Just about to be Published by Faber Faber. Keeping up with the Germans by Philip Oltermann. Lots of interesting little bits to find, make, source, clear, treat, cut out & wrestle into position with this one. Found some lovely Tram tickets on ebay.de. There’s a fair pile of other little elements that didn’t make the cut too. (sorry for cheap pun) Time for a new drawer maybe, EnGERland.

The real reason why I moved out of London to a small seaside town is because it’s nearly got more second hand book shops &  junk shops than people, and you can regularly find gems like this. I bought this on the way to the studio this morning for 10p. It was outside in a pile on the floor in the ‘January Sale’. My favourite page is the one above showing what a guide dog in Scotland looked like circa 1961.

Sneak preview of a collage in progress for a book jacket for Faber & Faber.

collage piles from cut it out studio on Vimeo.

I want to make some little films this year, so here’s my first rough test. I haven’t really got any film equipment so I gaffa-taped my stills camera (Canon G9) to a metre rule and stuck it to the ceiling – a pretty roughly improvised camera stand. I then got a random pile of leftover collage bits and pressed record. This is the first and only take, filmed in real time. I wasn’t really trying to make compositions, I just piled all the bits up freestyle until they were all gone. I then sped it up and dropped this track on it, all a bit crudely, but it seemed to fit, maybe because it’s fast, and retro. I’m not sure where it’s going just yet, but it’s interesting to see all these random bits moving somehow, making connections.. The start of something I hope. Let me know what you think… The music is ‘Too Fortiche’ by Pierre Henry & Michel Colombier from the ‘Les Yper Sound’ E.P, 1967.

I’ve been going to the local dump for about 8 years now. Not really for artistic purposes, just occasionally getting rid of old carpets and the normal household scrap. I can never, however help myself  nosing around and end up bringing more back than I arrived with. I got asked to leave today for taking pics and rifling through this lot (top picture). It always makes me feel ill how much great stuff is thrown out – they do a lot of recycling, but mostly it just gets buried in a landfill. Depressing. What will those Aliens think when they dig it all up in 500 years… So far I have salvaged a box of 8 cinni Camera’s, various chairs and cabinets, a library book trolley, boxes of old photos, vintage picture frames and a lovely little ladder. There’s a pecking order amongst the lads who work there as to who gets the pickings to sell or keep. You’ve got to speak to the right person if you want something, and of course cross their palms with silver, or paper as it were. The place is huge, but I didn’t get a chance to take pics of the bicycle & lawnmower mountain or the redundant TV & computer skyscraper’s. They’ll probably have a Christmas tree & plastic toy corner next week too. What a waste. I’ve just realised that I’m still doing the same thing that I was when I was 20, as in the bottom pic, taken on a rubbish dump in Pforzheim, Germany, 1993. What a skip rat.

I’m not one to go to churchyards in search of dead Artist’s, but I was in the lovely little village of Ambleside in the Lake District, Cumbria a few years ago and someone had mentioned Kurt Schwitters was buried there. After a wander around with my baby girl asleep in the pram I found it. I was expecting it for some reason to be older looking, and maybe have some collages or tributes around it! His grave was unmarked until 66′ when they errected this stone, but his body was later disinterred and reburied by his son in Hanover, his home town. I felt I should pay a little homage to his legacy so I found some wild flowers and some cardboard at the back of the church and improvised with my swiss army knife. His unfinished (1948) Merzbarn has now been restored in nearby Elterwater.

I’ve just found this collage sketch from my Folio Society project. I was playing with the idea of memory & identity loss. It was never used, but was a good step towards the finished cover.

I’m working on a private commission for someone living in France. First hitch – I think I’m going to have to invent come accents marks for these old scrabble tiles..

JCDecaux own most of the Europe’s outdoor advertising hoardings. Here are some lovely fat strips I liberated from my local one this morning. They are indeed the most beautiful collages in their own right. I like to think of it as recycling the leftovers of Capitalism.