​It’s taken too long but finally got around to watching ‘Dirty Business’ On Channel Four. It’s life nowadays that Social Media and TV is full of so much content we flick from one pointless drama to another. But not this one and i wanted to wait until I really had time to sit and watch this one properly, not just consume it like a bag of crisps and move onto the next one.

As a surfer I should do more, a lot more. I surf and swim in the ocean whenever possible and yet don’t do anything to help, all bar the odd beach clean and ‘pick up three’ and the odd blog rant in the past. This docudrama is shocking. I moan about the water companies doing nothing and paying out fat dividends to shareholders whilst shit still flows into the ocean, and yet the Environment Agency do nothing!

When I listened to Matt Barr and Chris Hines on discussing this drama on ‘We look Sideways Podcast’, they call us out. Why don’t more surfers do more, or anything come to that? It actually made me feel quite ashamed of myself. This was me, they were talking directly to me, and I have no excuse. Maybe living in Sennen, I’m spoilt, entitled, and because we have crystal clear water here, it feel like it doesn’t affect me as much as friends up the line, maybe I’m just selfish, when I do really care. So why don’t more surfers do more? Why are we reluctant to get involved and campaign like Chris and Matt, or Hugo Tagholm from Oceana. I am 100% amongst those surfers who enjoy a cleaner ocean thanks to others campaigning and must do so much more to help make a difference and I’m not alone. Maybe through my little blog and could reach a few more people to spread the word. It’s not just us surfers and swimmers, it’s people who fish the rivers and canals like my brother and nephew Reggie Pierre, who like his dad is becoming a great match fisherman.  Maybe when I see them on Bank Holiday,  I can ask Reggie to begin thinking about this stuff now at an early age maybe he can ask his friends too. I’m going to start shouting more. Chris Hines has been shouting for some thirty plus years. Time for us to join in, time for me to join in. ​

Can I call myself an artist? I’m not sure. In the past I would never have had the audacity to call myself an ‘artist’, I still can’t, but I do a bit of art! That’s changed a little recently, I’m coming around to the notion that there might just be an artist within me.  So what’s happened? 

Imposter syndrome is very real and when it takes hold it’s difficult to shake off, so I needed to know the actual definition of an artist. According to my new friend the ‘Ai Overview’ on Google I’m pretty much there. ‘An artist is a person who creates art, such as painting drawing, sculpture, or design, typically possessing skill and creative imagination’. 

I certainly don’t draw, ( I doodle), sculpt, or design, but I’ve started painting, and I do create art in as much as I’ve taken old images, and materials and using glue and scissors, made them into something new, so collage really. Is that Art?  Do I have skill? That depends on the definition of skill. According to Ai, that says that skill is ’the ability to do something well’. I’d say regarding my art work, it depends who’s judging! You can sense here I’m still doubting myself. 

Do I have creative imagination? I’m not sure this needs a definition, but I feel like I have some. I write everyday, and that taps into my creativity, but in terms of producing ‘visual art’, I’m still trying to find out. My wife thinks I’m a ‘process artist’, meaning I enjoy the process of creating art, but the final piece is not really important. I’m not sure this is a compliment or she’s telling me my final piece is awful. I do know I have to be happy with what I’ve produced so I’m not totally convinced that labelling myself a ‘process artist’ would be accurate just yet.  My wife Jill is an artist, she meets the definition, no questions asked in every sense of the word. Trained in fine art, she has endless imagination and infinite skills.  She doesn’t just squeeze colour out of a bottle, she mixes her own, she has a vision that I sincerely lack, and best of all she’s a teacher, and that means she can teach me. Actually she has forever been encouraging me to create. She bought me a journal last year so I could start doing some collage work, we then designed a creative space, so I had my little area. She continues to buy materials that will help me,  but essentially Jill has helped me to rid myself of thinking I’m creating art for other people and now realise that we really do just create work for ourselves and no one else. This also includes my writing. I’ll put blogs posts out there and if people read it and like it, I’m very grateful and thankful, I suppose we all want people to read our work at some point, but that’s not my motivation, I just love writing and now I’m seeing art very differently too.

So here’s a few art terms  that I’m not. I’m definitely not a ‘realist’. I can’t recreate exactly what I see, like a photograph, not a chance, but I do admire people who can. I’m not an impressionist, giving you my view of what I’m seeing, but I ‘m working on that, with excursions out with Jill to do what she calls ‘studies’. If I had my way, I might describe my art as a little abstract, this genre seems right up my street. Being a little abstract, means creating art based on my emotions and visually it arguably means nothing to anyone else except me, and that suits my crippling self doubt and belief.  This has always be my enemy, and I have to be confident enough to go beyond my comfort zone and this takes time. Posting a blog, sharing it to my facebook means the audience is limited, and happy with that. Posting pictures of my art work which you can see below, well thats jumping right outside the comfort zone. Am I about to set up the name ‘Russ Pierre Artist’? Absolutely not, but I am pretty stoked with myself for completing it.

So that ramble aside what’s this ‘piece of art’ all about? Let me give you some context and explain my process. ‘Riot’ is all about words and these are taken from a ‘Riot Proclamation’.  A framed piece of public information, that my father had in his Police Station, originally written when King George was King, I’d imagine 1940-50’s and then, adapted for the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when she took over in 1952. Dad was a Police Officer from 1946-1977 and must have acquired this somewhere along that career and essentially it says ‘stop rioting and go home’. Since I was a lad, there has been some pretty heavy riots. I remember the Brixton and Toxteth riots, born out of tensions between community and the Police. The poll tax riots were in light of Margaret Thatcher introducing another tax on the working population. It seems Riots involve giving of middle finger to the establishment and go way beyond a protest and always include a good dose of anarchy. 

I have this proclamation on my wall now, I grew up seeing it every day, next to my father’s medals from WW2 and now I see it every day above my ‘creation station’ and I began really looking at the words. One day I opened up procreate, started writing the words in a lettering style that I would sign off the surf lesson certificates during my time in Lanzarote twenty five years ago. Those words then mutated into some kind of poor ‘wild style’ graffiti, inspired from my introduction to Hip Hop days back in the late 70’s early 80’s. I’ve always loved a bit of graffiti, and combined with doodles of BMX riders, motocross logos and graffiti, my school books were covered in it. This process of words then led me outside into our studio.  This space was once was a studio/workshop where Jill ran her sewing business,then it became my bike shed, then became just a shed, but is now a studio again for Jill to work. However, on this occasion I bravely moved her work, and began to throw some paint onto a bit of plywood I’d ‘rescued’ from work. 

Let me say that I have never once done a ‘ piece of art’ using brushes and paint, on anything, let alone on this scale, and its only 78cm x 78cm. I have done a tiny water colour study under the guidance of Jill at the local National Trust, and on the coast path, but never once tried anything like this. Yet again supporting the fact I am not an artist, yet; Or am I?

Going into the studio night after night and writing words with brushes and paint, instead of and IPad pen with the option of easily deleting, was a test in mark making, and a real confidence builder. Standing back like an artist to study composition, then drying the acrylic with hair dryer; turning the wood, and going again, choosing colours, drying again, and then adding more words, this process was so much fun. I liked the building up over layers and not being confined by the edge of the wood, I got to throw a bit of paint at it, add some stencils and spray, throw in the odd anarchy sign which seemed appropriate, and also a middle finger to the Riot Proclamation I suppose. My grand finale was to age it a little with sandpaper, and it was right then I began to feel like an ‘artist’. Maybe Jill was right, I do really enjoy the process, maybe I’m an artist in the process of becoming an artist.  I could definitely do this again, and I’m already thinking about what to create next and will it be based on words? As a first try, I’m stoked and I’d really appreciate  letting me know what you think.   

The finished piece, never to be repeated, and because I’m an emerging artist, is for sale at a generous £250,000 ono!

I’ve been away from here for a while. I’ve been creating using words, but just not on here, and all will be revealed when I’ve written the words to accompany the words that I’ve just completed and to be honest, I’m pretty stoked. I’ve also been on a brief writing workshop, which although designed, I think to short story writers, I came away feeling very positive with some great new exercises that I’ve been putting into practice, and thats led me down a creative rabbit hole too. 
Anyway, to keep my couple of readers amused and in this case educated, here’s another cracker from my favourite outdoorsman, Beau Miles. Grab a cuppa and enjoy, learn and maybe have a ponder.