the lines (tracing). Despite that, it really depends on the tools you have at your disposal too. This experiment was actually to test out a few pens I had bought, but it actually served as an experiment for a number of things:

My first time illustrating an Asian lady

My first time using a brush pen

My first time using Strathmore Bristol board

My first time (in a very long time) of using coloured inks to colour my work

I’ll probably write more on the pens in another letter. For the longest time i have admired semi-realistic artworks. Real enough to seem slightly lifelike, but "impressionist" enough to give a hint that it is more emotionally/creatively charged than simply an illustrated photograph. You want it to be an artist's perception or interpretation. I grew up being taught in school that to trace or even use photographs for artworks was a form of cheating. As a young child this profoundly affects you. Who really wants to consider themselves a cheater? We all want to be something of an achievement. At the age of 31 i am still reluctant to use photography in my artworks due to this, though in recent times, as can be seen in using Christine's beautiful photo, it can achieve a more polished professional look...which is essentially all that really matters.Coming of age, i began to see that some of the greats, for example Alphonse Mucha, whose artwork i first ecountered in Prague, would use photographs of his female models in his studio. Mucha passed away in 1939, a good forty years before i was born, and yet was a credible respected artist despite his use of photography. I wonder at times if i had ignored the teachers, or had never been taught that it was cheating to use photographs, would anything have changed?

I decided that i was going to create the best portrait i had ever undertaken. i have done a few for friends over the years but this one was going to be different. I was going to create this one with pens i had never used before, on paper i had never sampled. This would also be my first portrait that would be illustrated under a light box. I felt fairly confident. Coming back to illustrating is a great feeling when you have been away from the board for a long time. I had bought myself a few new pencils too. Art wise the past few years had been a little frustrating for me. It was a fresh start and i felt that the best way to "celebrate" that was with some new materials.

I had bought a Pentel Graphgear 1000 made to hold a 0.7 lead...i guess that's just another name for a more fancy mechanical pencil. Like i say...with approaching art with a new mind, sometimes it helps to change things around and remind yourself of the literal change with new materials. The original pencil work on the left, before being inked, probably took somewhere around two hours. I wanted to capture Christine in the way that my artistic mind viewed her. Some people, if they are important to you, have what i would call an "artistic representation" of themselves in your mind. It's all stylized of course, that's what art is all about. I put Christine in what i would say is a natural surrounding. The little branches or vines at the side of the illustrations were created by using a french curve. I love many of the Art Nouveau styles, the details in the hair especially. To me, their representation of women, like that of the romantic ideals of Rosseti and the Pre Raphaelites, is inspirational, especially so in times when it seems they are not as respected as they should be. Women are life givers, nurturers, the gentler of the sexes. Art, in my view, has the ability to represent them respectfully. That's what inspires me. As a young man i used to admire the American illustrator Joe Quesada's artwork (now editor of Marvel Comics, and a very nice guy to boot...at least from my conversations with him years ago). In later years i discovered that Joe was also influenced by Alphonse Mucha and i think that reminded me that a lot of your artistic influences growing up, are sometimes the result of them being inspired by certain artists before them who eventually go on to influence you. I considered this particular artwork depicted here to be an experiment. I honestly didn't know how it was going to turn out. You never truly know, especially in a medium where it's far more easier to make mistakes (no "edit undo" button in sight..you use the wrong colour, there's not much room for a second chance)

Christine has an unmistakeable natural beauty about her and so more precision has to be made when dealing with a portrait like this as opposed to a portrait which can be "added to".( I remember in my young collage years our tutor Rosella remarked that i made her look more beautiful than she actually was though I suspect she was just being nice about the situation )What i was going for with the facial features in this portrait was to highlight the dark in the eyes, but also to highlight the face by contrasting it with a surround of dark ink. At the same time i wanted to stay true to the original photograph. Instead i used broad sweeping lines on some of the hair, and also the dark area shadow on the right side. I was using Pentel's brush pen (the GFKP3-A brush fude pen with man-made bristles. Cartridges contain water and fade-resistant black pigment ink ) to ink in some of the main black areas. It's also a pretty flexible pen as far as using it for inking curved lines and etc.

After having inked the illustration with blacks, here was the experiment i had been waiting for. Keep in mind that i was happy with the inks. After more than a decade of colouring my illustrations digitally through photoshop, i had grown accustomed to being assured that if i messed up the colouring, i could take those original scanned inks and start again. When you colour over your original inks, you sort've forfeit that idea. Still, the very idea of colouring my artworks by hand had been on my mind for years. I had to see if it was possible. I'd bought bottles of ink probably close to twelve years ago, but never had the heart to throw them out. "Someday" i would always say to myself "someday i would use them". I treated them like watercolours, toning down the reds, mixing yellow with a little red and blue to come up with a skin tone which would lend itself to the art, all the while adding plenty of water. the colours can very overpowering if you are not careful.

A comparison to my digitally painted artwork on the right. I am happy now, knowing that there is hope in
my ability to have fully finished pieces available for galleries

I finished up around 4:00 AM having lost track of time. I always find it difficult to stop doing an artwork and continue it another day...unless of course necessity demands it. When you're in "the flow state" as Paul McKenna phrases it, you want to keep pressing on. You can find yourself in the mood of a painting, a mood that can fade away the next day. Other artists have no problem continuing on from where they left off. It really depends on the project. I felt really pleased with how the experimental artwork turned out. It gave me hope. For years i had experimented off and on with watercolours to give a more "natural" "homegrown" look to my paintings, but something always seemed to keep getting lost in the transfer from penciled sketch to watercolour. I suspect it was the absence of bold ink lines and the contrasts that can be found in very definite blacks as opposed to my watercolors where blacks were absent.

Click image to see full version

There are of course the obvious "faults" or "errors" in such an experimental artwork. Some will be found by the critic, and others will be more noticeable to the artist. That is to be expected. That's not even what's important to me right now. Most of them i already know right now where i went wrong thankfully. Instead i see this piece as valuable to my own understanding that this might be the way to go for me in the future. I feel this is a refreshing alternative to my more brightly "painted" digitally coloured works. In my opinion it looks great in real life. I wouldn't hesitate to hang it on my wall for example, which i must admit i cannot say this with all of my art. What i am implying is that i know i can progress as an artist and i feel i have done, by simply taking a little time and realising it. I would like to say thanks to Christine for helping me see that i can achieve much more when i put my mind to it and for being a great model.

James

Love Your Local Commune-ity

6/20/2013

“ Thousands of books shipped daily” read the advertisement for a book company in the U.S, as though to inspire confidence. I was looking at “Art Nouveau: An Anthology of Design and Illustration from "The Studio" by Edmund V. Gillon Jr. I suppose in some ways it does inspire confidence. The theory, it would seem, is that by having many customers you are somewhat more reliable, or dare I say it, even more trustworthy. Anyone with any sense will know that this is not always the case (Consider BP, Haliburton, RyanAir, Thomson travel, Monsanto..the list goes on) For much of my adult life I have struggled with the idea that bigger is better, popularity is king or that fame or fortune are the measure of a man. Perhaps it is because I have witnessed the downtrodden and sympathized with them. When it comes to business, one only has to walk down to their local town and see the boarded up windows of local “mom and pop” stores as they are called in America. Bakeries, butchers, local grocers, it can all be found under one gigantic roof, and due to our low incomes we naturally will go to where we can find food that we consider affordable. The huge supermarket chains have warped our perception of value. No one sees how much losses the farmer often has to take in order for a major supermarket chain to present a “buy one get one free” promotion. The supermarket is not trying to be your friend! It’s not the supermarket that is giving you free food, it is the producer. Granted he signed up to be a part of that deal, but people forget these things. Often farmers can’t compete due to the exchange rate and the restrictions put upon them that other countries never have to adhere to. Old book shops close as online trade grows at an exponential rate. (I’d just like to add that my searches are for hard to find books, i.e ones that would never see the light of day in a traditional book shop). I’m still searching for a Privat Livemont book with all of his artworks and life story but it’s possible such a book does not exist.

Essentially what I am saying is that big business bothers me. No, scrap that…capitalism that veers into the area of low morals bothers me. I hate businesses that have their hand in everything; not because they have a particular interest in these areas, but because they have the attitude of “why not?” Maybe I am old fashioned. Maybe I am an idealist. I am an artist, but I don’t feel the need to sell clothes, breakfast cererals and life insurance from my studio. I illustrate. I occasionally paint. I write some books. A baker bakes. Butchers sell meat. A builder builds houses. This was brick and morter stuff back in the day. People had their thing that they did. A grocer didn’t give loans because he wasn’t a bank, nor did he give pet insurance. But look now. A major grocery store is almost a one-stop shop. It might be convenient to each of us individually for different reasons, but collectively it is draining the life force from local business. Yet the mega stores say “ well…why not?” Here is why not…the smaller local businesses in little communities have the right to survive too. As mentioned in a previous post, I met a wonderful woman who has shared her ideals with me in regards to the inequality that exists in this type of capitalism, many of the same thoughts I have had for many years. I am not suggesting she shares the exact same point of view that I do, but it has become evident to me over the years that capitalism as it is right now cannot work. While it is true, that in many countries throughout the world there has always been a class divide, for example even in the time of Christ despite his teachings against hording wealth, I really feel that with the beginning of industry and mass production things have veered to an extremist form of capitalism. I am not a historian or a lecturer or anything of the kind, but I do observe the world around me. The Internet exploded in my lifetime, and though I never foresaw it, online trade in some areas has superseded the traditional way of trade. With more sophisticated machinery, mankind became less needed in manufacturing plants. We’re even encouraged to use self-service checkouts when we buy our groceries. What has that got to do with capitalism you might ask? It has everything to do with it. A reliance on self-service checkouts means an already tight fisted store can employ less employees, thus, I imagine, hold onto more profit. I remember reading some of Paul McKenna’s books a few years ago where he talks about the main problem with the economy being huge corporations who do not put money back into circulation, but withhold it…often putting it in banks overseas to avoid paying their countries tax rates. Money, McKenna said, had to flow easily between people like a river, otherwise the system doesn’t work. What big business does is, like a sponge, absorb all the money it can find and leave little for anyone else.

As a concept, capitalism may have started off with a noble idea. The problem is that the system is now corrupt and has been for some time. Rather than reward an individual for their hard work by giving them fair pay and the promise of more if such is to be the case, it instead, as is often the case, exploits an individual. Capitalism, in my opinion, could only work if either one’s country was self sufficient and traded almost solely with the resources within that country OR…a one world currency (I know people can go crazy over the idea of a one world currency and suspect it is associated with the New World Order but realistically money is just a symbol of traded services).

The idea that a producer/creator can be shunned by his own countrymen in favour of trading with another producer for the exact same goods overseas (at a cheaper cost due to currency differences) is absurd and damaging, not only to the integrity of local business, but for the community as a whole…yet we all unconsciously support such an unfair system because we are victims of it. Nearly half of the average person’s earnings after all are never taken home, but instead put back into the “public purse”, where it’s spent, among other things, on giving that whimpering, broken thing (Europe) 50 million pounds A DAY to limp along a little further (Read some commentary on the Book of Daniel and stop wasting all that money on a “European union” that was weak from the get go..it ain’t going to happen) In regards to the big money spend, don’t take my word for it, follow the link.

Value your local community folks. Stand up for the little people!

From The Depths

6/18/2013

I felt an inclination
To thank you for loving me
For bringing me from the depths
Of an ocean trawled by olde sea monsters
Of sirens of the deep
That scream needlessly
Raging up like a thunderstorm
Over the least little thing

And how you calm me
Until I am settled of heart
Like a blanket given to a poor man
In the frozen sleet and rain
I feel what I feel
I trust that it’s real
For it’s all that I’ve got

Never felt anything come close
To what this might be
I walk a line, a thin line
I think of your heart
A thing I can’t take lightly
I wonder after your ways
I long to know the road
And the journey of where it leads

James Battersby
18/06/13

Hidden Inspiration

6/17/2013

Conducting an online search today for the elusive The Violet Burning and their CD's, it had me wondering about creativity once again. The Violet Burning are a band from California, and along with Saviour Machine and The Wedding Party, formed the basis of what i used to listen to in my late teens and early twenties. There was only one snag though; you couldn't get their records in the shops. I discovered them online. I guess collectively they would be classed as "alternative" bands, with both Saviour Machine and The Wedding Party being Gothic Christian themed, both in their theatrical sets and musical direction. I wasn't a goth, but there was something powerful in the music, the likes of which as a young Christian i couldn't find anywhere else. The regular church music, or even mainstream Christian bands just did nothing for me. There was no feeling in them, no emotion. To me it was just words. You could feel no passion in any of it. For the longest time i assumed that The Violet Burning was actually a popular Christian band, but have come to find out that they are virtually unheard of. With 13 full length albums, i was hard pushed to find even one available for purchase online. What happened?!

Granted Saviour Machine was ostracised and practically banned from "good" "wholesome" Christian book/music stores due to their song "Legion" and the "offensive" content in the lyrics, (why quoting scripture offends Christians is a mystery to me) but The Wedding Party and The Violet Burning really should have made it in the Christian music scene.

The singer Eric Clayton from Saviour Machine had a powerful baritone voice and it was that voice that made me envision all sorts of things as a young man eager for spiritual understanding. He was always respectful of those of us who wrote to him and voiced our support of his band's work. William Knight and Jamie McCavanagh from The Wedding Party would keep in touch with me and discuss things. Libby, another member of the band actually offered to put me up in her place and show me around their studio if ever i visited Nashville. Their connection to those who admired their work was something else and realistically it really only happens with smaller bands, but their kindness really showed me that they were standing by what they were trying to say in their music and lyrics. It was the passion in the music that inspired me most of all though. The Wedding Party's No More Night or Saviour Machine's Carnival of Souls had a profound impact on me and i remember even back then wondering why Christian bookstores would boycott what to me was music that was more in line with the idea of Christianity. To me, their music represented the the equivalent of The Hollies' song "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother".

Getting back to my point. Alot of good art and good music is destined to remain hidden like gems in the mire. YET, despite the fact that they are hidden, they exude excellence, craftmanship and soul stirring emotion that while may be rarely appreciated, can never degrade as throwaway music...which is completely ironic, considering that popular art and music (especially with pop music) often has short lived fame. You can be a flavour of the month, or reach super stardom for a few years and go down in flames rather quickly. You might create a classic, or you may not. What creates a classic? I guess it could be any number of things, but i feel that what sticks with me is something in the art that is universal...namely mood. How does it make you feel? I make no secret of it that art inspires me, in the same way that music does. To me, i would rather look at a Privat Livemont over a Van Gogh, or a Mucha over a Picasso. I suppose they are all respected artists in their own right, but the average man on the street will have heard of Van Gogh or Da Vinci, not because those artists are any better, but because they have been absorbed into popular culture. I think also, we feed the popular culture by embracing something that the majority of people already love (often because they themselves buy into the very fact that it is popular culture, not necessarily because they enjoy it or even "get it"). Nowadays the word for it is "trending"...not a word i particularly like, but that, i feel, is essentially the gist of it.

The Violet Burning's I See Stars paints an audible picture of some kind of love which i feel could rival the lyrics of any pop song

"Hold me close, and never let me go." - I love it when you talk that way.
And throw your arms around my neck,
I love you, I love you, please stay.
Heaven holds my heart, and I feel it; The palm of your hand against mine.

"And I never, never, I never wanted more than this.
I promise, I promise, I promise, this time will be alright.
Yeah, I see stars every time we kiss."

So i learned more and more the importance of putting your best work out there...regardless of the uncertainty of financial or cultural success. If you can inspire even one person with what you do, as in my youth these bands did for me, then I think this is the thing that really matters.

The Muse

6/13/2013

She was higher than all
And at first I did not see it
Wisdom incarnate
In a woman who comes to me
As though from some mystical place

A heart of gold, how could I have thought anything else?
She feels it, the suffering of the world, as I feel it too
She is familiar to me, her soul comforts me

She quells my doubts once again
She eases my worries
In her the scars of my past are brought to the fore
To be soothed and healed
By a healing heart

Today I struggled, not with love, not with love at all
But with the memories of a past that should have long been buried
Had I known I could feel love again
Maybe the graves would not have lain half covered

When I see us slow dancing
Like I’ve never done before but painted often
I am made alive and I see things with clarity
I am alive to the feeling
I feel I can begin again
A heart opened when once it was locked shut
Is it safe to feel?
She asks me what my core says
And it replies I’ve found my heart of gold

13/06/13
James Battersby

Love Comes Alive

6/12/2013

Every love song comes to life
Now that I have felt it
Every poet and musician
Who’ve wrote about true love
Knows how I’m feeling now

I laugh to think I used to think I was in love
When all this time
Love comes from a woman who can give it back
It comes from an angel who whispers she loves your spirit
She loves your vision
She lights you up inside with a consuming fire

I think of my friend Marcel (Lorange) who spent his life
Painting and playing guitar
Poor in spirit like me until he found the girl in his paintings
His painting “between the sea and the violin” revealed a sorrow
A sorrow greater than I could say, and I felt it in my bones as a young man

I used to wonder who you were
And why I looked to the west
As younger man, as a fool
And perhaps at times I still am
I looked upon the waves and I wondered why
I thought she came from beyond the sea
And maybe now I know

Am I losing it, am I finally losing my mind?
To try and love again after the chaos
That crashed upon the rocks of my mind
From one too many souls who never stopped to know me

And then I see your face, I hear your voice
A reminder that I must follow my heart
And find out why it skips a beat now and again
You, the woman for me, come to me
Like some kind of answer to an ancient prayer
Said to the sky in the times of hopeless youth

And here you are, like a star that appears in the sky from nowhere

But was always there
I never knew I would write again, with feeling, with passion
Your eyes inspire a million paintings yet to come

12/06/13
James Battersby

Owning What You Present

6/12/2013

Stepping into the art world can be a big challenge for people starting out, but sometimes for very different reasons than you would imagine.

I’m going to share with you a different reason for why a lot of people find it hard to share their art with the world. It’s not always down to a fear of what other people will think of their level of skill or perfection. I really feel that in a lot of cases it’s down to what is being depicted in the art itself

Art isn’t just a job…in fact it’s seldom seen as such by people who don’t really understand it. Instead it’s a way of being, a way of living. It’s like you wear your heart on your sleeve and not everyone is capable of doing that. It’s a bit like standing in front of a massive crowd of people and singing. Some fear that they could be judged by the crowd. Others feel they HAVE to sing, in fact they are compelled to, despite possible criticism. Others feel more confident when singing in front of family or friends. I personally prefer sharing things with total strangers…or with a significant other, but very little in between. You may wonder why this is. Well, in my view I tend to think that I think a little more differently than friends and family. There seems to be a sort of "chasm" that seperates creative people, or dreamers, from the more "rational majority". If it is does not exist in actuality, it is certainly imagined anyway by many artists and creative people. I would never willingly express this side of myself to them publicly because I think it would be out of place. I used to think it was down to being insecure, but as I grow older I feel it’s more to do with it being rather pointless. What would be the point of discussing the universe, or romantic ideas with people who discuss the football scores or the weather? My mind is wired a certain way. Therefore presenting your art and your ideologies has their time and place.

Now, to be clear, I’m not talking about those artists who decide to paint a picture of their house, or the view from their window. I don’t feel that kind of thing really applies to what I’m referring to. I’m talking about the kind of art that leaves you open to interpretation, the kind of thing that can get you into trouble from girlfriends and ex-girlfriends, or from people who thought they knew you but really hadn’t a clue. You know those kinds of things where people will say, “why did he draw that” or “why did she write that”. In my case I’ve drawn things that actually deeply offend religious people from time to time. One word. Tarot. The very name itself can upset highly religious people. I don’t set out to offend. I have Christian morals, Christian leanings myself. I just see a bigger picture, but I don’t usually flaunt it around all that much. No one asks me my own personal opinions on the matter so it seems slightly irrelevant at times to divulge anything. Then some might ask why I should care what people think. I don’t really know. I guess I am sympathetic to their feelings. If I wasn’t in the least bit sensitive, I doubt I’d be creative at all.

Then comes the question. Do you attempt to cover up this kind of expression like it was some sordid deed? Or do you own it and be proud of what you’ve accomplished? Many Christians support war and the bombing of innocent civilians so you have to wonder to yourself whether you are overreacting in your analysis that they might actually be offended in a legitimate way by your Tarot art. Possibly not.

So I say own your art. If it sits right with your conscience, own everything that you do and don’t shirk from it. I guess that’s a note to self too.

Putting your creativity out there for the world to see however can be a very strange experience. In the online world today it reminds me of some kind of digital akashnic records that we all willingly contribute to. At any moment someone could look you up and see what you wrote and illustrated five years ago. You participate or you don’t, but if you do you naturally run the risk of family and friends sifting through your various attempts at trying to understand why the art is in your veins. So you have to be proud of what you do. You have to love what you do.

I grew up bullied in school, like many people who turn out to be creative. I’ve been seeking for some kind of connection ever since and for me, it's achievable through the feelings that people get when they admire your art. Even better of course when you are blessed with a significant other who "gets" it, who feels it. For me, that's what it's all about. I’ve learned, and indeed many do as they progress through life, that you have to own everything you do, regardless of how you think the world will perceive you.