Stepping Out - The Jungle Club - Leicester - 2014

Stepping Out
Paul Conneally
Jungle Club
Leicester 2014

'Claustrophobia' - Paul Conneally - limited edition print

'Self Portrait Great Malvern Priory Road North Car Park' 
Paul Conneally 2009

A new edition of 20 prints of this self portrait car park ticket by artist Paul Conneally from INVIGILATOR : MALVERN (2009) on used envelopes is now available.

Each numbered and signed print is on a different sized and type of used envelope and although an 'edition' each is essentially unique.

Price unframed including delivery is £15 - click below for PayPal

 Contact: Love and Barley at LoveandBarley@googlemail.com

Karl Brown - pro basketball player, coach and community champion

Karl Brown
Paul Conneally
Quorn 2014

"Karl Brown - pro basketball player, coach and community champion - also a former student of mine at Moat Community College in the early 80s - these days it's a pleasure to do work with and alongside him exploring the interface the liminalities between sport culture art spirit ..."

Paul Conneally December 2014

Blue Moon

Parking the car just off King Richard's Road, my son and I walk the mile or so to Leicester City's King Power Stadium.

Today they play Manchester City, the current football champions of England.

It's a crisp December afternoon. The sun is out, the pavements are frosty, slippy in places, we expect to lose.

By Liberty Island, down by the canal, we stop and buy lamb burgers from the Barge Burger. Steam and smoke from the grill at the rear of the boat rising with the pre-match crowd's excited chatter as they walk on by towards the stadium over Walnut Bridge.

Just enough time for a bit of banter with the women who run this unique burger outlet.

As to the match, a good one even though we lost to the sky blue shirts of Manchester City by one goal to nil.

after the match
a pint of Tiger
to keep out the cold

Paul Conneally
13th December 2014
Leicester

Two Chairs

Two Chairs
Paul Conneally
Penryn

2014

Apple Peel Poetry

Apple Peel Poetry Installation - Paul Conneally 2014

During artist activist Anne-Marie Culhane's Fruit Routes Harvest Celebration at Loughborough University, Conneally invites visitors to peel an apple, trying to create as long a single piece of peel as they can They then measure the peel in centimetres and find the page number equivalent to the length of peel in a book of collected Wordsworth poems. They count down the number of lines equal to the number of letters in their name, copy it out on a label replacing one word with the word apple and hang the peel and poem up across the gable end of a garden shed.

Loughborough University Fruit Route October 2014

Stonehouse Seedstore - Anne-Marie Culhane 2014

Stonehouse Seedstore created by Anne Marie Culhane in Stonehouse, Plymouth, UK.

‘Anne Marie has been working with residents from across the area to collect individual stories about our relationships to plants through growing and eating. The Seedstore also includes plants that are, or have been important in the story of Stonehouse, gathered through conversations with residents and historians. She has use these to create a seed store as a community resource, a connection to the natural world and a celebration of diversity in Stonehouse.’

The plan now is to keep the Store at Union Corner for people to see and read the stories, to go out to events, and for the swapping of seeds.

The Polarity of Spirit and Matter

The Polarity of Matter and Spirit
Involuntary Painting
Paul Conneally
Leicester
2014

Loughborough by the Sea - Paul Gent

Sun, Sea and Socks! - Paul Gent

Artist Paul Gent imagines Loughbohemia, currently landlocked, as it might be if global warming and the melting of the ice caps continues.

Paul Conneally

Artist Anne-Marie Culhane - Fruit Routes Harvest 2014

Artist Anne-Marie Culhane during her Fruit Routes Harvest Back to Back walk with fellow Simone Kenyon at Loughborough University.

Paul Conneally
Loughborough
October 2014

Lean Times - Consumption and Production: Art and the Politics of Food

Lean Times

Consumption and Production: Art and the Politics of Food

November 1 & 2

2014

Independent School of Art

West Street

Penryn

Barefoot Blindfold - Choreographed by Birdsong

The blind man's guide,
Meek and neglected thing, of no renown!
Soon will peep forth the primrose, ere it fades
Friends shall I have at dawn, blackbird and thrush
To rouse me, and a hundred warblers more!

from 'The Recluse' by William Wordsworth

Artist Paul Conneally during his and Anne-Marie Culhane's Barefoot Blindfold piece at 5am on Loughborough University Fruit Route.

Eleven were slow walked by Anne-Marie Culhane into an orchard section of her ongoing Fruit Route work at Loughborough University to take part in Culhane and Conneally's 'Barefoot Blindfold.

Participants chose a fruit tree sat against it and were blindfolded in order to foucus their senses away from the visual for the the first half hour and then still in slience to spend the next half hour without the bliindfold recording their emotions / reactions to the fruit route at dawn.

Conneally invited them during the blindfold session to allow the sounds to choreograph the movements of their upper body and arms. This is a short section filmed by Miriam Keye of Conneally being choreographed by nature in fact by birdsong.

This is only a small part of the whole of Barefoot Blinfold but offers perhaps opportunities to explore the idea of being choreographed by nature further in other works to come. Perhaps we already are.

The Right Change

I pull up to the bumper of an old Ford Fiesta and reverse a little. Open the car door a smidgen, lean out and check that I'm parked inside the bay line. The offside rear tyre is just touching but it'll be fine.

It's warm for the end of September.

Students back for the new term stroll in sweatshirts and tees towards and from the University.

Toadstools growing at the base of a sycamore tree.

The first pay-station machine is 'not in use' so I walk a hundred yards up the road to the next one. I read the regs and rummage through my pockets for the right change.

Indian summer
the sun and six coins
in my palm

Paul Conneally

Café Nero - A Fly Stirred In

Café Nero - Humberstone Gate - Leicester
Paul Conneally 2014

Millions of people enjoy a cup of coffee in one of the hundreds of Café Nero outlets across the UK. The company styles itself as a European style coffee shop which is quite appropriate given that it has set up a holding company in Luxembourg, and you can't get more European than that!

The upshot of setting up such a holding company means that Café Nero can by a complex web of borrowing from its own Luxembourg holding company write off any liability for corporation tax in the UK.

This has caused consternation from many people who feel that although perfectly legal it's somehow immoral to not pay what they feel is a fair whack in tax to the state. Starbucks, the American coffee shop giant, has come in for similar scrutiny.

The truth is, like it or not, these companies pay the tax that is legally due from them. They also employ thousands of people and contribute huge amounts in VAT returns, National Insurance contributions from workers and local business tax. While ever the tax system allows this then no right headed business is going to pay more tax than it has to. And why should it?

Well the argument could be that they go out of their way to find any loophole in the tax system that they can that brings them benefit at the expense of the public purse and so compromises the National Health Service, Education, and the wider social fabric of the UK.

You have to decide for yourself where you sit on this argument. Do you yourself pay more tax than you have to? Do you want to? Maybe it's the government that needs to act to change tax laws, close so called loopholes? Perhaps if we looked more closely at how our tax is actually spent, including huge amounts on defence, we might find even more to actively campaign on around tax collection and it's uses.

Personally I have no great love for corporate chains of any kind. I'd much rather buy a cup of coffee and homemade cake from a local independent café or tea shop while I still can.

afternoon tea
a fly stirred in
with the sugar

Paul Conneally
Leicester 2014

Brutal Beauty - Lee Circle Car Park - Leicester

The brutalist rotunda double helix concrete Lee Circle car park in Leicester, is a beast of a building.

Today, in the late September sun, it purrs more than roars and takes on a kind of beauty that I haven't clocked before.

Only one of its spiral roadways, the Blue route, is now in operation and it is rarely full.

Drivers choose to park the other side of the city centre, nearer or even in, the modern Highcross shopping complex.

lengthening shadows

the pigeon's coo melds

with a car alarm

Paul Conneally

Leicester

2014

Haymarket Bus Station

Haymarket Bus Station

Paul Conneally

Leicester

2014

the past shows us that difficulty is no excuse for dejection

'the past shows us that difficulty is no excuse for dejection'

Involuntary Painting

Paul Conneally

Leicester 2014

Concrete Mining Helmets

Concrete Mining Helmets - Snibston Discovery Museum

Photo: Paul Conneally 2014

The Astral Body Of The Earthly Form Finally Separates From It

'the astral body of the earthly form finally separates from it'

Involuntary Painting

Paul Connneally

Whitwick 2014

Poppy Cross

Poppy Cross

Paul Conneally

Whitwick 2014

Voluntary Victim Of An Illusionary God

Voluntary Victim Of An Illusionary God

Involuntary Painting

Paul Conneally

Whitwick 2014

Macramé For Beginners

World matters make me feel that Macramé for Beginners is ripe for reiteration and so it's begun. 

Last night in the relative quiet of a small town superstore the screens lit up with Mother Goose as she told her tale of weaponry, words, class struggle and religion. 

knots in string 

the sound of artillery 

and prayer 

This session lasted 13 minutes before the electrical department sussed what was on their bank of flat screens and closed down the show. 

Tomorrow's another day. 

Paul Conneally

September 2014

Click here to see the video: http://vimeo.com/7778943

Macramé For Beginners sees Mother Goose meet Marx and Engels.

Macrame For Beginners caused controversy when Conneally managed to install the video without permission on to the master DVD player of a large national electrical retail store.

The piece was seen and heard on a bank of 26 in store for sale TVs for 48 minutes in the busy retail park store before staff realised that it was not the Cartoon Network and turned it off.

Macrame for Beginners is available for installation and public viewing both in outside, gallery and other locations.

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Macramé or macramé is a form of textile-making using knotting rather than weaving or knitting. Its primary knots are the square knot and forms of hitching (full hitch and double half hitches). It has been used by sailors, especially in elaborate or ornamental knotting forms to decorate anything from knife handles to bottles to parts of ships.

Morning Dew

I've never been very clubbable.

This extends to political parties which in a sense are just as much clubs as any other.

Nightclubs, for the most part, aren't clubs because you don't actually have to be a member to gain entrance.

Wear the right shoes, pay your dues and you're in.

morning dew

a cloakroom ticket

stuck to my face

Paul Conneally

Loughborough

2014

Just Like That

Some call it the 'Vintage' market others the 'Antique' but much of it is more akin to bric-à-brac, a slightly elevated white elephant stall state of affairs.

I say this with affection not spite, for the Friday Loughborough town market, we'll call it vintage, has its own charm and is well worth a visit, a mooch around.

In quiet times, when custom is scarce, it's good to listen in on the stall holders' banter as they joke and do trade deals with each other.

just like that

a toby jug pirate

changes hands

Paul Conneally

Loughborough

2014

From Within Outwards

From Within Outwards

Involuntary Painting

Paul Conneally

2014

Mow

Mow

Paul Conneally

Loughborough

2014

Escape from the coils of the great serpent of illusion

'Escape from the coils of the great serpent of illusion'

Involuntary Painting

Paul Conneally

2014

Locked

Locked

Involuntary Painting

Paul Conneally 2014

#ShareaCoke

#ShareaCoke

Paul Conneally

Loughborough
2014

from the Loughbohemia series 2014

Sheltered - RIP ROBBO

Sheltered

We pass the old tram shelter

every time we go to the match

Just like us this tram shelter

has never seen a tram in Leicester

Donated to the city in 1934

by hosiery magnate Robert Rowley

It never served its purpose

the tramline never built

Over the years it's been a place

for couples to canoodle

Teenagers to huddle

spray paint messages

Windows smashed it offers

no respite from the wind

Plans have been submitted

to turn it into a coffee bar

Council officers think it's maybe

a good way to make money

More than a disused building

this is a landmark

Leave it be

Rite Of Passage

his rite of passage

a freezer full

of mother's fruit pies

Verse 3 from the Acorn Bank leg of our Full Bloom Renga.

The a Full Bloom Renga followed the blossom moving through England's orchards from The Mother Orchard at Cothele House in Cornwall to Acorn Bank in Cumbria over a period of three to four weeks.

Full Bloom renga was conceived by artist Anne-Marie Culhane with Paul Conneally, Alec Finlay and Jo Salter for The National Trust, 2010.

The Quick Way - Anne-Marie Culhane and Paul Conneally 2007

The Quick Way

A twelve verse Junicho renga in the season of Summer, 16 June 2007 
Barracks Lane Community Garden, Oxford - from the renga archive.

A black bucket
filled with redcurrants
making jelly the quick way

there are many reasons
to celebrate

the magistrate offers
a road safety course
instead of a fine

rail track closed
due to snow

my phone is full
of your messages
which one shall I erase?

on the horns of a dilemma
finding it difficult to rest

bent double
a pair of students seek mushrooms
lit by sunset

we bring my geraniums indoors
together

in the east end
a line of bulldozers
moves through an allotment

this is my home
I lie flat beneath a vast sky

by the light of the moon
a frog sings
in a puddle

rain drenches
buds and blossoms

Anne-Marie Culhane (master poet)
Paul Conneally (host poet)
Catherine Naysmith
Oonagh Desire
Jo Salter
Dave Jones
Jenny Stanton
Anita Joice
Joseph Conneally
Colin May
Becky Didlick
Gaby Hock

Stride

'Stride'

Paul Conneally

Leicester 2014

A fan on the way to Leicester City versus Arsenal in the Premier League August 2014

Moving Away From The Pulse Beat

'Moving Away From The Pulse Beat'

Paul Conneally

Loughborough

August 2014

Afternoon Lull

afternoon lull

the taxi driver finishes

his summer book

Paul Conneally

Loughborough

August 2014

Homeward

homeward

the autumn wind

in one ear

Paul Conneally

Loughborough

August 2014

Works Access Only

Works Access Only

Paul Conneally

Loughborough

August 2014

Two's Company

'Two's Company'

Paul Conneally

Loughborough 

2014

Mother Orchard - Wordsearch Landscape - Cothele House

In addition to wordsearch portraits of people in particular spaces, places and time my splacist practice also includes a number of wordsearch landscapes.

These started off as colour coded works similar to the wordsearch portraits but soon came to include works such as the wordsearch landscape of the Mother Orchard, at Cothele House in Cornwall. Essentially it's a standard wordsearch, here made up of the names of all the different apple tree varieties in the Mother Orchard. The work is then printed up in large format, A0 or A1, and placed in a public area, near or in the space itself, with coloured pens hanging around it for visitors to use and circle words they find, so completing the landscape. Some people choose to add their own texts or doodles too. These are all welcome. 

The wordsearch landscape can be taken down and replaced as they get 'finished'. For instance we might choose to replace it every day (complete or not) or some other time unit might be used, each day the same printed wordsearch landscape but completed in different colours, by different people, each one now a finished interacted wordsearch landscape.

Smaller versions can be provided for people to take home and complete by visitors.
Mother Orchard was part of the work I did as part of the Full Bloom Renga for the National Trust with artists Anne-Marie Culhane, Jo Salter and Alec Finlay.

Here's 'OLYMPIC' which is a wordsearch landscape of the London Olympic Development Site made up of words written by participants in the Renewability Haiku Hike that I led through and across the Olympic Development Site as the first digging started. It was installed on the floor of the Mile End Arts Pavillion.


Paul Conneally
August 2014

Kill

Kill

Paul Conneally

Nice 2014

Overboard

The ferry from Calais to Dover is a functional vessel. 

Don't expect frills or luxury save the slightly cut price booze and perfume in the onboard gift shop.

Most of the travellers midday on a summer weekend are tired and frazzled after a long drive through France on their way back from their annual holiday.

The bar is full and usually only one till will be working.

The toilets smell faintly of vomit.

mid-channel

a little girl's Barbie

goes overboard

Paul Conneally

Maurice Takes A Bow

Maurice Maguire - artist - curator - cultural geographer

Photo: Paul Conneally

One Eye Open

summer's end

the homeless man's dog sleeps

one eye open

Paul Conneally

Reims 2014

Shrouded in Steam

a street seller

shrouded in steam

takoyaki

Paul Conneally

Painting: Two Octopi by John Singer Sargent

This Summer Grass

in the moment

between palette and canvas

this summer grass

Paul Conneally

Photo: John Singer Sargent working en plein air

A Permanent Wave

The Coiffure, ca. 1770, German, Ludwigsburg Porcelain Factory

just a few highlights

and a permanent wave

for the weekend

Paul Conneally

Tunnel Talk with Maurice Maguire

'Maurice' - New Century Works, Maguire and Conneally (2012 - 2015)

In 2011 as Transform Snibston took shape I spoke with artist and cultural geographer, Maurice Maguire about the tunnels spreading out and to Snibston Colliery, now the site of Snibston Discovery Museum.

Tunnel Talk was the resulting podcast: Tunnel Talk

http://everymothersson.podomatic.com/enclosure/2008-05-15T12_22_15-07_00.mp3

Take a listen and then take a trip to Snibston.

Paul Conneally

August 2014

And She Walks

'And She Walks' Paul Conneally 2014

A devotional work appropriated for Notre Damme Cathedral, Reims, France.

'And She Walks' is part of the ongoing series of appropriated involuntary art works 'I Con'.