Again something that I found and was amazed by a while back: Young C. Park, a retired dentist from Hawii, who turned his hand to making model airplanes. His hobby obviously got a bit out of control, but the results are quite spectacular. As my colleage Robin at the Design Hub said jokingly ‘do you think he has a girlfriend?’. More info here.
One of my key reasons for writing a blog is to inspire me to keep reaching out, finding and sharing work which I consider to be ’super creative’. It doesn’t really matter to me what form it takes – more often than not the really creative stuff defys classification. Great things often get overlooked by the masses, simply because it’s difficult to see past the glut of mediocre productions on the TV and poor commentary on the creative world in most newspapers. But the new revolution in connectivity means that the channels through which creative work is distributed are wider and further reaching than ever before. Mass media is dieing – all-be-it slowly – and being replaced by something much more personal.
So this is an opportunity to share great things. As an musical instrument maker that’s attempting to break new ground I can stand back and applaud people doing similar things in other fields. With that in mind I’m posting this recent mix recorded by Magnetic Man (skream, Artwork and Benga) for BBC radio. Challenging? For sure. Creative? Definitely. Fantastic? I’d say so. You might need some big speakers though! >> listen
One of several books I finished reading recently is Scott Belsky’s ‘Making Ideas Happen’. It introduces some ideas at odds with conventional thinking on turning your ideas into reality. Highly recommended reading for Creatives.
One of the main reasons I started blogging was to form some kind of catalogue of inspirational things I come across. Being a great believer in the emerging ‘open source’ way of working, I like the idea that keeping an open sketchbook allows much opportunity for collaborative work and solutions to come forward. With this in mind I’m going to make more of an effort to post ‘in homage’ to the things I feel are worthy of mention, starting with the work of Jimmy Chin.
I don’t think it’ll take you long to realise why his work is worthy of mention, but for me, what comes through is his personality. I get the impression he is never trying to impose himself on the situation, and therefore the result is something which both un-contrived and beautifully effortless. In this day and age it’s great to see such strong content that relies so little little on digital manipulation. Check out Jimmy’s website and blog.
After ten years of living an almost completely urban life in the city of Glasgow, 2009, for me, was the year that I emerged from the cocoon to discover the majestic Scottish wilderness. Perhaps it could be same for any of the world’s great wildernesses, I don’t know any of them well enough to know if they have the same depth, but something of the way the landscape and people have woven together through time, is truly magnificent. It is said that the Scottish mountains are amongst the oldest in the world, and the poetry, the music and the people, even to this day, move forward with echos of this ancient history. It might be foolish to try and convey this – like describing the taste of one of the finest single malt whiskies – but here are a few things that speak to me the loudest against this backdrop. I’ll let you peel back the layers:
Sounds
‘Walts for Hector’ from Bothy Culture by Martyn Bennett
‘Why’ on Grit by Martyn Bennett ‘
‘Blackbird’ on Grit, by Martyn Bennett
‘4 Notes’ from Bothy Culture by Martyn Bennett
more info | buy Grit | buy Bothy Culture
A Man In Assynt_Norman Maccaig
more info | book available here
Pictures
Having been on several trips to Assynt this year, the voice of Norman MacCaig has been stronger than ever in my head. MacCaig’s voice resounds like no other with the landscape of the North West of Scotland. Back at HQ in Glasgow, and looking through photos from the trips, a friend pointed out, after looking a picture I had taken of old boat near Achiltibuie earlier in the Summer, that the boat reminded her of Norman MacCaig’s poem ’So Many Summers’. They are words which seem to resonate with our experiences of the North West
So Many Summers
Beside one loch, a hind’s neat skeleton
Beside another, a boat pulled high and dry:
Two neat geometries drawn in the weather:
Two things already dead and still to die.
I passed them every summer, rod in hand,
Skirting the bright blue or the spitting gray,
And, every summer, saw how the bleached timbers
Gaped wider and the neat ribs fell away.
Time adds one malice to another one -
Now you’d look very close before you knew
If it’s the boat that ran, the hind went sailing.
So many summers, and I have lived them too.
You can listen to Norman himself tell it here.
I’d add, if you ever wanted an authentic insight into Scotland then there can be few better than listening to MacCaigs ‘A man in Assynt” while on a trip through Assynt….listen here, but pick the right time.
This and further recordings of Norman MacCaig can be found on the book and CD – The poems of Norman MacCaig.
