So the drawing project finished, and now I’m halfway through the next one – investigating the ideas of home  through ready mades. Again, I’ve had a feel feeling of being adrift with this one – last year I had no problems coming up with ideas, whereas this year it’s been more of a struggle. anyway…

This new project reminded me of the eventual piece of work i preseented for the site specific sculpture project, a maquette of the roof of my building assembled from items from my home.

it also reminded me of the postponed project ‘404 down memory lane’, and the odd feelings and memories that accompanied the project. I’ve been seriously considering reviving the project, but after reviewing the footage i’m not quite sure about how best to continue with it, so it’s returned to the back burner (although now there’s a little heat under it).

My first solid idea was based around gingerbread houses. which led me to get one from ikea (which i broke) and bake some (which….. broke) and eventually repair the ikea one until it went stale and soft and…. you guessed it…. BROKE! i remember my home economics teacher at school saying ‘you need fairy fingers to make pastry’. i guess they come in handy for gingerbread houses too. I did manage to run a quick maquette of my intended plan with the gingerbread house though –

It’s supposed to represent that odd sense of voyeurism when you walk past someone’s house in the dark and they have the telly on really loud and the curtains open – in this age of fear of crime it seems a bit odd that stuff is displayed in this way. I did a little bit of video of it working too, with Doctor Who playing on the DVD player inside:

I liked the idea of using the ready-made gingerbread house, as the image has always made me think of humanities incredible ability to disregard the impracticality of something in order to pursue an ideal, and as the original gingerbread house was from ikea it worked within the ready-made brief.

So, i began thinking about the notion of home, or rather, what i’m home to. I could list a bunch of diseases and parasites, but in terms of forming my identity they pretty much mean bugger all. What DOES reflect my identity more is my monkeys.

Everyone has a monkey on their back, and i have three of the primates: The Coffee Monkey, the Stress Monkey and the Cigarette Monkey. My favourite of these is the coffee monkey, who i always imagined as a cymbal monkey or monkey drummer, something like the automata of victorian times which has led to lots of thoughts of music boxes and creepy movements:

Ultimately, i wanted to create a representation of the coffee monkey. so i made it personal, using my own socks and stuffing it with old tights, and finishing off the fella with coffee bean eyes: