Richard Galbraith

Life has been on an interesting curve over the last 8 months. Many things have happened and, unlike so many years previously, not at all with the outcomes I wanted. Sometimes chaos is healthy though, and the last 8 months have been a hard and interesting ride in personal mental and emotional development, but now I'm all settled again, it's back to business.

Now, sometimes you need a little jolt, a little inspiration, perhaps even a little jealousy to get things moving again, and Laura from She Makes War has certainly given me that. I've followed Laura on Twitter and her blog for years now, she's an inspirational figure, a freelance, DIY musician, artist, videographer, photographer, you name it, there's a feather in that cap of hers. Now her music project, She Makes War has come full circle with the release of her debut album, Disarm.

First, to the music. The album is a great listen, the opening track 'Scared to capsize' is an emotional start; soft, lightly sung, lovely, and endearing which is a directional pointer for much of the rest of the album. Though, that's not to say that the music is without some grit and a bit of grunt, it weaves in and out of pop grunge, melancholic rock that, with tracks like NIMN connote elements of Massive attack to Depeche Mode that are dark, involved, introspective and throughout provoking.

It certainly made me sit up and listen, properly listen...not a lot of music makes me do that these days. Politically aware, emotionally pertinent and touching, crunchy punk, grunge pop. If you're looking for 'sound-alikes' try Nirvana crossed with Veruca Salt and PJ Harvey, with a little sprinkling of fairy dust. It's ace.

Now on to what the whole thing means. Laura has independently produced the everything, she has self funded the album, the recording, the engineering, the music videos, the photography, art, design, everything and it's brilliant. It really brings back memories of what I did and with and what I am doing with Concrete Operational, and the success she is having is nothing short of inspirational, and a text book example of how to go about being a successful independent artist.

She has written a great blog post on her thoughts so far, and the similarities between ourselves are so apparent it's a little unnerving. We both wanted to show how independent production does not need to be anything less than excellent, even surpassing big spend, industry production, and she admits, like myself also, that she's a little bit of a control freak, she knew what she wanted, she knew it was good and she went about producing it. She has done everything right, and it's paying dividends, I can just imagine the time and effort she has put in, DIY is hard work, but the feeling you get out of doing it is amazing. With Concrete Operational, pulling together 90,00 words of novel, five bands, five artists, one film maker, countless other people from recording studios to scanning agencies and a designer that was on the verge of mental break down after immersing himself in the concept of Sacred Geometry almost took me to breaking point, but the feeling at the launch night was unsurpassed. I know the guys over at independent record labels Alcopop and BSM are fully independent and DIY and the gear they come out with is amazing, but I also know the time and effort and energy they put in making, constructing and producing everything they do.

The long and short of it, is that as Laura says, the means to produce something of outstanding quality without the need for huge industrial backers is open to everyone today. You need friends, contacts, a bit of money, a lot of perseverance and a good idea, but if you are thinking of pulling an independent project of art together today, the time could not be better. There are hordes of people out there eager for lovely, new, interesting and powerful products that may have never seen the light of day otherwise. Sometimes, it's a case of signing up for a semester or two to the Henry Rollins School of 'Getting things the fuck done'.

Anyway, I can't recommend the album more, and I urge you to purchase it rather than download it for free, and definitely look into the levelled packages of items she has.

The blog is now off hiatus mode. I am writing again, and I have another idea for another big independent collaborative media project moving into the new year, first I'm finishing off my second manuscript, and I'll keep updating on how everything is going, and other ace stuff in general.

Sometimes life just needs to be embraced. This has been happening. Will be back soon, better and badder than ever.

Richard.

My appreciation for photography grows almost daily, blogs like Booooooom and post sites like We heart it and ffffound push though so much daily it's completely impossible to keep up with the sheer volume of amazing images that come through.

I think the development of the medium as a story teller, and it's ability to tell as story through it's various means and genres in my own mind has been the key. You grow up, you take photos as well as feature in them, you look at them as lasting memories and moments in time that are frozen for prosperity and smiles. But as a story teller myself, really becoming aware of the facility to capture and tell a story in a single shot, a single moment in time is facinating to me, and my growth as a story teller feeds on the medium daily.

As said, the sheer volume of amazing photography that comes through the web is impossible to keep up with, but one man that has stood out for me, and acts as a continual inspiration in terms of highlighting the possibilities of the medium as well as generally coming across as supremely cool is Clayton Cubitt. His tumblr is full of all sorts of goodies on a daily basis and his portfolio site has a lot of his work as well.

Personally, the visceral nature of Clayton's images are amazing, and his facility to tell a story in one shot is what keeps drawing me back to his work.

Some of his work below, but be sure to follow his tumble blog as well as twitter.

Since starting the whole Operation Concrete project early last year and heading out on my search of a book designer have I had a growing interest in illustration, design and typography. I always had a bit of interest in the subject, but over the last 12 months my horizons have been opened and I've been introduced to and seduced by some of the best illustration, typography and design I've ever come across.

There's a lot out there at the moment, the Behance network is a trove of awesome design and illustration, but as with every creative genre, there's always people that stick out and impress you, to the point that you need to shout about them. Hence the post.

I first came across Olly Moss's work at the very start of the Operation Concrete project when I was looking for a cover designer. Olly's work has gone viral many times over, and by that I mean the sheer genius of his illustrations have touch and influenced the online illustration and design zeitgiest. I have seen his work and ideas copied and replicated a dozen times over, I'm sure there's no greater accolade.

Then there's Brandon, another one that just sticks out. I think a combination of Brandon and Olly's ideas and creativity are more than enough to get anyone in a creative slump motivated and smiling again and I think this is why I've come to enjoy the illustration genre so much. Quick, wonderfully rendered ideas and creativity, it's perfect for your daily shot of awesomeness. Below is just a tiny sample of some of Olly's and Brandon's work, you need to get on their flickr accounts (Brandon - Olly) right this second to absorb more.

Recently there's been a massive design trend for infographics, they've been popping up everywhere and anywhere, I jumped on Digg the other day and literally picked up about four in the space of as many minutes. The Oscars, Spring Break, Curling, smoking, even an infographic blueprint.  I like them though, the conveyance of information in graphical form, easy to read statistics and data, quick to digest and you learn something, all are good in my book. There's the obvious thought that they're more popular than ever because people are more stupid, but on the other hand it could also be to do with the economy of attention and if you want to get something across to someone quickly, use a quick method.

So below is a gallery of some I've picked up on. My recent favourite that stood out by a mile was the one that Bobby at Kitsune Noir also enjoyed, and even Mr Ellis posted about it. As a medium, infographics are meant to tell you as much about the subject as quickly as possible, however, the subject of this particular one, the sailing stones of Death Valley, there's only so much information you can provide before you still have to question, just how does it happen? Interesting and entertaining and produced by Danny Jones of the great YASLY blog.

I came across Susannah's writing whilst she was still firmly in residence at her Reverse Cowgirl blog and was completely encapsulated by her 'Letters from Johns / Working girls' project. An idea that saw letters being sent to her from both ends of the spectrum of the 'paid for sex industry', both the recipients and the providers. Some where funny, some where harrowing, most were moving in some way, a great project.

Susannah since has moved to her eponymous blog that contains her daily scribbles as well as her ever evolving insight into her progress of writing a novel.

Now having been down this road, I know what it can be like. Susannah, just before moving over to her own blog, she self published her story / essay / photo essay about the adult movie industry and the recession 'They Shoot Porn Stars Don't They?'. Now, the writing is great, the story is again, moving, interesting, funny, harrowing, etc, the photos are clever and it received a very positive, very wide reception.

What is interesting for me personally however, is the fact that Susannah is a widely read, highly respected journalist / blogger. She has won countless awards and accolades, she clearly know's her subject, and in a weird way, it's niche, at least her style of writing about the industry is niche. But for all this, she couldn't find someone to publish the essay so she self published, and in recent months has decided to go down the same road with her first novel. In other words, if someone like Susannah is self publishing because she feel's it is the best way to reach her audience and do what she want's to do creatively, then that's a great thing for all other self publishers / independent publishers out there.

I was fortunate enough to make it to the amazing 'Walking In My Mind' exhibition last August at the South Bank Centre. I was completely blown away by the installations. Yayoi Kusama and Thomas Hirschhorn struck particular notes with me, the fantasy and escapism and retreating nature of their work was astonishingly powerful.

One artist that simply blew my mind however was, Chiharu Shiota, as the exhibition site says, 'remembrance and oblivion, dreaming and sleeping, resonate in Shiota's performances and installations'. Personally, I'm a fan, if not addict, of lucid dreaming, I can induce lucid dreams and wake up inside my dreams most nights / mornings. That combined with recurring dreams about apocalypse and doom, Shiota's work definitely hit home.

Images of the all encompassing physical, visual and mental experience are below, it blew me away, making me feel unsettled and at peace at the same time. Completely unnerving and unhinged, epic on a micro scale, tens of thousands of lines all interjecting and making a whole, powerful stuff. If you get chance, go to an exhibition and absorb the feeling.

I came across Hiroyuki Hamada's work the other day via Iso5050, then another one of my favourite installation art blogs, AcidoLatte covered his work, and the very next day Jeff Hamada from Booooooom posted an amazing interview he had performed with the artist a number of years ago, before Booooooom even existed!

I can see why people are taken by his creations, I'm particularly drawn to the switching surfaces of his pieces, between the drilled holes and completely smooth with interjecting lines. There is an immediate cross between modern space exploration equipment, some of the pieces look like they've fallen straight off the space shuttle, and the barnacle coated underneath of a sea faring vessle. I love the idea of space crustaceans collecting on the hulls of spaceships, which is what his work connotes to me.

Hiroyuki has his own blog where you can keep up to date with his latest pieces and exhibitions.

When I came into the office this very morning and fired up the old RSS feeds the splendor above sprang out at me and whistled awesomeness as it flooded into my eyes and I knew I had to post these images to kick off the more regular content coming from Cementum.

The work is by Tavis Coburn and is for The BAFTA Awards. In a great call, and clearly knowing what the fans and internet like, they commissioned Tavis, of Dutch Uncle design studios, to create a poster for each of the nominees for best film.

I've come across Tavis's work before, he's an illustrative artist of the highest caliber. Educated at California's Art Centre College of Design his work is inspired by, in his own words, "1940's comic book art, the Russian avant-garde movement and printed materials from the 1950's & 1960's," and you can tell.

It inspired me this morning, the colour, the strong lines across the faces of the subjects and the imagery surrounding as well, the contrast that is typical of the 40's comic book art that inspires him. Love it, made me smile first thing and is great to start things off with. The image for Hurt Locker is below, and the others are in a gallery.