Happy Holidays from William and Kurt

It's that time of the year again when a bloated, surprisingly limber old stranger crosses the globe, enters homes dressed in red, smelling of reindeer excrement, sherry and mince pies. Whether naughty or nice I have something for the festive season that is quite simply audio Marmite. I love it, if you feel the same way good for you, if not don't panic, just take a deep breath, get into your preferred mode of transportation and head for the nearest shopping mall. They will have all the homogenised yuletide anti-venom waiting for you. Back to the audio Marmite, there are no frills, no toast to spread it on, no knife or spoon to dunk and lick, just jab a finger inside the jar and get all mucky. William Burroughs slowly reads an extract from his book 'Exterminator' whilst Kurt Cobain tears out a masochistic rendition of 'Silent Night'. Who needs Bing Crosby, 'Miracle on 34th Street' or Jimmy Stewart faffing around in the snow, not I? This is a long track but stick with it, there's a while to wait before the first word is uttered. When noise is met by prose, the marriage of Burroughs' expressionless delivery and Cobain's exciting disregard for 'Silent Night' makes for a jarring nine minutes and fifty-one seconds. A little sour mixed with the saccharine sweetness of the festive season works for me. Enjoy if you dare! Merry Christmas

The lady who couldn't sleep

As the slugglish run up to Christmas trundles along, it's wonderful when you are able to slip back into something comfortable, an old pair of metaphorical slippers thought to have been long lost at the back of a jumbled metaphorical wardrobe. Last week I revisited a body of work that I hold quite dear. Louise Bourgeois 'Insomnia Drawings' are a wonderful series of mesmeric images. They have a wistful, hazy quality, primitive yet assertive and sophisticated. An excellent demonstration of how a voracious artistic mind can perform acts of instinctive wonder, transforming the burden of insomnia into images that are utterly captivating.

They think that a kingdom can be built on my back

This is a new series I have been working on in between projects. Simple lines and colour along with the introduction of speech bubbles grew from an idea I had about the lines of communication between the living and the dead. I have experienced members of my own family who exhibit no religious belief whatsoever but still whisper an idle word or conversation with a person who is no longer alive. I have no interest in religion but death and people's reaction to it do interest me. The thought of people speaking intently to those they have lost is infinitely fascinating. It's challenging for this project to try to come up with the more mundane and strange things that the living might want to share with the dead. As this series is still in its infancy I'll keep posting the progress. This is quite a lot of finger vomiting but I really like how this project is going. The words are instinctive and the cloud is clean and isolated. I have thirty so far but will post five. The aim is to have around sixty screen prints to cover an entire gallery wall

God's got spinach in his teeth

This is my inaugural post on Bathe with Toaster; let’s call it finger vomiting not blogging. I have always thought that the word blog sounds like a human trying to suppress a gag reflex or a dog harking up the nub end of a hide bone, so I choose to finger vomit, at least it feels honest. Ideas come all the time and I’ll post sporadically any thoughts that I’m finding interesting and any work in progress. I’d like to conclude by saying don’t take electrical products into the bathroom and always wash your hands, preferably with a good quality antibacterial gel.



This is a quick study for a new piece called ‘Souvenir’. Like most of you I watched the video chronicling the end of this man’s life and let me begin by saying I hope that a new chapter will be written for Libya with a fairer touch. The footage was visually shocking and primal, the cacophony of sound and confusion coupled with the distorted videophone footage. Over the coming days the bombardment was rampant. Sometimes the medias’ thirst concerns me and there are certain news channels that in my opinion are on the verge of being perceived as nothing more than glorified ambulance chasers. This image sat in my subconscious for a while and then forced its way out. This is only a fast sketch I am going to refine the image and make an edition of screen prints incorporating some text. I am also considering creating a larger version on canvas to explore more texture, detail and colour.


This piece is called ‘The Pissing Contest’ put simply it’s about the games people play, it’s about prodigal children, the hopes parents have and how frustrating it is to see people live vicariously through their spawn. I am also drawn to the simplicity of the image and its clinical, cold and detached feel.
I have always enjoyed writing and text seems to have started to creep into my work. It’s really freeing to have an anchor to a piece if it feels right for the work. At the moment some of the ideas I have, really lend themselves to introducing text. Still tweaking this piece but I’ll decide pretty soon whether it’s going to be a screen print or Giclée.