Fear

Fear

Fear dibilitates
Fear separates
Fear makes us war with each other.

Fear stops us from changing the world
It makes our limbs heavy
It brands our soul and mind and fills us with woe.

Fear makes us cautious, conservative and atrophied,
Fear without good grounds is terrorism,
It makes us bear those ills we have,
It is an ancient manipulation.

Fear separates us,
One from another,
When we really are: alltogether.

Yet dumped in this world of black or white,
Afraid of our own heart beat,
We slide beneath the covers,
We fall asleep,
neath the static snow of ignorance,
Beneath a weight of helplessness,
Of inconciquence ;
A drop set against the ocean.
At war with ourselves,
Devouring ourselves,
Chasing our tales,
like an old mythic serpent.


Why are we surprised that half the world anaesthetists  itself with booze or drugs or both. Fear makes us buckle down or drop out,
Fight or flea, fear stops us dead from rising as our spirit says we should,
Fear whispers that our dreams are not worthy,
Fear destroys action,
Fear negates creation.

Fear makes us sick in our own imagination.
Fear makes hate,
Fear makes us greedy,
Fear makes us dangerous.

We make fear the state religion,
Fear becomes our advocate,
Becomes our friend forever,
The warder happily holding keys,
Of the cell we lock ourselves in.

Its an unweeded garden in a private plantation,
Where we are ensnared by a never ending reflection,
Caught in the lights we see our own shadow,
Cast on the wall of our cell,
And we cower.

We build a temple to fear in our news and our fiction.
We raise up on high the voice of the worst that we could be,
We paint it in sickly hues upon each other.

If instead of fear upon our altars high,
we loved each other and ourselves,
What would not be possible?
How could we then be loneley?

The Brink

Kachina-hey

Highly recommend getting over to Bar 25 in Little Germany... top of chapel street up from the playhouse. Its just reopened and is collaborating with Sarah Lin on exhibitions and creativity. Good to have such an arts friendly bar in the area. I'll keep you updated.

Exhibition of paintings by Shamanic artist sarah lin
Kachina-hey

The Kachinas are the weavers of the dream,the dream teachers:the archetypal symbology of the dream,the collective understanding of all humans,everything is a symbol. weaving a web of dark and light within the patterned web of life."hey" means "to be awakened".

Get up to Bar 25 ASAP to check out the exhibition its open now but remember that the preview, which will be lush is, on 2nd Feb.

BarTwenty5:

25 Peckover Street, little Germany, Bradford

open daily:
Mon - Thu: 11:00 - 23:00 Fri - Sat: 11:00 - 00:00 Sunday 11 till 22.30
contact sarah lin :07921 681494

Contact Me

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Linked In: uk.linkedin.com/in/douglasalterego/

SPECT TICKETS

Hi all. Tickets are on sale now for SPECT. There are only 70 available so you'll have to be quick.

http://spect.eventbrite.com/

 

 SPECT means "To Look". Our performance this December will include four artful installations by our artists. There will be life models, live music, three dimensional shadows, live life drawing and an exhibition of our work from the drawing club. SPECT will mystify and amaze in the cold, dark of the winter.

Poet and life model "Suki" AKA Sue Vickerman will be creating the first half "The Gaze". Expect poetry, manifesto, life drawing a playful examination of the male gaze of the artist. sukithelifemodel.co.uk

Performance:Tuesday 18th December at 6.30 PM at Delius Arts & Cultural Centre. £3/£2 To book a ticket contact Estelle for further details on 01274 256924 or email Estelle@artworkscreative.org.uk

(18+ Adults Only)

Facebook Event

Porterhouse Blue

Desmond Tutu House is under review. The word is heavy. Space is a funny thing.

Desmond Tutu House and the Tree House Cafe are places in the city that give shared sanctuary and right space for Bradford citizens. 

The house has become a gateway from university campus to the local community and a place where different faiths, paths and philosophies meet; we come to understand each other and we enjoy in being with one another. 

Treehouse cafe is top... spiffing, amazing, silly, wonderful, musical, healthy, healing and essential; has soooooooooooooo much potential man. I need its coffee and hilarious staff; they make my day most days. 

Freinds of Desmond Tutu has set up a blog and a twitter feed and such. The links are here:

Blog 

Tweet

Face

Treesounds

This track: Treesounds (click to play) was the initial audio installation I did as part of the Memory Theatre Project over 5 months ago now! Time fly's and my MPC still sits at my desk as if I'd just finished the installation yesterday.

The Drawing Club Tues 7th August

Joel Seckleman modelled and helped to create this awesome installation for the drawing club this week. We meet every Tuesday eve at Delius Arts & Cultural Centre in Bradford. Check out the blog at the top of the page to find out more.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scissor Paper

More papercuts. At some point I'm going to start spraying my designs and using them as stencils but at the moment its all about the paper. These are up and about at Delius Arts & Cultural Centre and were part of an instalation at Kala Sangam (St Peters House) Bradford.

Wish Tree for Peace Jam 2012

This is of my latest collaborative installation with Bobbie Hick at Bradford University for Peace Jam hosting Nobel Peace Laureate Adolpho Perez Esquevel. 

It features a variety of papercuts and the central image of the world tree. It acted as an interactive workshop space and a place of sanctuary during the two day conference. Each leaf on the tree holds a dream, a wish or dedication that participants wanted to share.

Framing the hole: ARE YOU (W)HOLE?

I want to run these up as a posters in their own right. No gigs attached.

Should Probably say: "The city with the hole."

I'm playing with resonating imagery for the city of Bradford. The city has, you see, two great circular structures at its centre. The rather stunning and expensive mirror pool in the newly reconstructed city park; which boasts Europe's tallest fountain spurting at a hundred feet:

And the Westfield hole:

(a stalled shopping centre site boasting an immense hole that scars and divides the city.)

In both cases I feel I have little choice but to love this insane city. Bradford is the most enigmatic, engaging and unpretentious city in the country. It is the most human of cities I have ever lived in; faulted, corrupt, struggling, loving, unpredictable and inspiring of great passion in its inhabitants. 

Like us it teeters on the edge of an abyss, with a fine old sense of balance, like a lucky old drunkard. 

Here's John Peel on Bradford Scene in 1999.

Dick Stone

I've just finished updating the Dick Stone Blog: http://dickstoneartfeind.blogspot.co.uk/. Dick Stone writes a column for Howdo Magazine: http://howdomagazine.co.uk/

Of course it goes without saying that we love Dick.

Rockers and Rollers

 

Helped out with the installation for the Rockers & Rollers Gig at the New Beehive Inn on Westgate, Bradford. Its a very atmospheric cellar, unkempt n' damp but it comes to life whenever there's a gig in a way that few other venues do; something of magic and history to this venue.

Rockers and Rollers is a night thats been about for a bit but it's just properly bedded in at this venue at this gig. They often play the first Friday of every month. Unfortunately they aren't running one in May so we'll have to keep our fingers crossed that there's going to be one in June.

I'll keep you posted. In the meantime check out me wood. Hockney can kiss my butt. :-)

Peter Kopek has also just sorted me out with these rather psychedelic shots of the same landscape. 

Nice. Thanks Peter.

Smoke Ghosts (dancer)

I've decided to call her Euridyce after the Orpheus myth and cause of Pina Bausch and that Italian film I can't remember the name of... oh yes... Ozzo e Mezzo.

Lalalalalalala la la la la la..... 

I love the Biscuit Badgers.

Made this poster today. Slightly busy in the background but overall I like it. Sam said it was very magic roundabout. Thursday at the 1 in 12 club. The club is an origional masterpiece of underground Bradford up there with the Mill and th Playhouse (RIP).