This is the start of my next chunk of work for the Ghost Show. We’ve an exhibition now secured at Market Gallery in the East End of Glasgow and so over the next few weeks you will see me posting bits and pieces for the project. There’s some exciting talk of the project right now, namely, one of the pieces could be an international collaboration between myself and Aimilia Mouzaki - a film. We are thrashing out the details right now. In the meantime, I can tell you that one of the projects we will definitely have in the gallery space is that of a SHRINE. I have “previous” with this, I made a shrine for scotpep.org.uk for the Leith festival in 2005, which was a community of sex workers donating props and sacred objects for a communal shrine in an art gallery. I have a similar proposal for Market and hope to have a shrine constructed in the space for the fairground community with a soundtrack and podcast of some of the fairground professionals in Glasgow. More soon, but in the meantime the image below is me collecting material for the Leith shrine in 2005.
To give you a context with what I am doing, I am the resident artist, affiliated for this project and am happy to be able to post these clips from the production company MIMAC-RUSHES
The two files below are mixes of one of the Showmen, Melvyn whom I am thinking of making one of my main pieces of work about for the Ghost Show exhibition at Market Gallery in 2009. They are just sketches at present…
One strange and wild autumn, a little while ago, Hallowe’en came early. It came at exactly the same time as Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow show rolled into town. . . That year, James Nightshade of 97 Oak Street was thirteen years, eleven months, twenty-three days old. Next door, William Halloway was thirteen years, eleven months, twenty-four days old. Both almost fourteen. Almost, but not quite.
For Jim and Will, the lure of the funfair is irresistible. They soon discover that a sinister secret lies behind the smoke and mirrors; the carnival holds a dark desire to destroy the whole town. Only Jim, Will and Will’s mild-mannered dad can save the day. Adapting his own novel for the stage, the legendary Ray Bradbury has created a spine-tingling battle between good and evil, packed with a terrifying collection of characters, including the mysterious flying Dust Witch and the deadly Mr. Dark.
Thanks to Catherine Wheels, National Theatre of Scotland and Tramway for letting me photograph this tonight. No reproduction allowed without permission from the above organisations.
Ok. So I am sat in Tramway (Tramway.org) and they have super-kindly agreed to flyer all remaining shows of SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES with flyers advertising this here site and project, and also the.ghostshow.org If you have come to this site from Tramway THANK YOU! leave a comment!
Can I just say, that there’s loads coming, but to thank you loads for visiting this, or the sister site the.ghostshow.org - without you, there would be no reason to make a blog.
I’ve been sitting on the sofa in the cafe for about four hours, writing part 2 of 3 of a short story that I began a couple of weeks ago. I hope to finish it before the weekend. Tomorrow night I am coming to see SOMETHING WICKED at Tramway with Eleanor Thom (www.eleanorthom.com) and Mitch Miller who is the chief researcher for Ghost Show feature doc and workshops.
In the meantime, to thank you for visiting, I have please in enclosing a snap from Miller’s Fun Fair which I took a few weeks ago near Dalmarnock, Glasgow. It’s a very old series of wooden columns that still work - they are very old - not sure how old, but considerably older than my 37 years. I hope you enjoy the redness…
I’d like to say a special hello to anyone reading this who has picked up one of our flyers at Tramway, Glasgow. We’ve been flyering the show “SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES“ (actually if I am honest I am about to flyer it today, but I will be sat in Tramway also photographing the set at some point today).
There’s not a great deal to see on the site right now aside from a few archive photographs and a series of colour photos I took in in one of the homesteads, the yards where Travelling Showpeople in Glasgow live in the winter. The actual place where I took these is actually a lot prettier than how I portray them!
But if you stick around over the next two weeks, you will see my finished short story about Ducks and Saturn, more photographs and audio sketches and video pieces based on remixing the feature film soundtrack (see the.ghostshow.org for more details). For any of my past work visit www.dooks.org
My interest in the “first visit” images was initially purely aesthetic. But as I went around one of the walls in the yards I realised that this was where rides are painted and sprayed and spruced up before they go on the road again. So you’ve got this kind of aesthetic historical record of colours and splashes built up over the year.
If you look in one of the shots you can see wooden boards with the odd circle on them. I’ll be appropriating these as art in the near future and probably exhibit them at market gallery as a triptych. They were initially from rides before they were used as boards for the structure in the photo.
To anyone reading this, I am just catching up on ghostshow work but would be fine if you wanted to email me about any aspect of it whilst I am updating the site.
On the 13th of November, I have a ten minute spot at The Arches in Glasgow where I shall be reading / showing some work in progress. Please come. 7.30pm.
Here’s a wee taster…
He sprung onto the waltzer’s concertina-floor which spun him 180 and he flung off ducking under the ferris barrier.
Lost him.
I parted bushes, vaulted hedges and looked for bright yellow plastic spots in the darkening twilight. Sweating in my duffel, my palms were warming through knitted green Steptoes.
I spied a crab apple tree with lumpy tree roots. In the nest of the roots, upside-down, I spotted a bright runt. Come to daddy, ducky. I popped him in my pocket. I patted it gently. Where are your brothers my little plastic pal?
I was a few hundred feet from the shows with the happy hardcore soundtrack still palpitating but dulling to a softer throb. My heart followed suit. The ducks glow best at twilight. You don’t need to throw much light on them for that plastic plumage to burn your retina. If our man has dropped cargo, it will still glow until sundown is complete. Then it’s needles and haystacks.
