Graphic Artist and Illustrator
out on the raggedy edge of Cornwall
contemporary art and art history, radical politics, science and technology, folk traditions, philosophy and music - classical, contemporary, jazz, electronic, folk, left-field, home-made
It was the Summer 1994.
I’d trashed my Apple Quadra and had work due at dawn.
At 2 in the morning, my girlfriend curled up asleep under my desk, with an appropriated 56K modem screaming, a stranger on the BBS, Cosmos London - from New Zealand - guided me through the dark and saved me. It felt intimate, like magic.
I’m chasing that spark again on Mastodon, Pixelfed, and the IndieWeb.
It’s slow. I'm shy.
But we don’t have to be so fucking passive.
Read it here
"could a more authentic PM revive Labour's appeal?"
Err ... No. (in my nephew's beautifully broad Macclesfield accent)
Authentic is as authentic does - Starmer Version 7.4 is still in alpha.
Critics "chastened"?
FFS - they living in La-La Land? - WYSIWYG!
Vocally defend Labour values?
What Labour values?
The man has none - at all.
Not mine.
Some people are delusional and still successful - successful and still sad fucks.
Enough already.
When will they grow up?
Why it’s funnier when you’re not allowed to laugh
https://theconversation.com/why-its-funnier-when-youre-not-allowed-to-laugh-275003?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY @science-technology-ConversationUK
Dance Macabre
Just found this doing some more house-keeping.
Caught on Google Street View.
Looking at the date on the Google Maps, I think I was thinking about Covid but it could easily apply in a more metaphorical sense to a government which condones genocide or one which is dead before its time.
#ContemporaryArt #Art #PoliticalArt #ArtAndPolitics #ArtHistory
4/4
But I was playing a part.
Why have we helped to build a world where we worry about these things and they do not?
Where they feel the rules don't apply to them.
Looking at a photo of Journalist Emily Maitlis and Peter Mandelson, all I can think is that they think they live in a different world - and perhaps they do.
And she's "shocked". Hmmm ...
And I haven't reread this - so maybe I'm finally learning.
Photo credit: Alan Davidson/Shutterstock
3/4
It never went away - just transformed, pivoted - like things do.
We run a solstice festival in Penzance - Montol - do look it up - it's beautiful.
I manage our Social Media and the strain of producing posts in the run-up to the event nearly floored me.
I was so obsessed with getting the voice, the tone, just right.
In my mind a persona - funny and silly, wise and knowledgeable, a bit rude and pushy, friendly and intimate, open and innocent - swaggering even. All the best of us.
2/4
It's a pernicious form of imposter syndrome which is encouraged and supported by the elites who don't, sometimes, even know what they're doing.
When I went to UCL in 1980 to read philosophy it was fellow students, who'd been to fancy public schools who laughed at my accent.
At school I'd been "posh" but I like to think I'd earned my place.
In that case it was provincial-cringe, class-cringe.
Bollocks but very real.
I'm ashamed to say you probably couldn't tell where I grew up now.
https://tadaima.bearblog.dev/privilege-is-bad-grammar/
via - Cory Doctorow
https://pluralistic.net/
1/4
"People have been uploading screenshots of emails between Epstein and Musk, Gates, Branson ... the thing that also surprises me is how bad everyone's grammar is."
I thought I was small and petty for noticing this and even caring about it - under the circumstances.
The late great art critic Robert Hughes called it - the pain of trying to write seriously and be taken seriously as a provincial - colonial cringe.
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear scumbag
Happy birthday to you!
It's childish - I know
I'm ill and in bed all day - feeling sorry for myself.
Couldn't resist.
Sorry.
photo credit: REUTERS/ Toby Melville
@kottke Sad to hear of the death of Jesse Jackson but ... that was a good life, a long one.
I showed my wife the video - loves Sesame Street - always did - and loved it and responded along with the kids - and she was just one in 1971 - but ...
We've never believed in secular saints and Jackson and King weren't - but ...
We felt, were told, we were on a trajectory of positive change ...
She's a tough politician but it broke her heart.
And that breaks mine.
Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
@publicdomainrev Critics can get lost when they resort to the cheap game of league tables (fancified listicles) or fall into the trap of labelling "the greatest living painter" or whatever - only having to backtrack and apologise later.
Artists are often more interested in the "second division", "interesting" - looking for conversations and inspiration, competition and comradeship - real heroes.
Poets often make fabulous critics - eg - https://hyperallergic.com/author/john-yau/
Fascinating essay by Max Adams.
The Great Day of His Wrath (ca. 1853), by John Martin, who met his maker #onthisday in 1854. More on his life and art in Max Adams' essay “John Martin and the Theatre of Subversion” — https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/john-martin-and-the-theatre-of-subversion
Pensans Morris dancing on the threshold of the Other World.
Liminal.
In Penwith you get used to seeing people dissolving into their daemons or the other way round.
Not just for summer and not for the faint-hearted.
#FolkMusic #FolkTraditions #MorrisDancing #Cornwall #Penwith
I suppose it's a bit like moving house - specifically that bit where you're unpacking and find a stack of photos that you recognise but don't remember.
A folder of images I'd uploaded to Instagram.
My wife dances with Pensans Morris - I'm just a fan with a camera. Lovely to share in the oxytocin.
In the studio with the music up loud to crowd out the fear, I dance.
But not in public.
I envy the bliss, ego-loss, connection - the joy.
Phil and Sophie at practice
@nigelharpur Tick ... tick ... tick ... sounds like home
I'd add: auty and all sorts of nerdy - but less scary already
Cheers
@martwritesstuff Well now we know that 40 days and 40 nights is not quite enough to float a boat.
It IS a beautiful morning.
Finally made the move away from Big Social Media. Feels good.
Plan is - Website portfolio and blog first - here for words and Pixelfed for images of work.
I’ve back-filled some stuff for context and will be posting there from now on.
Weirdly surprised that the experience was genuinely affirming - gave me a quiet sense of pride.
If you’d like to follow my work, you'll find me here:
https://pixelfed.art/aaron
I'd love you to join me on this new, and very scary, adventure in the Fediverse.
Lovely to be invited, as Lord and Lady Montol, to the St Ives Feast Night Guizing by Admiral Hake and the Scaleybacks of Hakeybay on Monday.
More than 40 days and forty nights of rain, but the skies cleared and the stars shone on the revellers who took the town by surprise but won so many hearts and minds.
We all had a beautiful evening - so great to get the Tribe back together again - to carry the fire.
Still a little the worse for wear 2 days later.
Just published a new post on my site: Old Master Remixes
So much of my work, our work, is a conversation with the past — borrowing visuals … but also ideas, hopes and fears and quietly but firmly arguing back, speaking confidently to now and into the future.
Voices murmur and echo round my studio - images flicker in my peripheral vision.
But art is our only real hope for time-travel.
Read here:
https://aaronbroadhurst.com/2026/02/old-master-remixes/
#ArtHistory #GraphicArt #Illustration #StudioPractice #CreativeProcess #Art
Stuttering out what you want to say in 500 character chunks leaves some asides stranded in the spotlight. Learning.
In the past, none of these celebrations would have been at all pagan, though all of them obviously bear the traces, muscle-memory, of much older beliefs. But the motivations of our ancient or more recent ancestors, & our families and friends today, religious or not, are obviously sympathetic.
We all need warmth and light and especially each other at the dark turning of the year.
