|
I was born in Scotland though I was too young to remember when. Mother once sighed that I was the result of a good night out at the local Bird and Bee – so I was not exactly a ‘love child.’ I left school on cue with an empty satchel but head full of deluded ambition – to play lead in an Italian Hercules movie. I never completed the Charles Atlas course, besides, I couldn’t speak Italian anyway - Bela, bela was as much as I could utter. So I re-entered education graduating four book-ends later and again another four after that. One more degree and I’ll be a pop group. My childhood heroes were down at heel by conventional standards: fairground roustabouts, coal miners, women potato pickers, and pipe- smoking pier-hands. The sword and sandal antics of beefcake icons such as Steve Reeves, Reg Park and Jock Mahoney fed my boyhood fantasies until the drop-dead gorgeous Candice Bergen appeared on the big screen to spoon - feed my adolescent fantasies. Adolescence itself was all chest expanders, bell-bottoms, splashed on vanity and regularly ruining it with the girls – Bergen the exception but then I only ever charmed her on the ballroom floor of my daydreams – and I do mean daydreams. Adulthood brought me into the real world and matched me to the woman who bravely consented to be my wife - she got a beautiful lounge suite out of the deal. With our family we eventually moved south of Hadrian. My switch from Marx (Karl not Groucho) to Mark completed the shift. The shift is steadily continuing its long suffering transformation.
Other interests include current affairs, reading current affairs, listening to current affairs, watching current affairs, talking current affairs and sleeping the damn things.
I’ve had previous one man art exhibitions and y’know, I believed the guy enjoyed them. My work has appeared fully clothed in magazines and also a college text book as a language aid - if you want to sound Glaswegian.
Art is a lifelong habit of mine – “An hour slumped in front of the television screen is a precious hour lost at the easel - except if its a re-run of Dallas.”
|
Bookmarks
Share
Save
[
