mailout recycled art 23
FEATURE
On being a rubbish artist
I called the number on the answerphone. I thought it was going to be about running a workshop somewhere but ‘Yikes!’ I was asked to write something about what I do. I have never been asked to write about what I do before. I can’t spell, my handwriting is terrible and I was useless at English (and music) at school.
I regard myself as a bit of a charlatan. I have no musical training and I can’t read a note but yet I have virtually made an income out of running drumming workshops with rubbish for more than fifteen years. I can of course only blame my mam. As the eldest of three our mam used to give me the pots and pans and cooking utensils to play with when I was two, to keep me quiet so to speak. Fifty years later I still like playing the pots and pans. I have never bothered to bolt any kitchen stuff to a frame or anything I have always just played them as they have fallen out of the cupboard or been given to me. Of course various drum-kits and set-ups have been and gone over the years along with a few bands but I have never managed to pack up or escape the pots and pans.
One of my favourite places to get things at the moment is the re- cycling centre in Blackpool, ironically called “Grumpy”. For a few quid you can get all sorts of interesting left over bits of plastic, cardboard, tin and rubber. What I like doing at the moment is finding a sort of musical use for things with the absolute minimum of interference or alteration to the object. Not because I can’t be bothered (although that does come into it slightly) but mainly because I find that at my workshops people seem to want to make a noise
first. Along with that formative encouragement to play pots and pans fifty years ago there is presently a strong fiscal factor. I am overridingly concerned about whether my workshops are seen to be good value even when I am working voluntarily for hard to reach children. This, I have come to realize, is my culture. As well as coming from a place, I also come from a time. The world I was born into was full of Skiffle Bands. My parents were young during the Second World War; perhaps they inadvertently passed on to me the WWII ‘make do and mend’ attitude.
At the moment I am trying to understand former hobo Harry Partch’s “A Genesis of a Music”, and I am enjoying reading Walter Wilkinson’s puppet books about his life on the itinerant road. I can identify slightly with both of these. I spent a little while on the road in the 70’s and at the moment people keep giving me lumps of wood. In the past fifteen years or so people have given me all sorts of things that they had no use for because of my status as a “Junk Percussionist” (I have been called much worse). Sometimes I can fix them. I recently repaired a broken neck on a banjo to the delight of my old mate Mel Davis, and I have rescued one or two nice drums from the skip.
What’s more, speaking as resident artist at our local nursery, nothing quite matches eating your packed lunch yoghurt with a bunch of nursery children then washing it out and turning it into a guitar to take home before chucking it in the bin.
…Oh yes, regarding the environment lest I seem irresponsible…
What am I to do? I feel bad using wood, I feel bad using plastic, I feel bad using transport, and I feel bad working because I think that what I do might be construed as making light of the problem. I feel bad printing this article out for goodness sake! Well, I suppose I could save the paper if I got onto the internet but I don’t think that that would make me feel much better and I can’t afford it. I might just go and feel bad about opening another beer! a
John Morrow is a musician using recycled and found objects to make music in the community. He can be contacted at his workshop T: 01253 725073
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40