Monday 18th December
I haven’t written anything for a couple of weeks as I have been very busy working three Joe jobs. Term finished on the 9th, I think, but I started some driving work the week before and quickly got the night shift at parcel force Sundays till Thursdays and I am still cleaning in the afternoons. Same again this week, a couple days of driving each day, evenings every day as well as nights. Still, should pay for Christmas and a few weeks after.


Went to St Marks today to see the church with David Calder the rev in charge. What a great space, Rona came with me and we are both very interested in using the church for both the degree show and more importantly situation Leeds. Rona would utilize the inside and I would go out into the grave yard, I think. We now need to contact the diocese of Ripon about potential purchase dates. Electric is good, running water should be ok but we may need to bring in our own toilets.

Lots to think about but very positive.

December 7th
Long, long day yesterday that bled into today.

Spent the morning following the same routine, library, studio, work. I produced a number of silicone moulds for the bullets as well as downloading images of M16 magazines and trying out some cardboard box designs to hold Soap bullets in.

I had a meeting with the show committee and Kerry Harker that was very useful, and Kerry seemed to know that I had submitted a proposal for Situation Leeds.

I went to the Odeon cinema in the afternoon to do a risk assessment, it failed. Did some food shopping went to work, came home for an hour and then went back out to work at Parcel Force van depot loading vans from ten o’clock last night until 8 this morning. A great way to loose weight.

Wednesday December 6th
After being in the library and catching up with my emails I went straight to the studio. Dave was in and I showed him my news clipping from Liverpool where me and Rob had attempted to steel a Banksy, all in the name of art of course. Dave thought it was hilarious.

Spoke to Pete about doing a risk assessment on the cinema in town and we arranged to meet the owners at 2.15 on Thursday. Fran spoke to the owners and I arranged to meet her there and go to the appointment the next morning at 10.

I finished shaping the polystyrene in the morning and then spent the afternoon making more moulds of bullets out of Vina-mould. No sooner had I finished with the Vina-mould than Dave gave me a bullet he had coated in latex resin. The finish on the wax once dried in the resin mould was far cleaner than the Vina-mould finish. I shall follow this line and start producing a couple of moulds a day.




Dave invited me to make some products for the artists book fair in June. I shall make soap bullets and place them in boxes that look like ammo clips. Ak47 and M16 two different product lines. Clean up with soap bullets. Wash your hands with "diplomacy" the new soap from ----- who knows? If I have the time.

Work was followed by some drinking with Alex in the Britannia and then the Imperial. The Imperial will be our local as it is much more relaxed.

December 3rd, 4th & 5th

Spent the last couple of days driving for TNT/ NHS direct in the day. Delivering nappies to old peoples homes, wipes to the mentally ill and tinned food to convicts. At night I turn into cleaning man and mop up shit -covered ladies toilets. Thanks Dino Rod.

I did have a group crit on Monday and managed to attend for part of it between jobs. Emma was not very happy with me as I "hadn’t prepared". But how can you prepare for something that you were not expecting to be able to attend. I don’t think Richard passed on my email. Never mind.

December 2nd
I spent Friday working closely with John. He has guided me through the various steps of creating the large scale bullets and we seemed to make some real progress due to the lack of other students bothering him for loans and such. Most students must have been hung-over from the show which opened the night before in the dark arches.



I finished the blade, built a frame and attached it with the turntable to a wall in the casting room. I rapped the polystyrene in a blue cloth to enable the plaster to stick to the surface. I also built a tray to go underneath so as to catch as much of the falling plaster as possible.

At 2.30 I did a shop ready for Jamie’s birthday weekend and then met a couple of the girls from my year at the old Odeon in the Merion centre.

Its funny but my ideas have been reignited by this space and I have now Formed a strong inclination toward the projection room at the back of the auditorium.


After work I sat and watched the power of Art. This week was Simon Schammas telling of Guernica. Fantastic I thought, I never had much time for Picasso's preening. OK I enjoyed his Cock sculptures at the Mait foundation in the south of France a few years ago but was never really a fan of his paintings, except for Guernica. All pretensions left behind, a modernist work of art history painting that captured the terrible nature of mankind.(so said Schama)

Over the weekend and after James birthday visit on Saturday I would mull over Guernica and delve back into my love of war artists such as Nash, much to my satisfaction.

December 1st
I spent the morning carving the polystyrene only for the tip to fall off. Everyone seemed to make innuendos about the phallic nature of the object, some times I wonder whether the choice of form is a little crude,
but then I think, that’s the point. Not crude in a phallic sense but crude as in mans inability to do much of anything that is not crude and I suppose in this way it always returns to the Phallic as the base representation.

The shape of the bullet has changed little during the past 150 years and so too the conflicts in which it is used. Whether the bullet, once enlarged is reminiscent of a sky scraper (one persons comment) a large penis (another person) a rocket,
projectile, missile, church, library tower or Verdun mausoleum. There is something religious, sexual and threatening about the shape. Pointing to the heavens or pointing at you, ready to penetrate, obliterate, sever, tare, launch or explode. When taller than a man and white, it looks like a monument or tomb stone, there are even traces of a bishop in full dress with pointed hat, KKK or Catholic worshiper (La Paz brotherhood). An explosive chamber designed to (when struck with a hammer) propel a chunk of metal toward a target at such a speed so that the target may sees to exist once hit. Atoms crashing into atoms. These bullets are however hollow shells, vacuous and brittle. Overblown representations of the real.

A romantic view of making would mean imbuing life into inanimate objects/lumps of matter through my labour. Passing some part of my energy/sole into the objects as I crash against them during their production, atoms are exchanged and mingle. Crash too hard however and you have destruction.

Now when you want to kill people you only need to poison, gas, evaporate, suffocate or irradiate, push a button call a mobile phone, guide a bomb or set a clock. The brutal nature of smashing a lump of metal into someone will seem strange and primitive, but will we ever stop doing it, the satisfaction gained from firing a gun is a difficult sensation to replicate. I can vouch for the AK47 which makes a sound like a giant whip crack and spills the bullet so as to do more damage on impact.
My only other direct experience of a gun was when some one once fired a Beretta next to my head (when i was a teenager)and left me deaf for some time (long story).

In the afternoon I made an aluminium template with the Help of John. The template will cut the plaster skin of the mould to the exact shape and depth required for the first fibreglass skin to be applied. I also used some brass cleaner on the successful cast; it made little or no difference to the colour.
I have discussed the colour with different people and no one seems to know why the base of the cast and tip of the bullets are bright gold and the main body of the bullet is deep purple and bronze I believe it is something to do with the wax being burnt out and then the pressure of the poured brass at the bullet tip burning the residue away. Where the base is gold there was no wax. Whatever the reason the effect is striking and desirable..


Home followed by work followed by visiting Alex and watching Newcastle play in Europe.