An Atheist Christmas message.

Some festive Musings,
Hands up who thinks Santa is real, or elves, or flying reindeer. Anyone? Me neither.

But just because I still love the festive kitsch, carols, trees, traditions, stories and mistletoe doesn’t mean I have to believe that Santa is real any more than I do the tooth fairy, Easter bunny or the eldritch folk at the bottom of my garden.

I doubt that there is anyone who wouldn’t laugh if I, as a rational adult, were to be grievously insulted by anyone who denied the existence of the jolly fat man and his airborne rangifer tarandus.

As an Atheist, I quite simply don’t believe in those other splendid imaginary fellows, God, Allah, Yahweh, Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Brahma, Zeus, Poseidon and their ilk for whom tradition demands scorn upon the unbelievers, or at the very least smug superiority over those on the wrong path. I can’t help feeling that something is wrong here, and the pain and suffering in the world caused our own imaginary friends is needless and unnecessary.

So let’s think for a moment about it, put all this superstitious, dogmatic, intolerant needlessness aside and make the festive season about us, the evolved human mammals, and as Bill and Ted said, “be excellent to each other”

And here’s something to think about in 2010, remember, you can still be a tolerant, marvellous, warm and kind human being without believing in fairy tales or supernatural deities, there is enough magic in the real world, in nature and in your own person without looking for it in superstitions.

In the words of Santa “be good for goodness sake”

Best wishes, and have a happy Hanukkah, cool Kwanza, brightest Yule, Merry Sol Invictus, magnificent solstice, happy Christmas, or however you celebrate the season.

Derek

Art of Evolution, Not the god of the lego people

The god of the LEGOTM people,

I once conducted an experiment; I put lots of LEGOTM men, separated into their component parts, legs, bodies and heads into a bag and shook it. Nothing happened, so I shook it some more and added some squeezing, some jiggling some massaging, and some spinning it round and round. When I looked into the bag, most of the LEGOTM men remained in pieces, but there were some noticeable mutations. A head had become lodged on one of the pairs of legs, a body had joined with some legs, but utilising only one of the little lego connectors.

I repeated the process, for twenty minutes ( ok I carried it around ), the result, more mutations, and a head on a body along with a few other abnormalities. After many repetitions, and a few days of regular bag manipulation and a washing machine, I discovered that I did indeed have a connected head, body and legs, in the correct order. Admittedly, the head and legs were the wrong way round, and not entirely connected as firmly as they should be, but never the less, through random external forces, I had successfully re-created a LEGOTM man from his component parts.

It was random movement which rebuilt this LEGOTM man, not me. I am not the god of the LEGOTM people. Just as normal, natural, scientifically verifiable environmental considerations such as temperature, movement, and lightening are a far more likely candidate for the beginnings of life on earth than some supernatural being of literary fiction, so my kinetic manipulation of the bag was not evidence of a divine influence in the re-created man, but rather a real, albeit artificial environment produced by the normal and most definitely not mystical realm of natural physical laws.

I find the creative process involved in producing art is like a head full of LEGOTM people bits, the more you shake it, and the more bits LEGOTM people you add, the more creative I am and the better my paintings become.

The art of evolution,

The idea behind this exhibition is twofold, firstly, I want to establish that creativity is a natural phenomenon, available to all in a greater or lesser extent, and secondly, that my own development as an artist and that of my work adheres without contrivance or effort to the evolutionary laws of natural selection.

“creativity (is) a genetically encoded product of the evolution of the brain, favoured by natural selection, but influenced by the environment of each individual”
Karl H Pfenninge & Valerie R Schubik. The origin of creativity

An artwork is the end result of human creative process, a point of interest in a continuing process of creative evolution. Although the human mammal as we know it today, Homo Sapiens arrived on the scene some 200,000 years ago, the first clear evidence of creativity was not apparent until around 50,000 years ago, and the first cave paintings up to 35,000 years ago, the advantage of creativity in an evolutionary sense, was that of innovation, of new ways of solving problems, as a means of spreading information and as a means of storytelling and social control which evolved into what we now know as religion.

I won’t go into the development of creativity in great detail, but one only has to look at any book on art history and follow the timeline from cave paintings to Caravaggio, from statues of Dionysius to Damien Hurst, to see that there is a clear and logical progression in the development of art with lesser methods and styles becoming extinct and the most useful and popular surviving to the next generation.

This linearity shows that creativity evolved within our species and that the development of creativity in an individual, from building blocks and splodges of colour, to advanced creation and personal artistic development mirrors the development of creativity in mankind as a whole.

Why did creativity develop? Mammoths, it probably came from some problem which arose in our ancient ancestors probably involving hairy horny pachyderms. That is a big mammoth, how do we carry it home now we have killed it. We could all grab a bit and drag it, but then if the sabre toothed tiger came, we would have to run away, or we could cut it up into bits we could all carry and run from the tiger and probably kill it as well for desert. Ogg then probably came up with the sharp stone knife chopping up on cutting himself on a sharp stone.

It was a simple natural solution to a large and not to mention hairy problem.

The clan who thought of this would most likely have an advantage over other mammoth dragging clans and would, again following the natural desire to retain supremacy, need to pass the skill on to maintain its usefulness. We do not know what form of language our ancestors had, but they had the organs and bone structure necessary for the required noises. We also know that they passed on their hunting knowledge on the walls of their caves. In primitive evolution, creativity served an important survival function and flourished.

Why do we, modern man, and I am talking 10000 years of modern man, invest so much effort in creativity when the threat of mammoths and sabre toothed tigers are no longer present. Simply put, the threat of other homo sapiens is however very much present.

Art, the possession of artworks can be seen as a display ritual. A single bird will put itself in mortal danger to warn the rest of the flock of approaching kestrels, thereby showing itself to be strong and brave, or a song thrush singing at the expense of eating to attract a mate. The bower bird builds an elaborate display area, and the male peacock forfeits the ability to fly sensibly in lieu of his fantastic tail feathers.

Human beings constantly show their power by displaying their possessions. The possession of many artworks is unproductive in terms of feeding and clothing the starving and naked populous, but is very effective in giving the impression of power so great that it can afford to adorn its plumage with marvellous and impressive decorations.

Art from early cave paintings has evolved into a status symbol, owning an original artwork signifies that one has established a safe, secure and comfortable environment, free from the threat of famine, or pestilence, although certain organisations have used the threat of pestilence in order to acquire the wealth and art of these comfortable individuals in return for supernatural protection from such things as the plague, or a certain number of years of time in purgatory (if one believes such things)

What is certain is that art is a natural phenomenon, and not the result of some supernatural creator playing pimp my species. Creativity is a part of everyone to a greater or lesser extent, dormant in most, prominent in many and dominant in a few. Whether this takes the form of engineering, writing, music, ballet, dance or fine art, the important thing to remember is that your creativity is as much a part of you, the homo sapiens as your heart is.

“a god given talent”
Someone once told me that I had a “god given talent” ,which I was wasting by not painting pictures of “king william of orange on his horse, the virgin Mary and the likes”, I didn’t mind the king billy, or the woman with the best excuse in the world for infidelity who didn’t die because she flew off heaven one day ( man is she going to feel the odd one out, given that it exists of course). What I objected to was the notion that creativity and talent is in some way god given. This notion is, in light of sound evolutionary evidence, quite frankly absurd.

Talent is not something to be given out in measures, awarded for piety, or generously bestowed upon us by some god of the LEGOTM men, but is a natural gift, the result of many inherited and environmental influences.

Artworks do not just appear; they are not brought suddenly into being by the flying spaghetti monster, nor are they created from one of his meatballs. Artworks do not grow out of the ground, on trees, or appear slowly over time on walls of churches like mould in a poorly ventilated room.

On a personal note, I readily admit, that to my own standards, I can paint, and draw, and sketch in the same way that someone can play football, or write, or drive a car. I would not go so far, or be so immodest as to say I have talent, that is for other people to decide.

“Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. Creativity is fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is simply the act of making something new.”
Wikipedia


In order to proceed, we have to take a step back in time, to the genesis of my art.

In the beginning was Scotch Broth,
For those who don’t know, a broth is a rather hearty soup traditional to my homeland of Scotland. Now imagine a large bowl of broth, much like the primordial soup of the first life on this planet, but instead of amino acids, the bowl contains random thoughts, ideas, impressions, experiences, inspirations, views, opinions and opportunities.

This preparatory[1] phase of creativity, is all in the mind. In our genetics, our DNA, may be a gene passed down from our ancestors, which gives us an increased level of imagination, or fantasy. We also have the ability to read, and read many books which encourage imagination and fantasy. And it is these two points which lay the groundwork for a creative persona, because without the ability to fantasise to imagine, the broth of creativity will be thin and tasteless, consigned to the sink, extinct before anything can come of it.

The literary example is a good one and supported by much evidence. If one looks at renaissance art, the three main subjects of paintings are nature (landscapes, animals and portraits), biblical scenes, or classical (greek, roman etc) themes in accordance to the literature available at the time. With the invention, here in Germany, of the printing press, came the widespread availability of published literature and this is belatedly reflected in the art world with an exponential increase in the range of subjects and subject matter.

The reason for the delay was that the main patrons of the arts, those individuals or organisations who could afford to employ artists stuck to the three safe, non-confrontational and certainly non-challenging subjects and themes in the same way that people buy ready made, mass produced paintings from the local DIY store, or IKEA. The reason that only this art exists now, is that only the artists who could provide it found patronage.

Da Vinci, hid many of his attempts at creative expression, anatomical studies and such to prevent being labelled a heretic. How wonderful it would have been to have full sized accomplished versions of his sketches on canvas rather than his conformist and allegedly subtly subversive religious paintings.

We may inherit excellent hand eye coordination from our ancestors, or we can learn it. I am useless at catching a ball as there is this moment where the ball is not in contact with my hand that I just cannot judge quickly enough to react. However if the ball is on a string, attached to my hand and I have some idea of its trajectory, I have no problems. I couldn’t hit a target with a bow and arrow, but let me touch a canvas with a brush and it becomes part of me, second nature.

Then came the thought
Stirring the broth, certain notions, come together, certain ideas are formed which work with each other for a while, become coherent and then dissolve, other ideas stick together, growing, forming the basis for an idea, an inkling of what would make a great picture.

Although still in my head, these ideas incubate in the womb of my head, they stick around, nurturing. My wife tells me that she always knows when I have a painting inside me by my actions and mannerisms. I don’t see it myself, but she is invariably correct. Quite what the outward signs are, I am not aware, but equally, I am certain that no supernatural influence is placing ready formed pictures in my head as each component part of the picture clearly comes from a particular element in my personal broth of creativity, an element which has evolved to an extent that it is a living idea, ready to make the first Devonian myriapod steps onto the land of realisation.


And into the idea was breathed the breath of life

Eating the broth. Sketchbooks are a wonderful invention, and I use them as an extension of my own mind, jotting down ideas and inspirations, notes on colours and textures, contrasts and emotions. In JK Rowlings Harry Potter series, professor Dumbledore uses a Penseive to store his silvery thoughts for later recollection. My sketchbooks are not just somewhat like that, but exactly like that. Some of the sketches in them are nothing more than a couple of squiggles and notes, but they act as a trigger to my internal memory, and this spark, this jogging of my memory is the moment where the evolution of an artwork gains sentience, it gains a meaning and personality of its own, however primitive.

This is a very vague understanding of the finished article, but an intimation nonetheless of what could be. Just as the lobe finned fish is our distant relative, so this sketch is a distant relative of a finished painting on the wall of a gallery.
Now the sketch could develop into a finished painting, or the idea could prove a weak one.
I once, in the middle of the night came up with the idea of painting with chocolate, not the actual painting, or the paint, but chocolate instead of a paintbrush. Naturally this idea melted into extinction of its own accord.

Or it could develop into a strong and powerful image, or beautifully atmospheric scene, at this stage in creativity, it is still half idea, half real but in a few cases, I have a gut feeling that a resolution is on its way.

Illuminating the Manuscript
Enjoying the broth. This is the stage at which most people would recognise a painting in progress, a stage in which the human influence is most apparent and one in which the idea, the preparatory, incubatory and intimatory stages are lost behind pure visual stimulus. The human mammal, applying an idea inspired by thousands of years of genetic inheritance, artistic development and a lifetime of experience onto a wall, a canvas, or piece of paper brings the creative idea from preconscious processing into consciousness and reality.

At this stage, the artwork in progress is alive, developing and evolving rapidly, held loosely by the initial idea, it may mutate, deviate or transform into something else, or another idea entirely, but it exists, it has form and being

Think of the painting in terms of evolution once again, we originate from the apes and are one of many varieties. Our earliest common ancestor represents the blank canvas, and the variety of species represents all possible outcomes of the final painting and the steps along the way. It could be that the idea for the finished work was that it should look like a chimpanzee, but it varied slightly and became a bonobo or dramatically and become an orang-utan or, it could die out, become extinct as an idea which didn’t work and have all its paint scraped off, destined never to be finished.

Another influence on the painting at this stage is that of technique. By a process of learning, trial and error the technique for a painting is applied to the work in progress. How one uses a brush, palette knife, pastel or pencil may vary depending on the desired effect. This technique may be know to the artist, for example, adding a dot of highlight to an eye to give it a glassy appearance, or scraping through the canvas to the lower layers of paint with a palette knife. These may be learned by accident through experiment from first principles, or learned through books, video or from other artists. I never know before I start a painting what style will be appropriate to it and personally find artists who stick rigidly to a particular style or technique throughout their catalogue of works without any apparent development or experimentation to be uninspired. The late Bob Ross, pontiff of method painting, illustrates how once his method had evolved, he was able to pass it on to a generation of “ars vulgaris” craft and hobby painters.

True artistic creativity encourages the influence of techniques and materials in the production of an artwork. When the pursuit of a fixed result dictates these, creativity ceases and only repetitive mimicry remains

This highlights, or illuminates the notion that constant mutation and experimentation is conducive to the evolution of creativity whilst blind acceptance of method causes stagnation and extinction.

The point of no return
Digesting the broth. As evolving animals diverge into separate species, there exists a point where they are no longer able to interbreed, despite similarities in appearance or habit. Our DNA is more than 98% identical to that of chimpanzees, share the same reproductive organs, and yet are genetically incompatible when it comes to interbreeding. Our inbuilt and inherited morals may also play a part in the natural qualm of revulsion which this idea holds, once again, morals are inherited, not awarded through the following of dogma.

By scraping off paint to obliterate one path, it becomes extinct, allowing the less developed idea to gain the survival of the fittest position.

Once however, the work in progress reaches a point as the idea progresses and works as an artwork, there becomes a point of no return where the ideas cohere with technique and material, the idea is elaborated upon and gains its final vitality and is verified as the final artwork by its being hung on a wall.

The painting is finished, and further work on it wouldn’t bring the idea any further. If the end result is successful, and to my liking, I will go on to paint similar, exploring another avenue of the ideas evolutionary possibilities, experiment with size, with materials and textures. If, at the end, I am content that the idea can go no further for the time being, then it is only a matter of time before I am trying out a new recipe of Scotch broth.

In every case however, the experience of creating the artwork, the mistakes, and successes go back into my mind, or into a sketchbook for later use and lie dormant until the next creative Cambrian explosion.

Java the hut, a word of warning.
There is a danger here of overworking a painting, often a single large brushstroke can add more movement and impact to a painting than a thousand small ones. It is knowing when to stop that can make, or break a finished artwork. A caffeine and music fuelled burst of creativity without taking a step back and considering the work can result in “hutting” the painting.

My wife coined the phrase Hutted, again bringing up the infamous Bob Ross, who tends to ruin what would be a perfectly acceptable landscape with a big brown wooden hut with twee chimney and a light on in the window.

The Art of Evolution
In this exhibition, you will find artworks at many stages of evolution. Some are sketches direct from my sketchbooks, and some are finished oil paintings. The ideas, remain firmly in my head, and I am quite happy to share them with you in the course of conversation. You will see a wide variety of themes, subjects, styles, techniques in my favourite mediums of Pastel, charcoal and Oil, I don’t use acrylic as I find it dries too quickly and absorbs light like a brick through butter.

You will also see a couple of series which follow the finished painting from sketchbook to pastel, to painting, back to pastel, to bigger painting and so on. It is your chance to see the evolution of a painting from its origins to its place on the wall at the exhibition.

All the works here today, are not the end of my creativity, as I am still painting, I am still evolving, still learning and gathering experiences and influences for my work. I could not, and would not ever be an artist know only for his horse paintings, or for his bluebell paintings, for his landscape pastels, or for his large abstract paintings. I would not like to be thought of as someone who always painted like van gogh, or made pastels like Degas, or sketches like Picasso. Although occasionally I may doff my hat to the style, I think of myself as neither impressionist or expressionist, abstractionist or realist, modernist or classicist.

As an artist, it is almost expected that I wear my heart, and my beliefs on my sleeve and I happily do just that, I sometimes wear my beliefs on the lapel of my jacket too, but I will leave that to you to find out. What you think about my work is important as we all evolve different visual tastes. You may love them, which I hope, or you may hate them, which is also ok, although I would prefer the former, you may think that the modicum of creative talent I have is completely wasted, or you may like my work so much that you would like to purchase it. In every case, I am very proud of my creations, and hope you enjoy them too.

I am Derek Beggs, homo sapien, human mammal, husband, father, atheist and an artist very much in evolution.

Thank you.




[1] based on the work of Graham Wallas on the origins of creativity.

Exhibition Press Release

Presse Spiegel
Für sofortige Veröffentlichung
17.08.2009
Schottischer Künstler versteigert TSV 1860 handsigniertes Ölgemälde für Kinderkrebskrankenhaus.

Die Endvorbereitungen zu Derek Beggs bislang grössten Ausstellung the Art of Evolution in Landsberg am Lech, sind im vollen Gange. Und lässt mit einem vielversprechenden Event überraschen.

Eines von Derek Beggs Öl-Bildern „The beautiful Game“ (das schöne Spiel) ist vom gesamten Team des TSV 1860 handsigniert worden und wird bis zum 6.September meisstbietend versteigert, wobei der gesamte Erlös krebskranken Kindern des Münchner Kinder Krebs Zentrums zu gute kommen wird

Die Ausstellung unter dem Namen “The Art of Evolution” findet vom 2.September bis einschliesslich 9.September in der Säulenhalle des Stadttheaters in Landsberg am Lech statt.
„The Beautiful Game“ sowie andere Austellungsstücke in Öl Pastel und Skizzen, zeigen Derek Beggs Stiel und Inspiration von Skizze bis hin zum fertiggestellten Werk.

Die öffentliche Vernissage findet am Donnerstag, den 3.September um 18.00 Uhr statt. Eine private VIP-nacht zu der ausschliesslich Eigentümer, Sponsoren, lokale Geschäftseigentümer nationale , wie auch internationale Prominenz geladen sein wird findet am 5. September statt.
Presseaufnahmen und exklusiv Interviews können am Mittwoch den 2. September ab 18.00 Uhr arrangiert werden.
Alle Events weden in der Säulenhalle des Stadttheaters Schlossergasse 381, in Landsberg am Lech abgehalten.

Derek Beggs:” ich hoffe so viel wie möglich durch die Versteigerung des Bildes, The beautiful Game,für diese besonders zu fördernde Einrichtung zu erzielen. Ich möchte allen Kindern somit für die Inspiration und Energie die Ich durch sie bekomme danken. Und Ihnen auf diesem Weg einen Teil Ihrer Lebensfreude zurückgeben. Als Vater, weiss ich welche Bereicherung Kinder im alltäglichen Leben für uns sind.“ Und ich fühle mich glücklich und geehrt so meinen Beitrag für ein zu unterstützungs würdiges Projekt beizusteuern.“

Auf Dereks Webseite unter www.derekbeggs.com können alle, denen es nicht möglich ist persönlich zur Ausstellung zu kommen für dieses besondere Stück mitbieten und Eigentümer werden.

Der diplomierte Künstler Derek Beggs lebt und arbeitet in der Nähe von Landsberg am Lech in Deutschland. Seine Werke erfreuen sich internationaler beliebtheit und werden in verschiedensten Ländern der Welt ausgestellt.
Seine Arbeit und Liebe zu Lichtverhältnissen, Textur und der Natur spricht einen weiten Liebhaberkreis an, von Student bis hin zu Hollywood Sternchen.

Update 8, The art of evolution

It’s all go on the organizational front as well and I am getting very excited about the whole thing.

Some Highlights for this week.

The VIP invites are sent out and we have a couple of replies already confirming attendance.
I got a very nice personal email from the German Chancellor, Frau Merkel, wishing me luck and saying sorry she can’t make it. One for the wall that one.
No response yet from the various other heads of state, royalty and political heavyweights I invited, but its early days yet, we can’t expect them to be as efficient as the Bundestag.
All the paintings are together and I am still labeling them and working out which I can afford to frame and which I’m leaving unframed.
The press release is written and being translated into German by the lovely and capable Karina (thank you). When it’s done, I’ll send it out to as many people as possible and try to drum up some interest.
Posters, It looks like even hanging posters on lampposts is going to be prohibitively expensive and I’m going to have to think of other places to hang them, but lets see. They are already hanging in many places in the area.
The Football painting and frame are being signed as we speak, they will sign the back of the painting in addition to the frame to keep the piece together, it’ll look great.
One of the major paintings from the exhibition is already tentatively reserved, but I cant say which one yet.
I have received enquiries about taking the exhibition elsewhere, to Frankfurt, to America and to the UK, lets see what happens.

Some Highlights for the next few weeks

Live Painting. I am off into Landsberg probably next weekend to do a spot of painting al fresco, hand out flyers, posters and generally make a public nuisance of myself.
Sneak Preview at the Gallery. If anyone is interested in reserving a painting in advance of the show, just let me know and I’ll arrange a sneak preview at my gallery.
On a non related thing, I’m off to Scotland on the 6th August to open a show in my home town as one of six artists participating in the “ties that bind” exhibition.

Help

For all my bravado and confidence, I still have the worry that no one will come (yes I know ) so please help me spread the word regardless of where you are, the more people who know about it the merrier.
Help on the night. I am looking for anyone who fancies helping out on either the vernissage night or the VIP night, if anyone feels like it, please let me know.
Please put my posters up in your company, office, school, shop etc. Let me know and I’ll send you a nice poster for the show.
Facebook. I have a facebook event page which is great for keeping in touch, if you would like to join up, please send me a friend invite to derekbeggs@yahoo.com, or do a search on my name, (I’m the only one)
Prize raffle. Remember, the prize raffle is still open to win one of my paintings, simply click on the “help us evolve” button on my website and make a donation of any amount (minimum is 1€) and you have the chance to win one of my pastels framed.


You heard it here first

Fundraising. I have mounted a large selection of my pastel sketches and drawings and will be selling them before, during and after the show. As they are not framed (just in the mount) they are very affordable and I will be doing a couple of Pre exhibition events beforehand to publicise it.


Thanks everyone for your continued support. And I apologise for these group emails. Email me back, I do answer everything personally.

Cheers for now, keep evolving.

Derek

Article on the origins of creativity

The god of the LEGOTM people,

I once conducted an experiment; I put lots of LEGOTM men, separated into their component parts, legs, bodies and heads into a bag and shook it. Nothing happened, so I shook it some more and added some squeezing, some jiggling some massaging, and some spinning it round and round. When I looked into the bag, most of the LEGOTM men remained in pieces, but there were some noticeable mutations. A head had become lodged on one of the pairs of legs, a body had joined with some legs, but utilising only one of the little lego connectors.

I repeated the process, for twenty minutes ( ok I carried it around ), the result, more mutations, and a head on a body along with a few other abnormalities. After many repetitions, and a few days of regular bag manipulation and a washing machine, I discovered that I did indeed have a connected head, body and legs, in the correct order. Admittedly, the head and legs were the wrong way round, and not entirely connected as firmly as they should be, but never the less, through random external forces, I had successfully re-created a LEGOTM man from his component parts.

It was random movement which rebuilt this LEGOTM man, not me. I am not the god of the LEGOTM people. Just as normal, natural, scientifically verifiable environmental considerations such as temperature, movement, and lightening are a far more likely candidate for the beginnings of life on earth than some supernatural being of literary fiction, so my kinetic manipulation of the bag was not evidence of a divine influence in the re-created man, but rather a real, albeit artificial environment produced by the normal and most definitely not mystical realm of natural physical laws.

I find the creative process involved in producing art is like a head full of LEGOTM people bits, the more you shake it, and the more bits LEGOTM people you add, the more creative I am and the better my paintings become.

The art of evolution,

The idea behind this exhibition is twofold, firstly, I want to establish that creativity is a natural phenomenon, available to all in a greater or lesser extent, and secondly, that my own development as an artist and that of my work adheres without contrivance or effort to the evolutionary laws of natural selection.

“creativity (is) a genetically encoded product of the evolution of the brain, favoured by natural selection, but influenced by the environment of each individual”
Karl H Pfenninge & Valerie R Schubik. The origin of creativity

An artwork is the end result of human creative process, a point of interest in a continuing process of creative evolution. Although the human mammal as we know it today, Homo Sapiens arrived on the scene some 200,000 years ago, the first clear evidence of creativity was not apparent until around 50,000 years ago, and the first cave paintings up to 35,000 years ago, the advantage of creativity in an evolutionary sense, was that of innovation, of new ways of solving problems, as a means of spreading information and as a means of storytelling and social control which evolved into what we now know as religion.

I won’t go into the development of creativity in great detail, but one only has to look at any book on art history and follow the timeline from cave paintings to Caravaggio, from statues of Dionysius to Damien Hurst, to see that there is a clear and logical progression in the development of art with lesser methods and styles becoming extinct and the most useful and popular surviving to the next generation.

This linearity shows that creativity evolved within our species and that the development of creativity in an individual, from building blocks and splodges of colour, to advanced creation and personal artistic development mirrors the development of creativity in mankind as a whole.

Why did creativity develop? Mammoths, it probably came from some problem which arose in our ancient ancestors probably involving hairy horny pachyderms. That is a big mammoth, how do we carry it home now we have killed it. We could all grab a bit and drag it, but then if the sabre toothed tiger came, we would have to run away, or we could cut it up into bits we could all carry and run from the tiger and probably kill it as well for desert. Ogg then probably came up with the sharp stone knife chopping up on cutting himself on a sharp stone.

It was a simple natural solution to a large and not to mention hairy problem.

The clan who thought of this would most likely have an advantage over other mammoth dragging clans and would, again following the natural desire to retain supremacy, need to pass the skill on to maintain its usefulness. We do not know what form of language our ancestors had, but they had the organs and bone structure necessary for the required noises. We also know that they passed on their hunting knowledge on the walls of their caves. In primitive evolution, creativity served an important survival function and flourished.

Why do we, modern man, and I am talking 10000 years of modern man, invest so much effort in creativity when the threat of mammoths and sabre toothed tigers are no longer present. Simply put, the threat of other homo sapiens is however very much present.

Art, the possession of artworks can be seen as a display ritual. A single bird will put itself in mortal danger to warn the rest of the flock of approaching kestrels, thereby showing itself to be strong and brave, or a song thrush singing at the expense of eating to attract a mate. The bower bird builds an elaborate display area, and the male peacock forfeits the ability to fly sensibly in lieu of his fantastic tail feathers.

Human beings constantly show their power by displaying their possessions. The possession of many artworks is unproductive in terms of feeding and clothing the starving and naked populous, but is very effective in giving the impression of power so great that it can afford to adorn its plumage with marvellous and impressive decorations.

Art from early cave paintings has evolved into a status symbol, owning an original artwork signifies that one has established a safe, secure and comfortable environment, free from the threat of famine, or pestilence, although certain organisations have used the threat of pestilence in order to acquire the wealth and art of these comfortable individuals in return for supernatural protection from such things as the plague, or a certain number of years of time in purgatory (if one believes such things)

What is certain is that art is a natural phenomenon, and not the result of some supernatural creator playing pimp my species. Creativity is a part of everyone to a greater or lesser extent, dormant in most, prominent in many and dominant in a few. Whether this takes the form of engineering, writing, music, ballet, dance or fine art, the important thing to remember is that your creativity is as much a part of you, the homo sapiens as your heart is.

“a god given talent”
Someone once told me that I had a “god given talent” ,which I was wasting by not painting pictures of “king william of orange on his horse, the virgin Mary and the likes”, I didn’t mind the king billy, or the woman with the best excuse in the world for infidelity who didn’t die because she flew off heaven one day ( man is she going to feel the odd one out, given that it exists of course). What I objected to was the notion that creativity and talent is in some way god given. This notion is, in light of sound evolutionary evidence, quite frankly absurd.

Talent is not something to be given out in measures, awarded for piety, or generously bestowed upon us by some god of the LEGOTM men, but is a natural gift, the result of many inherited and environmental influences.

Artworks do not just appear; they are not brought suddenly into being by the flying spaghetti monster, nor are they created from one of his meatballs. Artworks do not grow out of the ground, on trees, or appear slowly over time on walls of churches like mould in a poorly ventilated room.

On a personal note, I readily admit, that to my own standards, I can paint, and draw, and sketch in the same way that someone can play football, or write, or drive a car. I would not go so far, or be so immodest as to say I have talent, that is for other people to decide.

“Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. Creativity is fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is simply the act of making something new.”
Wikipedia


In order to proceed, we have to take a step back in time, to the genesis of my art.

In the beginning was Scotch Broth,
For those who don’t know, a broth is a rather hearty soup traditional to my homeland of Scotland. Now imagine a large bowl of broth, much like the primordial soup of the first life on this planet, but instead of amino acids, the bowl contains random thoughts, ideas, impressions, experiences, inspirations, views, opinions and opportunities.

This preparatory[1] phase of creativity, is all in the mind. In our genetics, our DNA, may be a gene passed down from our ancestors, which gives us an increased level of imagination, or fantasy. We also have the ability to read, and read many books which encourage imagination and fantasy. And it is these two points which lay the groundwork for a creative persona, because without the ability to fantasise to imagine, the broth of creativity will be thin and tasteless, consigned to the sink, extinct before anything can come of it.

The literary example is a good one and supported by much evidence. If one looks at renaissance art, the three main subjects of paintings are nature (landscapes, animals and portraits), biblical scenes, or classical (greek, roman etc) themes in accordance to the literature available at the time. With the invention, here in Germany, of the printing press, came the widespread availability of published literature and this is belatedly reflected in the art world with an exponential increase in the range of subjects and subject matter.

The reason for the delay was that the main patrons of the arts, those individuals or organisations who could afford to employ artists stuck to the three safe, non-confrontational and certainly non-challenging subjects and themes in the same way that people buy ready made, mass produced paintings from the local DIY store, or IKEA. The reason that only this art exists now, is that only the artists who could provide it found patronage.

Da Vinci, hid many of his attempts at creative expression, anatomical studies and such to prevent being labelled a heretic. How wonderful it would have been to have full sized accomplished versions of his sketches on canvas rather than his conformist and allegedly subtly subversive religious paintings.

We may inherit excellent hand eye coordination from our ancestors, or we can learn it. I am useless at catching a ball as there is this moment where the ball is not in contact with my hand that I just cannot judge quickly enough to react. However if the ball is on a string, attached to my hand and I have some idea of its trajectory, I have no problems. I couldn’t hit a target with a bow and arrow, but let me touch a canvas with a brush and it becomes part of me, second nature.

Then came the thought
Stirring the broth, certain notions, come together, certain ideas are formed which work with each other for a while, become coherent and then dissolve, other ideas stick together, growing, forming the basis for an idea, an inkling of what would make a great picture.

Although still in my head, these ideas incubate in the womb of my head, they stick around, nurturing. My wife tells me that she always knows when I have a painting inside me by my actions and mannerisms. I don’t see it myself, but she is invariably correct. Quite what the outward signs are, I am not aware, but equally, I am certain that no supernatural influence is placing ready formed pictures in my head as each component part of the picture clearly comes from a particular element in my personal broth of creativity, an element which has evolved to an extent that it is a living idea, ready to make the first Devonian myriapod steps onto the land of realisation.


And into the idea was breathed the breath of life

Eating the broth. Sketchbooks are a wonderful invention, and I use them as an extension of my own mind, jotting down ideas and inspirations, notes on colours and textures, contrasts and emotions. In JK Rowlings Harry Potter series, professor Dumbledore uses a Penseive to store his silvery thoughts for later recollection. My sketchbooks are not just somewhat like that, but exactly like that. Some of the sketches in them are nothing more than a couple of squiggles and notes, but they act as a trigger to my internal memory, and this spark, this jogging of my memory is the moment where the evolution of an artwork gains sentience, it gains a meaning and personality of its own, however primitive.

This is a very vague understanding of the finished article, but an intimation nonetheless of what could be. Just as the lobe finned fish is our distant relative, so this sketch is a distant relative of a finished painting on the wall of a gallery.
Now the sketch could develop into a finished painting, or the idea could prove a weak one.
I once, in the middle of the night came up with the idea of painting with chocolate, not the actual painting, or the paint, but chocolate instead of a paintbrush. Naturally this idea melted into extinction of its own accord.

Or it could develop into a strong and powerful image, or beautifully atmospheric scene, at this stage in creativity, it is still half idea, half real but in a few cases, I have a gut feeling that a resolution is on its way.

Illuminating the Manuscript
Enjoying the broth. This is the stage at which most people would recognise a painting in progress, a stage in which the human influence is most apparent and one in which the idea, the preparatory, incubatory and intimatory stages are lost behind pure visual stimulus. The human mammal, applying an idea inspired by thousands of years of genetic inheritance, artistic development and a lifetime of experience onto a wall, a canvas, or piece of paper brings the creative idea from preconscious processing into consciousness and reality.

At this stage, the artwork in progress is alive, developing and evolving rapidly, held loosely by the initial idea, it may mutate, deviate or transform into something else, or another idea entirely, but it exists, it has form and being

Think of the painting in terms of evolution once again, we originate from the apes and are one of many varieties. Our earliest common ancestor represents the blank canvas, and the variety of species represents all possible outcomes of the final painting and the steps along the way. It could be that the idea for the finished work was that it should look like a chimpanzee, but it varied slightly and became a bonobo or dramatically and become an orang-utan or, it could die out, become extinct as an idea which didn’t work and have all its paint scraped off, destined never to be finished.

Another influence on the painting at this stage is that of technique. By a process of learning, trial and error the technique for a painting is applied to the work in progress. How one uses a brush, palette knife, pastel or pencil may vary depending on the desired effect. This technique may be know to the artist, for example, adding a dot of highlight to an eye to give it a glassy appearance, or scraping through the canvas to the lower layers of paint with a palette knife. These may be learned by accident through experiment from first principles, or learned through books, video or from other artists. I never know before I start a painting what style will be appropriate to it and personally find artists who stick rigidly to a particular style or technique throughout their catalogue of works without any apparent development or experimentation to be uninspired. The late Bob Ross, pontiff of method painting, illustrates how once his method had evolved, he was able to pass it on to a generation of “ars vulgaris” craft and hobby painters.

True artistic creativity encourages the influence of techniques and materials in the production of an artwork. When the pursuit of a fixed result dictates these, creativity ceases and only repetitive mimicry remains

This highlights, or illuminates the notion that constant mutation and experimentation is conducive to the evolution of creativity whilst blind acceptance of method causes stagnation and extinction.

The point of no return
Digesting the broth. As evolving animals diverge into separate species, there exists a point where they are no longer able to interbreed, despite similarities in appearance or habit. Our DNA is more than 98% identical to that of chimpanzees, share the same reproductive organs, and yet are genetically incompatible when it comes to interbreeding. Our inbuilt and inherited morals may also play a part in the natural qualm of revulsion which this idea holds, once again, morals are inherited, not awarded through the following of dogma.

By scraping off paint to obliterate one path, it becomes extinct, allowing the less developed idea to gain the survival of the fittest position.

Once however, the work in progress reaches a point as the idea progresses and works as an artwork, there becomes a point of no return where the ideas cohere with technique and material, the idea is elaborated upon and gains its final vitality and is verified as the final artwork by its being hung on a wall.

The painting is finished, and further work on it wouldn’t bring the idea any further. If the end result is successful, and to my liking, I will go on to paint similar, exploring another avenue of the ideas evolutionary possibilities, experiment with size, with materials and textures. If, at the end, I am content that the idea can go no further for the time being, then it is only a matter of time before I am trying out a new recipe of Scotch broth.

In every case however, the experience of creating the artwork, the mistakes, and successes go back into my mind, or into a sketchbook for later use and lie dormant until the next creative Cambrian explosion.

Java the hut, a word of warning.
There is a danger here of overworking a painting, often a single large brushstroke can add more movement and impact to a painting than a thousand small ones. It is knowing when to stop that can make, or break a finished artwork. A caffeine and music fuelled burst of creativity without taking a step back and considering the work can result in “hutting” the painting.

My wife coined the phrase Hutted, again bringing up the infamous Bob Ross, who tends to ruin what would be a perfectly acceptable landscape with a big brown wooden hut with twee chimney and a light on in the window.

The Art of Evolution
In this exhibition, you will find artworks at many stages of evolution. Some are sketches direct from my sketchbooks, and some are finished oil paintings. The ideas, remain firmly in my head, and I am quite happy to share them with you in the course of conversation. You will see a wide variety of themes, subjects, styles, techniques in my favourite mediums of Pastel, charcoal and Oil, I don’t use acrylic as I find it dries too quickly and absorbs light like a brick through butter.

You will also see a couple of series which follow the finished painting from sketchbook to pastel, to painting, back to pastel, to bigger painting and so on. It is your chance to see the evolution of a painting from its origins to its place on the wall at the exhibition.

All the works here today, are not the end of my creativity, as I am still painting, I am still evolving, still learning and gathering experiences and influences for my work. I could not, and would not ever be an artist know only for his horse paintings, or for his bluebell paintings, for his landscape pastels, or for his large abstract paintings. I would not like to be thought of as someone who always painted like van gogh, or made pastels like Degas, or sketches like Picasso. Although occasionally I may doff my hat to the style, I think of myself as neither impressionist or expressionist, abstractionist or realist, modernist or classicist.

As an artist, it is almost expected that I wear my heart, and my beliefs on my sleeve and I happily do just that, I sometimes wear my beliefs on the lapel of my jacket too, but I will leave that to you to find out. What you think about my work is important as we all evolve different visual tastes. You may love them, which I hope, or you may hate them, which is also ok, although I would prefer the former, you may think that the modicum of creative talent I have is completely wasted, or you may like my work so much that you would like to purchase it. In every case, I am very proud of my creations, and hope you enjoy them too.

I am Derek Beggs, homo sapien, human mammal, husband, father, atheist and an artist very much in evolution.

Thank you.
[1] based on the work of Graham Wallas on the origins of creativity.

Interview about the exhibition

Questions.

Q: So, Derek , Tell me a bit about yourself, a potted history of your life.

A: Sure, I was born in Falkirk, Scotland, and grew up in the beautiful town of Dumfries in the southwest. After school, I studied at the world famous Glasgow School of Art, where I graduated with an Honours degree in Fine Art. After college I did a business course and then worked as a set builder, props man and art director in the film and tv industry. In the following years, I got married, got unmarried, travelled to Australia and ended up living in Spain, working as a diving instructor.
It was in Spain that I met my wife, Tanja, and we decided on the toss of a coin to move to germany, heads Scotland, tails, germany. It was a decision that we never regretted, particularly now we have our son, great neighbours and this fantastic area to live in. I opened my gallery last year, and studio, and have been exhibiting pretty much constantly ever since, here in germany, in Scotland, in denmark and so on.

Q: Could you describe yourself in one sentence?

A: Ooh, difficult, but here goes… I am a creative, friendly, outgoing and open minded Scotsman, constantly in evolution like my art. Or something like that.

Q: Do you ever regret your move here,

A: Never, not for a minute. Ok there are some things I miss, like my friends and family, but it doesn’t stop me being happy here. My wife is german, and my son who is five now is just wonderful. As my wife says, having children is like being freshly in love every single day. He has a great quality of life, and is so open and friendly to everyone. I think that’s because he has been exposed to other cultures, cuisines and countries from a very early age.

Q: Artist, Diving instructor, Props man, you seem to have had a lot of interesting jobs.

A: That’s not the half of it, I have also done a bit of commercial diving, English teacher, Art teacher, painter and decorator, gravestone restorer, and even a tarot card reader when I was a student to fund my artistic endeavours.

Q: Did you paint and draw all your life, or did you have a pause.

A: I would say, most of my life I have been painting and drawing, or at the very least doing something creative, I cant stop myself. However within the space of a year, 1998 I think it was, my Mother died, my wife left, I folded my business. I went to Australia to visit my brother and a couple of months after my return, decided to go diving for a while, so sold up everything in a couple of weeks and landed in Spain with two rucksacks, no ties and nothing else. I think the pause must have been about oh, three years before I started up again in ernest though. Aside from that, there is always something arty on the go.

Q: Tell me about this show, “the art of Evolution”, whats it about?


A: Everyone knows about evolution, or at least heard about it. It is basically the explanation for our existence in the form we are today, it explains how through a process of natural selection, we slowly evolved over millions of years from amino acids, through single celled organisms to the hugely complex creatures by a gradual process rather than the previous held, and somewhat unbelievable idea that we suddenly sprang into existence on this planet ten thousand years after the domestication of the dog, and three thousand years after the invention of beer.

The exhibition, is also about evolution, following the same principle, from idea to sketch to drawing to painting, follows exactly the same path, exactly the same methods and principles as can be found in nature. It applies equally to my own development as an artist, and to the development of creativity in our species as a whole.

The best ideas survive to be paintings, the weakest become extinct. Creativity is a natural part of us, the end result of a biological evolutionary process. This exhibition is about my part in my own creative world, and my miniscule part in the continuing evolution of human creativity.

Art, and creativity is natural to people, all people, and all people are creative to a greater or lesser extent. I hope that by exhibiting my work, and showing the process, that it might encourage more creativity in life. They say Art mimics life, it’s quite true, I think you could go further and say creativity IS life, because without it we would quite simply stagnate, there would be no invention, no progress, no advancement, a permanent dark ages.

Q: Do you not think that encouraging people to paint somehow weakens your position as an artist, gives you more competition.

A: Absolutely not. I mean if there were several artists in one village that only painted fairies and angels, then yes, another fairy and angel artist would be competition. But the more artists that work together, with differing styles and techniques, the better it is for all of us as the appeal of the group can be exposed to a much wider audience, and can develop and grow, learning from each other. Again nature, survival of the most adaptable. That’s why I have started getting a group of artists together on my website with an idea to doing group shows and so on.

Q: So what are the plans in the future.

A: Well at the moment I am concentrating fully on the September show, and another exhibition in Scotland in August. After that, I would like to do a group show nearer christmas, and we’ll see what happens next. Whatever happens, I am looking forward to it.

Q: Thank you

First Press Release for the exhibition

Press Release

The well known Scottish artist Derek Beggs will be opening his largest solo exhibition to date this September in Landsberg am Lech near which he lives and works. Derek has exhibited and sold his work worldwide and attracts clients from students to corporations and Los Angeles celebrities.

The exhibition, of over 110 Oil Paintings, Pastels, Sketches and sculptures shows the variety and broad range of his artworks. Derek’s work appeals to a broad audience and it is very important to him to make his art accessible to everyone of any age.

Especially in this year, the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s Birth, evolution is very much in the forefront of the media. This exhibition shows the evolution of the artists work from sketch to finished artwork as well as the many and varied creative paths his distinctive techniques and inspirations have explored.

Derek’s work is firmly based on nature and the natural world rather than mythical or spiritual themes, his landscape paintings and pastels in a variety of techniques show a love of light, texture and form. From the abstract “bee purple” a large oil painting which changes when ultraviolet light is applied, to the figurative “Henry” a carefully observed horse portrait. Throughout all of his works and changing styles, his colours, and expressiveness are ever apparent.

Derek’s work also tackles controversial subjects, the exhibition draws similarities between the development of creativity in the human race, his artwork, and the artists own individual development. Works such as “Ancestricide” which highlight the obvious dangers and contradictions of creationism, or “Dominion over all living things”, which encourages the viewer to question the omniscience of the biblical view that mankind was given dominance over all creatures, when in reality, viruses and bacteria have this honour. His intention with these works is not confrontational, rather it is an attempt to make people think rationally about conventional or traditionally held beliefs and make their own minds up.

As part of the exhibition, Derek will be auctioning for charity a painting signed by the football team TSV 1860, as well as holding a family day on Sunday 6th September with activities for children and fundraising activities for a local kindergarten.

On the night of Saturday 5th September, he will be holding an exclusive, invitation only event for celebrities, clients and owners of his work.

On, Wednesday 2. September, Derek will be holding an exclusive preview and press conference at the venue and will give a short talk about the show and will be available to answer questions about his work, his life and his art.


Quotations

“I love showing paintings to children, they are so honest. That’s why I like to invite them to my exhibitions, if I want an honest answer, without hope or agenda; I ask my five year old”

“it is difficult to group my work with a particular style or genre, my style changes depending on my mood, the medium or the inspiration and I certainly don’t go out of my way to paint in a particular way. What is constant however is my love of light and colours.”

“a single brushstroke can make a painting wonderful, a single realisation can make life the same”
“it is vitally important for me not to proclaim myself an ambassador for art, I am no different to anyone else. We, human mammals have an enormous capacity for creativity, everyone has it and mine just happens to come out through my art.”

“my art evolves in the same way we did, from the primordial soup of a sketchbook to the sentient and living painting.”

“art is just another way of seeing, whether abstract or figurative, symbolic or mythological, looking at the world from alternative views is healthy”

“Some people look at the world and want to see fairies, pink unicorns, angels and the hand of supernatural influence so much that they actually come to believe in their existence. I have a naturalistic worldview and find enough mystery, fantasy and inspiration in nature to last my own brief lifetime. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike creativity along those themes, in fact some of my favourite paintings would fall into the fantasy category, but just because there is a painting of it, or a book about it doesn’t mean I have to believe it exists too.”

“Creativity, to a greater or lesser extent exists in all of us, it may come out in writing, cooking gardening or in a visit to IKEA. It most certainly did not just suddenly appear in us, downloaded by some supernatural programmer, no, it developed slowly as our brains developed and like everything else in life, it is our choice and our choice alone whether we use it or not.”

Another Update to the Art of Evolution

Hi All,
Its been a few weeks since I gave you an update on how things are progressing with the Art of Evolution, I apologise, it has been full on preparing for and then appearing at the Greenfarm Festival Last weekend. It was a wonderful weekend and definitely to be recommended .

Now to the exhibition,

The first thing to announce is that the invitations for the opening night are printed and if you would like one, just let me know and I’ll pop them in the post to you. Remember to include your address. Ask your neighbours, ask your friends, help me make this exhibition a huge success.

Other news
· Posters are ordered and are coming along nicely.
· We have a few more confirmed guests, and local celebs for both the opening night and the VIP night.
· Now collecting numbers for bus travel Munich – Landsberg – Munich on the Thursday
· As soon as the weather gets better, I am doing a live painting demo in the center of Landsberg in July and in August.
· I have 90 of the 120 pictures and paintings ready for exhibition, but still need to have a few framed.
· We now have 12 people in with a chance to win the painting, thanks for your donations.
· VIP Tickets are ready for printing and will be sent out to you all mid July.
· We may have live music sorted out for the VIP night, to be confirmed.

And that is really about it for now, we are still very much involved in spreading flyers and promoting the show, if any of you have ideas on spreading the word, or want to help out in promoting or supporting the show, please let me know.

We are currently working on getting sponsors for wine, catering, and printing of the exhibition catalogues which even though we are getting them at cost, are still going to cost upwards of 1000€ to do properly.

Now that it is only 9 weeks to go, I’m getting very excited about it and showing all these new works for the first time is a bit nerve wracking.

Thanks everyone for your continued help and support.

Derek

Update 7, The Art of Evolution

• All in all its been a really nice week, but one with many many late nights.
  
  Painting is a funny old thing, people often ask me where I find the time to paint, or how long a painting takes to finish.
  On the question of where I find the time to paint, the answer is simple, it’s a matter of replacing things which one would normally do of an evening, like watching TV. In our household we tend to disappear early to bed, usually well before 11pm and read for a bit. So if we take an hour of the Simpsons, and a couple of hours instead of a book at bedtime, you have 3 hours there which can be dedicated to painting. On weekends, there is plenty of time, a late night on Friday after Alan is tucked up in bed and Mrs B is firmly ensconced in bed with a good book, or Sunday Morning after our usual late breakfast, Mrs B likes to spend some uniterupted time with Alan, so I take myself off to the studio Ok, sometimes the discipline goes to the wall, but generally, that’s where the time comes from.
  
  As for how long a painting takes to finish, as long as a piece of string. Painting a picture is like herding cats, sometimes they all come together, but one false move and its back to chasing them again, so it can be anything from a couple of days, to several months of painting on, scraping off (that’s why I only paint in oil) and several false starts.
  
  
  Back to the exhibition.
  
  The Art of evolution is most definitely evolving and is progressing nicely.
  
  Some highlights of the week
  
  Another two paintings finished and drying for the show.
  
• I have collected together all the initial sketches out my books for the origins of creativity sketches.
  
• I got a few pictures back from the framers, but have to do it a bit at a time to spread the cost.
  
• Still waiting for news on a really good sponsor.
  
• The bus is confirmed, a bus will be running on at least one night from munich city center to Landsberg and back, if anyone is interested, let me know and I’ll book you on it.
  
• PRINTS, remember that all the images on my website are now available as limited edition prints until September, if you’re interested, please send me an email.
  
• The exhibition will be advertised in the city theatres “whats on “ guide to culture in Landsberg.
  
  And that’s about it for this week.
  Thanks everyone for your continuing support and encouragement.
  
  Derek

The Art of the One night Stand

It's not as it first seems.
No, I have not been unfaithful to my lovely wife, its about Art, funnily enough.

On Monday night, I finished a painting which I had been working on for a very long time. Through all its stages of development, through paintings on and scrapings off, through phases of OOH and AAH and Aaaaargh, it has been part of my life, a courtship phase in the quest for ultimate satisfaction.

The painting was finished, and I sat down on the floor, glass of Glove covered wine in hand and considered it, and thought, hey I like you a lot, I'm really pleased and I'm looking forward to having you in the house for a while.

less than 17 hours later, it was sold.

I get attached, perhaps too attached to my paintings, they grow on me and I like to see how the colours develop in different lights, and moods. I love to see how the painting makes a difference to a room, and reflect on how the relationship began and developed.

I am delighted that it is sold and that it is going to be in an amazing new home, owned by someone who really loves it and will enjoy the care, love and effort which I put into it every day. But at the same time, I will miss it, as it has been part of my life, my imagination and my studio for all that time but at the same time am proud as the painting has proved its worth and will continue to do so as long as it remains hung.

As Kids growing up and moving out is part of every parents life, so paintings developing and being sold, I guess is part of an artists life. Like a one night stand though, I cant help wondering if it could have come to more, if I could have done more, made it better or done something differently. These questions cant be answered, because there is nothing to answer to, if I didnt think the painting was finished, I wouldnt have called it finished.

Still, its and interesting thought.

Derek

wine, wine and turpentine

It's that old problem, trying to do two or more things at once. I like to enjoy a glass of wine or two when I'm painting, I find it adds to the overall relaxing experience. I can often be found listening to music, glass of wine in hand, looking at my sketchbook and painting with one or either hand simultaneously. Who says men cant multitask.

A problem I do have though is wine glasses. Have you ever tried to clean and polish an oil paint smeared glass. I have tried using plastic cups which just make the wine taste horrible, and tend not to survive turpentine attack for very long as my fingers tend to dissolve through the side wall. I have tried drinking out the bottle, but it just doesnt look, or taste good and there is still the problem of a paint smeared bottle.

The solution, rubber gloves. Stretch a latex glove over the glass and fix it at the base with tape, then trim the top off, leaving a wee notch for your bottom lip otherwise the wine will just taste of latex, hey ho, it works. No more dirty glasses.

Now food is another matter yet to be solved. Mrs B recently brought me some baked camembert to eat. The first thing I did was forget I had a paintbrush in both hands and painted the crispy blighters blue. Fortunately it was a non toxic pigment, and they tasted fine, allbeit rather turpentiney. Maybe it is time to change to linseed oil.

Back to the canvas

Update 6, The Art of Evolution

Another week, they seem to be flying by so quickly, blink and you’ll miss it.
Things are progressing reasonably smoothly, although I am finding it a bit hard to find sponsors for wine and catering, but will keep trying. It could be, that we will get a big boost soon with a well known sponsor, but I cant say more at the moment.

It looks like the attention is staying on the show, and hope that I can maintain it until September, I need to get as many people as possible through the doors and interested and it looks like all the investment in time, money and effort might pay off.

Before I go any further.

SPECIAL OFFER.
LIMITED EDITION PRINTS:
On my website, I have 10 of my paintings available as limited edition prints. Each print is numbered and signed and is printed on high quality, fade resistant paper.

And on to the evolutionary highlights of the week.

• The flyers were delivered and look great, I have already started distributing them, if anyone would like to help, please let me know and I’ll send you a batch.
• In its infancy, is the idea of running a subsidised bus service from Munich to Landsberg on a few evenings of the week. It works out cheaper than the train, but has to be booked in advance. Lets see how it works out.
• Posters are designed, and the first press launch should take place next weekend here at the gallery in lengenfeld.
• The exhibition list is finished. The list of paintings, pastels and drawings for the exhibition is finished, as is one of the signature paintings. I need to have anything oil finished by the end of June to ensure enough drying time.
• Started work on the exhibition brochure, an 18-20 page full colour booklet to accompany the show.
  
  
  Other news from the exhibition world this week, I will be attending the Greenfarm festival. http://www.greenfarmfestival.de/ in June this year with a stall selling my Scottish themed pastels etc. It’s a great day out if you can make it.
  
  In August of this year, I will be exhibiting in Dumfries, Scotland from the 8th August until the 16th September as one of 6 artists at the “ties that bind” homecoming exhibition in my home town. If anyone is in the area at the time, let me know and I’ll send you invites to the opening night.
  
  Thanks this week to all my supporters and to the memory of Julia Hember(see post below)
  That’s about it for this week, please help me keep the momentum by spreading the word, or adding my link to your website and emails.
  
  Evolvingly yours.
  Derek

Just a thought 07 May 2009
Here is a touching story, which I hope those involved won’t mind me sharing.

When I was at Art School, we went on a trip to Prague in 1988, or was it 1989, I can’t remember. To cut a long story short, I got stuck in an elevator with a girl from London, Julia Hember was her name. We instantly became good friends, and corresponded and met up throughout my time at artschool, but unfortunately lost touch in 1995 when I lost her address. The last time I spoke to her when I was living in Mallorca in 2001, where I learned she had taken up diving and was a professional photographer. As things often happen, I lost her details again, and when I tried to catch up again in 2007, all I found was one of her photos, a portrait of Jeffrey Barnard in the national Portrait gallery. The author of the photo was listed as Julia Hember, 1970 – 2003.
Sadly, Julia died in 2003 from what I now know was Leukaemia. It upset me to think that my friend from art school had died without my knowing, particularly Julia, who I used to talk long into the night about art, life and the world, Julia, whom I had visited in London and at her home near Bath where we collaborated on a painting of her grandfather. In her memory, I painted two pictures, one of shadows falling across leaves, called “Julia Hember, I remember the light through your hair was like autumn leaves” and the other, a portrait from memory of her. Both of these paintings you will find on my website. Painting them helped me come to terms with her death, and helped me preserve the memory of my friend.
I hoped, that perhaps one day one of her friends or family might one day see them on the internet and be comforted to know that she is not forgotten, and lives on as part of my life through her portrait which now hangs in my hallway, encouraging me to keep painting. It is a lovely thought that the people we touch and influence in our lives can influence so many others after we have gone.
Yesterday, I received a touching email from Mary, Julia’s mother who asked how it came about that I had a portrait of Julia and I immediately replied with the story above, and some memories of her, her art and her influence on mine. As a memorial to Julia, the family have planted a wood in her name.
What a beautiful and fitting tribute, for a beautiful and inspiring woman and it is a memorial to her that I am sure she would have approved of immensely. I remember having a conversation with her in Brixton, London, walking down electric avenue, about all the statues in the city. She said to me ( and I am paraphrasing it to the best of my memory )“The true mark of a life well lived is not the grandeur of the monument or the expense of the memorial as they are simply things built by people which will crumble with time. If you can touch someone’s life, influence it for the better, or plant the seed of an idea which helps them grow, that is immortality, that is a far better legacy than any bronze statue”, somehow, planting a growing, living wood in her name couldn’t have been any more perfect and fitting a tribute to her memory.
Emily Dickinson wrote, “Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.”
Julia touched my life and influenced it for the better, she planted the seed in me to work as an artist, to keep at it regardless, and in that way I will never forget my friend, nor will she ever be forgotten as part of her influence on me, her encouragement and her determination must be present in all my artworks, how can it not be.
This is for you Julia, still miss you.
Derek

Thanks to Alison and Frank McLynn, of the Green Farm Festival, I will be having a stall at the festival this year of my Scottish Themed landscape pastels and paintings. More info nearer the time, but if you fancy a day out in fine Celtic tradition, I can think of no better.

Bit of a scare today, someone very briefly hacked my Facebook account and started posting rubbish in my name. Fortunately I was online at the time and changed my password. Scary place the internet sometimes.
Sent off a really nice sponsorship application, Thanks Karina for the translation. Here's hoping that the art supplier Boesner thinks its worth all the publicity to help me out with some materials.
The article from yesterday is now front page on the talk munich website.

I wrote this to go with a piece about the exhibition, to encourage people to have a look at this blog. I was quite pleased with it, so here it is...
The Art of Evolution
An artists life is often bizarre, sometimes frustrating, occasionally surreal, but is always interesting and rewarding. “The Art of Evolution” is the title of an exhibition to be held in the Saulenhalle in Landsberg am Lech from the 2nd to the 9th of September this year. The artworks in the exhibition aim to show the evolution of a finished painting, through stages of evolution from its origins in a sketchbook and the artist own thoughts. It asks the viewers to consider that this development mirrors the stylistic and thematic evolution of not only the artist himself, but creativity in the human race and nature in general. The artist, Derek Beggs has started a blog which itself is an integral part of “the art of evolution” as like his paintings which will hang in the gallery; the organisation of the show also takes on a life of its own, changing and adapting, especially as it gains momentum towards the big day. Follow the ups and downs, highs and lows as he plans, prepares for and presents his biggest and most ambitious exhibition to date.

Hi everyone.
Once again, a busy week and I am settling down nicely into a life of permanent promotion and probing for sponsors. One baptism of fire which happened this week was the quest to get my website a bit more publicised on the intranet, and once I got over the initial bombardment of suggestions for URL submissions, tags, meta thingies, page rankings and oh so much more, it seems to be slowly working and I am getting more and more hits on the website.

At a glance, what is new this week.
The car campaign is well under way and we hope to have a press launch soon, possibly as soon as next week.
Another great online forum, www.talkmunich.com have kindly agreed to help us promote the exhibition on the run up to September, thanks a lot.
THE MURAL. I am going to turn the gable end of my house into a mural, hopefully by the middle of June which will serve as advertising, and the second press event. You will see the design here first.
Prints. The prints are selling like hot cakes, and I have opened up the list to include those images on the “new art” part of my website.
We are getting steady contributions and donations to the raffle, including an amazing single 100€ donation, thanks everyone. I worked out that to cover framing and material costs alone it will cost just under 3000 euros, ouch. I am hopeful for a sponsor, but have to keep the possibility in mind that we might not get one and I don’t want the show looking unprofessional. Please help by spreading word about the show as widely as you can, thanks a lot.
And that’s about it,

Quite a short one this week, but more news as and when it happens coming soon.

Cheers for now, spread the word, and if you have a website, please add my site to it (reciprocally of course)

Evolvingly yours
Derek

Well, another week passes and “the Art of Evolution” is doing just that, evolving. Some of the initial ideas seem to be in the process of becoming extinct, such as the dressing up as Darwin one, but we won’t mention that any more. Some of the other ideas have progressed, and this week I want to announce a couple of new beasties to the menagerie.

NEWS
The “help us evolve” raffle. If you have looked on the website recently you may have noticed the “win this picture” icons. Exhibitions cost money to do properly, and to help us raise funds for framing, publicity, and paying staff on the night, I decided to raffle one of my paintings which will be framed up nicely and given away at the opening night. It is important to me to make the show as big as possible, as the more interest we can drum up, and the more professional it looks, the more interest we are going to get for our charity picture auction, and the Kindergarten days. The idea is simple, we ask people to make a donation of any amount from 1cent upwards by clicking on the paypal “Donate” logo here, or by bank transfer, and in return they get invites to the sponsors show, their name on the sponsor board at the exhibition and the chance to win the framed original picture. We are already getting an amazing response, thanks for your help everyone.
A Flying start. We’re going to start distributing flyers soon. This was nearly disastrous as Mrs B found a typo in the main title of the exhibition after I had sent it to print. Fortunately, 5000 flyers ( thank you www.Goodflyer.de ) are soon to be spreading themselves around the country.
What a CARry on. In early april, we are going to have a campaign launch with our magnetically stickered cars, watch this space.
Thanks to Frau Seefelder from the Landsberg Stadttheater, for all your support and letting us use your logo to promote the event
Thanks to www.Meinestadt.de for all the publicity you are generating already
Thanks to http://www.bavaria-satellite.tv for your continuing help.

Ideas in Evolution
The big brush. At present, I intend to build as big a paintbrush as I can, probably about 5m long and have pictures taken of it painting the house, and maybe tied to the car for driving around.
Live Painting. In August, I want to do a live painting event in Landsberg, painting outside, in oil, to drum up a bit of interest in art in general and the show in particular.
TV show. We have finished filming a short interview and will be touting it round tv companies to try and get a reality tv show thing going.

We still need sponsors or help with sourcing the following, if you know of anyone who can help, please get in touch.
wine
plants and flowers during the show
framing
catering
Advertising
Transport of guests and the pictures themselves to and from the show.
Helpers for distributing flyers in as many places as possible.
If we can keep the momentum on the campagne, this is going to be HUGE.
And that’s about it for news this week. As always, please help the show by telling everyone you know about it. If you know anyone with a website who would like to swap links, please put them in touch. You can also follow the shows progress on the following websites etc.
Exhibition News, pictures and dates. We are currently on the front page of their advertising. Thanks www.Meinestadt.de for all your help.
http://home.meinestadt.de/landsberg-am-lech
Follow me on twitter
http://twitter.com/derekbeggs
Join my friends list on
http://www.facebook.com/home.php
Cheers for now,
Evolvingly yours
Derek

Hi there, just keeping you up to date on the progress of the exhibition. Everything is well and truly on time and I am really pleased with the paintings that I have managed to finish recently. For anyone interested, they are in the “new art” section of my website.
Some Highlights of the last week…

Goodflyer.de has agreed to be our sponsor for printing, so we will be using them (thanks Christian) for all of our flyers, posters, banners and so on.
Meinestadt.de will be helping to publicise and advertise the show.
Toytown Germany are helping us to spread the word
Bavaria Satellite, thanks geoff for all your help and support.
Flyer design finished and will be sent to print this week.
The Support our evolution campaign. Exhibitions cost money, especially if we want to do it properly, so I am starting an online campaign to raise the money we need for advertising, framing and catering. The idea is to ask people to donate a couple of euros to the cause with paypal. Everyone who makes a donation gets invites to the sponsor night, the opening night, their name on the sponsors list at the exhibition and the chance to win one of my paintings I will put all donors names in a hat on the opening night and the first name out the hat wins a big pastel drawing worth 485€.
The video interview for trying to attract TV companies is in editing, and should be out next week on YouTube and on the website
The exhibition will have a live webcam so everyone can see the proceedings as they happen.
We are being twittered about and are getting a bit of international interest.
That’s all for now, I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, but will send you another update next week
Cheers, and thanks everyone for all your support.
Please keep spreading the word.
Derek

Hi all,
As promised, an update on what been happening. It is a really exciting time, and the exhibition looks like it is going to be huge.

Everything is taking off quicker than I could possible have hoped for. Next week, the first cars go on the road with the magnetic door stickers advertising the show and we expect a press launch for the whole shebang sometime in early April.
It has just been confirmed that one of my paintings will be signed by the entire FC Bayern 1860 football team, for auction nearer to the exhibition, For those who cant be there, I am going to try and arrange a multi person skype connection, so if you are interested in bidding, send me your skype details. We haven’t decided on a charity as yet to donate the proceeds to.
I am looking into the possibility of the exhibition having its own webcam which would let everyone abroad see it.
Guarding the exhibition, and representing all the extinct ideas which never made it onto paper will be Dorothy, a life-sized dinosaur.
Sunday will be a family and children day at the exhibition with specially lowered paintings, and the chance to paint your own (for a price obviously ). All the profits will go to our local kindergarten.

Above, is the logo for the new show. I am making T-shirts of this image so if anyone wants one, please let me know.
The price will be 18.09€ (since Darwin was born in 1809 ) the proceeds will help fund the exhibition, framing, publicity etc, and a good part of the proceeds will be donated to a worthy cause please let me know what size, I think they come in S M L XL. I am hoping to have the shirts printed by the middle of May. If you have a suggestion as to the worthy cause, please let me know, although the problem is deciding which of them to go with.
Thanks to everyone who put links to my website on theirs, and added me to your facebooks etc, it is really working, and the website is getting more and more hits every day.
Hope you all enjoyed your Easter / Ostera / chocolate overdose.
Until next week.
Derek

Artistic greetings from Germany,

It has been a ridiculously and inexcusably long time in some cases, that I’ve kept in touch with anyone, sorry.

My efforts to make inroads to the artistic world seem to be finally paying some dividends and the time has come to get myself organised and start sending regular emails and updates of what is happening in the weird and wonderful world of the painting Beggs.

2009 is going to be amazing.

This year, is going to be perhaps one of the busiest ones in my artistic life, with two major exhibitions in August and September of this year, and a fantastic events manager helping me market and promote everything, I am currently in the throes of the following exhibitions.

From the 8th August – 16th September, I will be one of six artists participating in an exhibition at the Gracefield Arts center in Dumfries, Scotland in their show entitled “The ties that bind”
And
From the 1st September - 9th of September, I am having my largest solo exhibition of well over 100 paintings, drawings and pastels here in Landsberg, Germany entitled “The Art of Evolution”.
Including a corporate event, VIP night for all owners of my paintings, celebrities and press, a charity auction of artwork and a family day for kids to get involved.

Obviously the organisation of both these shows is rather time consuming, but I intend to keep you up to date on their progress and my attempts to attract some celebrities to open the Landsberg show and to drum up as much publicity as possible for it. If you’re curious to see my paintings, drawings and pastels, please feel free to visit my website.

Please spread the word, add me to your facebook, myspace etc, tell your friends, relatives, companies as the more people I can get interested in these exhibitions the better.
The first update will be next week, in the meantime, It would be great to hear from you,
Auf Wiedersehen Pets.
Derek
Of course, if you think I’m a numpty, and you’d rather pay a trip to the dentist without an aesthetic than be on the mailing list then sorry to spam you, please just reply and I’ll remove you from the list.

Where the Idea Began
The idea of doing a show based on my evolution and the evolution of my paintings came from a book I read a long time ago who's name I have forgotten about how creativity developed in early man.
I wrote this piece as a way of getting my head round what I wanted to say at the show, kind of a cathartic way of bringing an idea from the moras of my brain to the semblance of reality that is my writing.

The god of the LEGO TM people,
I once conducted an experiment; I put lots of LEGOTM men, separated into their component parts, legs, bodies and heads into a bag and shook it. Nothing happened, so I shook it some more and added some squeezing, some jiggling some massaging, and some spinning it round and round. When I looked into the bag, most of the LEGOTMmen remained in pieces, but there were some noticeable mutations. A head had become lodged on one of the pairs of legs, a body had joined with some legs, but utilising only one of the little lego connectors.
I repeated the process, for twenty minutes ( ok I carried it around ), the result, more mutations, and a head on a body along with a few other abnormalities. After many repetitions, and a few days of regular bag manipulation and a washing machine, I discovered that I did indeed have a connected head, body and legs, in the correct order. Admittedly, the head and legs were the wrong way round, and not entirely connected as firmly as they should be, but never the less, through random external forces, I had successfully re-created a LEGOTM man from his component parts.
It was random movement which rebuilt this LEGOTM man, not me. I am not the god of the LEGOTM people. Just as normal, natural, scientifically verifiable environmental considerations such as temperature, movement, and lightening are a far more likely candidate for the beginnings of life on earth than some supernatural being of literary fiction, so my kinetic manipulation of the bag was not evidence of a divine influence in the re-created man, but rather a real, albeit artificial environment produced by the normal and most definitely not mystical realm of natural physical laws.
I find the creative process involved in producing art is like a head full of LEGOTM people bits, the more you shake it, and the more bitsLEGOTM people you add, the more creative I am and the better my paintings become.
The art of evolution,
The idea behind this exhibition is twofold, firstly, I want to establish that creativity is a natural phenomenon, available to all in a greater or lesser extent, and secondly, that my own development as an artist and that of my work adheres without contrivance or effort to the evolutionary laws of natural selection.
“creativity (is) a genetically encoded product of the evolution of the brain, favoured by natural selection, but influenced by the environment of each individual”Karl H Pfenninge & Valerie R Schubik. The origin of creativity
An artwork is the end result of human creative process, a point of interest in a continuing process of creative evolution. Although the human mammal as we know it today, Homo Sapiens arrived on the scene some 200,000 years ago, the first clear evidence of creativity was not apparent until around 50,000 years ago, and the first cave paintings up to 35,000 years ago, the advantage of creativity in an evolutionary sense, was that of innovation, of new ways of solving problems, as a means of spreading information and as a means of storytelling and social control which evolved into what we now know as religion.
I won’t go into the development of creativity in great detail, but one only has to look at any book on art history and follow the timeline from cave paintings to Caravaggio, from statues of Dionysius to Damien Hurst, to see that there is a clear and logical progression in the development of art with lesser methods and styles becoming extinct and the most useful and popular surviving to the next generation.
This linearity shows that creativity evolved within our species and that the development of creativity in an individual, from building blocks and splodges of colour, to advanced creation and personal artistic development mirrors the development of creativity in mankind as a whole.
Why did creativity develop? Mammoths, it probably came from some problem which arose in our ancient ancestors probably involving hairy horny pachyderms. That is a big mammoth, how do we carry it home now we have killed it. We could all grab a bit and drag it, but then if the sabre toothed tiger came, we would have to run away, or we could cut it up into bits we could all carry and run from the tiger and probably kill it as well for desert. Ogg then probably came up with the sharp stone knife chopping up on cutting himself on a sharp stone.
It was a simple natural solution to a large and not to mention hairy problem.
The clan who thought of this would most likely have an advantage over other mammoth dragging clans and would, again following the natural desire to retain supremacy, need to pass the skill on to maintain its usefulness. We do not know what form of language our ancestors had, but they had the organs and bone structure necessary for the required noises. We also know that they passed on their hunting knowledge on the walls of their caves. In primitive evolution, creativity served an important survival function and flourished.
Why do we, modern man, and I am talking 10000 years of modern man, invest so much effort in creativity when the threat of mammoths and sabre toothed tigers are no longer present. Simply put, the threat of other homo sapiens is however very much present.
Art, the possession of artworks can be seen as a display ritual. A single bird will put itself in mortal danger to warn the rest of the flock of approaching kestrels, thereby showing itself to be strong and brave, or a song thrush singing at the expense of eating to attract a mate. The bower bird builds an elaborate display area, and the male peacock forfeits the ability to fly sensibly in lieu of his fantastic tail feathers.
Human beings constantly show their power by displaying their possessions. The possession of many artworks is unproductive in terms of feeding and clothing the starving and naked populous, but is very effective in giving the impression of power so great that it can afford to adorn its plumage with marvellous and impressive decorations.
Art from early cave paintings has evolved into a status symbol, owning an original artwork signifies that one has established a safe, secure and comfortable environment, free from the threat of famine, or pestilence, although certain organisations have used the threat of pestilence in order to acquire the wealth and art of these comfortable individuals in return for supernatural protection from such things as the plague, or a certain number of years of time in purgatory (if one believes such things)
What is certain is that art is a natural phenomenon, and not the result of some supernatural creator playing pimp my species. Creativity is a part of everyone to a greater or lesser extent, dormant in most, prominent in many and dominant in a few. Whether this takes the form of engineering, writing, music, ballet, dance or fine art, the important thing to remember is that your creativity is as much a part of you, the homo sapiens as your heart is.
“Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. Creativity is fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is simply the act of making something new.”Wikipedia
In order to proceed, we have to take a step back in time, to the genesis of my art.

In the beginning was Scotch Broth,
For those who don’t know, a broth is a rather hearty soup traditional to my homeland of Scotland. Now imagine a large bowl of broth, much like the primordial soup of the first life on this planet, but instead of amino acids, the bowl contains random thoughts, ideas, impressions, experiences, inspirations, views, opinions and opportunities.
This preparatory phase of creativity, is all in the mind. In our genetics, our DNA, may be a gene passed down from our ancestors, which gives us an increased level of imagination, or fantasy. We also have the ability to read, and read many books which encourage imagination and fantasy. And it is these two points which lay the groundwork for a creative persona, because without the ability to fantasise to imagine, the broth of creativity will be thin and tasteless, consigned to the sink, extinct before anything can come of it.
The literary example is a good one and supported by much evidence. If one looks at renaissance art, the three main subjects of paintings are nature (landscapes, animals and portraits), biblical scenes, or classical (greek, roman etc) themes in accordance to the literature available at the time. With the invention, here in Germany, of the printing press, came the widespread availability of published literature and this is belatedly reflected in the art world with an exponential increase in the range of subjects and subject matter.
The reason for the delay was that the main patrons of the arts, those individuals or organisations who could afford to employ artists stuck to the three safe, non-confrontational and certainly non-challenging subjects and themes in the same way that people buy ready made, mass produced paintings from the local DIY store, or IKEA. The reason that only this art exists now, is that only the artists who could provide it found patronage.
Da Vinci, hid many of his attempts at creative expression, anatomical studies and such to prevent being labelled a heretic. How wonderful it would have been to have full sized accomplished versions of his sketches on canvas rather than his conformist and allegedly subtly subversive religious paintings.
We may inherit excellent hand eye coordination from our ancestors, or we can learn it. I am useless at catching a ball as there is this moment where the ball is not in contact with my hand that I just cannot judge quickly enough to react. However if the ball is on a string, attached to my hand and I have some idea of its trajectory, I have no problems. I couldn’t hit a target with a bow and arrow, but let me touch a canvas with a brush and it becomes part of me, second nature.

Then came the thought
Stirring the broth, certain notions, come together, certain ideas are formed which work with each other for a while, become coherent and then dissolve, other ideas stick together, growing, forming the basis for an idea, an inkling of what would make a great picture.
Although still in my head, these ideas incubate in the womb of my head, they stick around, nurturing. My wife tells me that she always knows when I have a painting inside me by my actions and mannerisms. I don’t see it myself, but she is invariably correct. Quite what the outward signs are, I am not aware, but equally, I am certain that no supernatural influence is placing ready formed pictures in my head as each component part of the picture clearly comes from a particular element in my personal broth of creativity, an element which has evolved to an extent that it is a living idea, ready to make the first Devonian myriapod steps onto the land of realisation.

And into the idea was breathed the breath of life

Eating the broth. Sketchbooks are a wonderful invention, and I use them as an extension of my own mind, jotting down ideas and inspirations, notes on colours and textures, contrasts and emotions. In JK Rowlings Harry Potter series, professor Dumbledore uses a Penseive to store his silvery thoughts for later recollection. My sketchbooks are not just somewhat like that, but exactly like that. Some of the sketches in them are nothing more than a couple of squiggles and notes, but they act as a trigger to my internal memory, and this spark, this jogging of my memory is the moment where the evolution of an artwork gains sentience, it gains a meaning and personality of its own, however primitive.
This is a very vague understanding of the finished article, but an intimation nonetheless of what could be. Just as the lobe finned fish is our distant relative, so this sketch is a distant relative of a finished painting on the wall of a gallery.Now the sketch could develop into a finished painting, or the idea could prove a weak one. I once, in the middle of the night came up with the idea of painting with chocolate, not the actual painting, or the paint, but chocolate instead of a paintbrush. Naturally this idea melted into extinction of its own accord.
Or it could develop into a strong and powerful image, or beautifully atmospheric scene, at this stage in creativity, it is still half idea, half real but in a few cases, I have a gut feeling that a resolution is on its way.

Illuminating the Manuscript
Enjoying the broth. This is the stage at which most people would recognise a painting in progress, a stage in which the human influence is most apparent and one in which the idea, the preparatory, incubatory and intimatory stages are lost behind pure visual stimulus. The human mammal, applying an idea inspired by thousands of years of genetic inheritance, artistic development and a lifetime of experience onto a wall, a canvas, or piece of paper brings the creative idea from preconscious processing into consciousness and reality.
At this stage, the artwork in progress is alive, developing and evolving rapidly, held loosely by the initial idea, it may mutate, deviate or transform into something else, or another idea entirely, but it exists, it has form and being
Think of the painting in terms of evolution once again, we originate from the apes and are one of many varieties. Our earliest common ancestor represents the blank canvas, and the variety of species represents all possible outcomes of the final painting and the steps along the way. It could be that the idea for the finished work was that it should look like a chimpanzee, but it varied slightly and became a bonobo or dramatically and become an orang-utan or, it could die out, become extinct as an idea which didn’t work and have all its paint scraped off, destined never to be finished.
Another influence on the painting at this stage is that of technique. By a process of learning, trial and error the technique for a painting is applied to the work in progress. How one uses a brush, palette knife, pastel or pencil may vary depending on the desired effect. This technique may be know to the artist, for example, adding a dot of highlight to an eye to give it a glassy appearance, or scraping through the canvas to the lower layers of paint with a palette knife. These may be learned by accident through experiment from first principles, or learned through books, video or from other artists. I never know before I start a painting what style will be appropriate to it and personally find artists who stick rigidly to a particular style or technique throughout their catalogue of works without any apparent development or experimentation to be uninspired. The late Bob Ross, pontiff of method painting, illustrates how once his method had evolved, he was able to pass it on to a generation of “ars vulgaris” craft and hobby painters.
True artistic creativity encourages the influence of techniques and materials in the production of an artwork. When the pursuit of a fixed result dictates these, creativity ceases and only repetitive mimicry remains
This highlights, or illuminates the notion that constant mutation and experimentation is conducive to the evolution of creativity whilst blind acceptance of method causes stagnation and extinction.

The point of no return
Digesting the broth. As evolving animals diverge into separate species, there exists a point where they are no longer able to interbreed, despite similarities in appearance or habit. Our DNA is more than 98% identical to that of chimpanzees, share the same reproductive organs, and yet are genetically incompatible when it comes to interbreeding. Our inbuilt and inherited morals may also play a part in the natural qualm of revulsion which this idea holds, once again, morals are inherited, not awarded through the following of dogma.
By scraping off paint to obliterate one path, it becomes extinct, allowing the less developed idea to gain the survival of the fittest position.
Once however, the work in progress reaches a point as the idea progresses and works as an artwork, there becomes a point of no return where the ideas cohere with technique and material, the idea is elaborated upon and gains its final vitality and is verified as the final artwork by its being hung on a wall.
The painting is finished, and further work on it wouldn’t bring the idea any further. If the end result is successful, and to my liking, I will go on to paint similar, exploring another avenue of the ideas evolutionary possibilities, experiment with size, with materials and textures. If, at the end, I am content that the idea can go no further for the time being, then it is only a matter of time before I am trying out a new recipe of Scotch broth.
In every case however, the experience of creating the artwork, the mistakes, and successes go back into my mind, or into a sketchbook for later use and lie dormant until the next creative Cambrian explosion.
Java the hut, a word of warning.There is a danger here of overworking a painting, often a single large brushstroke can add more movement and impact to a painting than a thousand small ones. It is knowing when to stop that can make, or break a finished artwork. A caffeine and music fuelled burst of creativity without taking a step back and considering the work can result in “hutting” the painting.
My wife coined the phrase Hutted, again bringing up the infamous Bob Ross, who tends to ruin what would be a perfectly acceptable landscape with a big brown wooden hut with twee chimney and a light on in the window.
The Art of EvolutionIn this exhibition, you will find artworks at many stages of evolution. Some are sketches direct from my sketchbooks, and some are finished oil paintings. The ideas, remain firmly in my head, and I am quite happy to share them with you in the course of conversation. You will see a wide variety of themes, subjects, styles, techniques in my favourite mediums of Pastel, charcoal and Oil, I don’t use acrylic as I find it dries too quickly and absorbs light like a brick through butter.
You will also see a couple of series which follow the finished painting from sketchbook to pastel, to painting, back to pastel, to bigger painting and so on. It is your chance to see the evolution of a painting from its origins to its place on the wall at the exhibition.
All the works here today, are not the end of my creativity, as I am still painting, I am still evolving, still learning and gathering experiences and influences for my work. I could not, and would not ever be an artist know only for his horse paintings, or for his bluebell paintings, for his landscape pastels, or for his large abstract paintings. I would not like to be thought of as someone who always painted like van gogh, or made pastels like Degas, or sketches like Picasso. Although occasionally I may doff my hat to the style, I think of myself as neither impressionist or expressionist, abstractionist or realist, modernist or classicist.
As an artist, it is almost expected that I wear my heart, and my beliefs on my sleeve and I happily do just that, I sometimes wear my beliefs on the lapel of my jacket too, but I will leave that to you to find out. What you think about my work is important as we all evolve different visual tastes. You may love them, which I hope, or you may hate them, which is also ok, although I would prefer the former, you may think that the modicum of creative talent I have is completely wasted, or you may like my work so much that you would like to purchase it. In every case, I am very proud of my creations, and hope you enjoy them too.


based on the work of Graham Wallas on the origins of creativity.