#CAPOTW

An exercise in CSS/web design, writing and — most importantly — home to the Collaborative Art Project Of The Week

• • Sunday Pics

  Here is the full size version of my picture for this week's #sundaypics
  
  BIG version Sundaypics
  
  

• • Calm The **** Down

  While making a 'Keep Calm and Carry On' style poster for work, I made this.
  
  Initially only a photo on Twitter, it has proved quite popular amongst my friends.
  Please - download it, print it out, and enjoy it.
  
  PDF version Calm The Fuck Down
  iPhone 2G/3G wallpaper version Calm The Fuck Down
  iPhone 4G wallpaper version Calm The Fuck Down
  iPhone 4G lockscreen version Calm The Fuck Down
  
  If you feel like it, I'd love it if you could tweet me with a picture of it 'in use'.
  
  Thanks,
  
  @thom_white
  
  

• • Chicken Pox Wander

  The Boy has chicken pox. He's not poorly in himself (as my Gran used to say), in fact he is happier and better behaved than last week. That said, he has a million red spots... so he can't play out.
  
  He can however go for a walk. I recently heard the observation that boys are like dogs - they need a run out once a day. This is very true, so I took him for a walk round the block. 5 minutes for a grown-up, 45 minutes with a 2-year-old in tow.
  
  Sometimes being a parent is a real pain in the arse, but simple quality time like this makes it all worth while... it makes me wish I spent more time with my boys.
  
  Anyway, I managed to convince little Rasputin to bring his camera with him... he didn't take many pictures, but what he did take were way better than mine.
  
  

• • A Vertical Wander

  It doesn't happen very often, but everything came together nicely today. A Friday, good weather, manageable workload, well-behaved children and a compatible schedule... so my lovely wife met me at work, at lunchtime. After showing the boys off for slightly too long, we took them into town to get some lunch.
  
  We weren't especially hungry, and as as we walked into town, the looming shape of the ferris wheel above Market Square gave us a much better idea of what to do. After the briefest of queues (it is term time) we were on our way, upwards. The Boy loved it, he was totally without fear (in the tiny wind-rocked gondola), and Helen gripped the baby as if he was the only thing that would save her from a terrible, plunging, death.
  
  A city might seem chaotic at ground level, but it is only from the air that we can truly appreciate how organic and thrown-together it truly is. New buildings wedged between older ones, walls and windows now only visible from private courtyards, and endless alleys and snickets. The exotic gridded cities of the new world seem almost impossible here.

• • Another wander

  I did another #wander with my camera.
  
  I'm not particularly happy with these pics - not just because the light wasn't great - but because I felt far too self-conscious taking, and tweeting them. My first wander had been a spontaneous walk, born out of a need to clear my head. It just happened to to take me past all my favourite places in Nottingham.
  
  Today was different. I'd sort of promised myself and others that I would repeat the relative success of the first one. Big problem: I'd already visited all my favourite, photogenic places.
  
  Last week I started a wander, but cancelled it, citing poor weather and unreliable Twitter. They were both true. but my heart wasn't really in it - I didn't feel confident jumping up and down on Twitter, shouting "look at me, look at the pictures what I took!" when I didn't really have anything good to photograph. I was cross with myself all week.
  
  So I made myself go out today. I took a similar route to last time, but focused differently - and there were lots of interesting things to see. I could do that route again tomorrow and still find 10 great things to show you. In fact, I really need to stop being so fucking precious about it really.
  
  Finally, the #wander hashtag isn't just for me. Go out, go for a walk and take pictures - and tweet them. There is so much to see and share.
  
  

• • My Wander. Part 1

  Leaving the studio one Friday lunchtime I decided to go for a walk and clear the artworking cobwebs from my head.
  
  "I'm going for a wander" I tweeted (I tweet too much).
  
  "Where are you wandering?" replied a surprising number of my followers.
  
  So I wandered. I walked until my feet found old routes I had taken years ago, the routes I had taken home when I was a student. I wandered to places I used to find interesting, but had forgotten about.
  
  I went to look at, photograph, and tweet about some of the places that made Nottingham interesting for me when I arrived 16 years ago.
  
  My phone pinged with Twitter notifications throughout, lazy radio DJs in Spain, bored Canadian donut operatives and an increasingly worried guy who lived 10 metres from one of my photographs - they, and quite a few others, all took interest and asked me about the places I was re-visiting.
  
  My wander pointed out two very obvious things to me. Firstly, it is very easy to forget what makes a place special. Secondly, it is a lot of fun to re-discover local gems and share them with friends. - however ephemeral they are.
  
  

• • Twitter Group Photo

    Everyone, together at last through the magic of the interweb, and photoshop - or something like that.

  THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS - PLEASE, SOMEONE NUDGE ME IN THE RIBS ABOUT THIS
  
  If you would like your photo to appear in the #groupphoto please can you read the following before submitting your likeness.
  
  1. Send me a full-length picture, taken against a plain white background (a wall, a door etc). I'm doing this for fun, so I don't want to spend any more time cutting your picture out than is strictly necessary.
  
  2. No nudity - unless it is tasteful.
  
  3. No under 16s - sorry kids, but I don't want anyone's parents shouting at me.
  
  4. If you want your real name/twitter id added to the picture, include them in your email, if not, don't.
  
  5. Let me know how tall you are - so I know who needs to be tall and who doesn't.
  
  

• • Waiting at Bus Stop

  

• • Goodbye Mr Thom

    No-one likes change.
    Sometimes, it is unavoidable.

  

• • Nanny Raptor

    Endless aching aeons of half-hearted goodbyes. So much affection, such a short sell-by date. We'll never meet again - no-one ever does. Ever,
    
    It is regrettable though, the inevitability of this throwaway culture - that it should extend to friends as well as Kleenex. A little effort might, a quick hello, may keep the door open.
    
    Maybe. I hope so.

  

• • Pen Ultimate

    Recriminations fly - as does the media. A mess was made, it meant nothing but, we all knew that it did. Such vigour, focuses our creative ichor - shows where we were going wrong - pissing it away - complacency. Hang your heads in shame - you were worth more than this. Too late. Too late.

  

• • Morning & afternoon

    Split. The dichotomy exposed - an upheaval in progress, unspoken, but there for all too see. They were just too pre-conditioned to see/say it. The two halves (ultimately to join, but never admitting) keep their side, say more than anyone would care to venture.

  

• • Claw D’Amour

    They reach out, trying something new - it isn't obvious - unless you're looking. It isn't really in our make-up - no-one taught us how to do it, but it seemed a waste of us not to. We were better than this, yet we lacked the confidence to tell others - or to even tell ourselves. This. Is. Art.

  

• • Ram in Japan

    A scattering, a hopeless collection - a lays collation of half-witted half-assed nonsense,
    
    If my great grandfather could see what i do for a living - he would punch me in the face.
    
    I can't blame the writing of these on someone else forever - I they are, all but one, just me,
    
    And I'm making this up as i go along.

  

• • Anything to Anyone

    She knew she'd forgotten something, but couldn't remember what. Exhaustion and ennui had effectively reduced her to a half-wit. Robbed of attention span, she had become almost useless, almost useful, neither. It was there, "on the tip of her tongue" she always insisted - always, but never convinced anyone. Least of all herself.

  

• • Tipping Point

    Jaded. Bored. resigned. This work was as pristine as a 'lily foot' - and as happy. We only wanted to relax, stretch our shoulders and be who we want to be. Meh, we can do that tomorrow.

  

• • Yore Rope

    It reared from the lake, pushy and unexpected - un-named. It doesn't deserve any status, placed together by chaos, painted by chaos. Your whole being is a happy accident - is that really what you want to know.

  

• • Apathy Reversed

    We didn't see it until it was too late. We turned it over, let time pass, did what we will, then revealed. Interpretation: all attempts are pointless - we didn't see it appear, we guessed it, it is a poltergeist of an idea you had - this isn't the work you were thinking of.

  

• • Elephant and Lion

    After careful consideration they split it into two. One half crinkled, one half smooth - it barely made a difference. We were largely disappointed - it wasn't all bad, it just wasn't what we had in mind, it was just a bit of fun.

  

• • Apollo 11

    To reach beyond the heavens they stood on the shoulders of giants.
    
    Back when a cold war weary world showed promise, four hundred thousand pairs of hands worked towards a common goal. Unimaginable technology, now laughable, took the chosen three into history, into myth, into our hearts.

  

• • Flamenco fire

    Surrendering to the cruel intrusion--inconvenient, inevitable, too late, she knelt unwillingly in the closet, arthritic fingers caressing the dusty irony of the broken heel.
    
    An heart, not bruised, unused, once, as the shoe, so durable under the rhythmic passion of the Dance, a heat now only remaining as an inflammation in the knee, still, still-broken, succumbing finally to the ruins of too careless storage.
    
    firescarecrow (Marty Kummetz), 7/21/09

  

• • Donkey Darko

    Under the gaze of verdigrised victoriana, a cellphone starlings pointlessly. The full forgotten eye sockets of yesterdays aldermen and philanthropists, vandalised into blindness, witness the cycle continue. A weapon, blatantly concealed, its potential coruscating, will take everything. Later.

  

• • Ten Pence Short

    Heavy with loss, the scattered elements find no comfortable home - pulled from pillar to post, unformed, uncomfortable. All the old rules are gone. The old assurances, the old understandings, the rocks that we built our whole lives upon. Gone. No anchors any more, we're all built upon the sand, we're all foolish men, we're all children again. We look to the future, not with wide-eyed hope (as before) but, clenched, waiting, hoping to side-step the inevitable. We wait, breathless, helpless, hopeless.

  

• • Almost There

    A dystopian future awaits, the ever promised hi-tech never delivering quite what it promised. It sells us short, cheats on us, takes our money and only half delivers, laughs (or beeps) in our face. We hurtle towards The Singularity, the uncrossable divide - athwart the torrent dividing the techno haves and the luddite have nots. Both sides confident in the outcome, neither side will win - lost without the other. We once laughed at the joke about the dead Telephone Sanitisers - we don't laugh any more.

  

• • The Big Push

    They stand in the mud, as always. Boys from Burnley to Brighton, soon to brighten the soil of Flanders. There's no place like home, familiar street names fail to rebrand mud trenches. Parapet, bulwark, earthwork, bastion. The unstoppable foe temporarily stopped. How little (looking back) we knew. Staggering giants, sorely reduced, stay toe-to-toe, never moving, never giving a barbed-wire inch, yet certain in their ability to be home by Christmas.

  

• • Unintentional Pygmy

    Unprecedented vibrancy. Too mechanical, but with a shape of things to come. We don't agree with your beliefs, we don't even like you, but we tolerate you. We let you in, but we hate you, you sicken us - you relegate our every achievement to nothing. You look us in the eye, yet you steal from us. We would probably kill you if we thought we could get away with it.

  

• • Curry

    His feeling of loss was obvious, and, almost palpable. He felt left out, locked out and let down.
    
    A weekly occasion - a something-and-nothing, a mere bagatelle - was now outside his grasp, and although he had failed to fully appreciate it at the time, truly celebrate it, he missed it sorely now.
    
    The venue was dingy, the company left something to be desired, and it was a generally unremarkable experience. But, week by week, over a decade, still it had fixed itself within his heart. To revisit it was pointless, empty. Apparently, he couldn't cross the same river twice.

  

• • Geoff

    Nulla odio eros, feugiat in lobortis ac, tincidunt sed elit. Sed vitae nisl nibh. Aliquam luctus odio sit amet tellus gravida convallis. Vestibulum adipiscing sem nec enim dapibus a luctus erat vulputate. Nunc eleifend vulputate metus, at blandit tellus facilisis ac. Maecenas pellentesque nisl sit amet ligula commodo egestas. Morbi imperdiet, mauris vel semper tempus, odio tellus volutpat velit, a consectetur nulla leo ut dolor. Sed orci neque, auctor tincidunt facilisis in, laoreet a leo. Proin vitae arcu tortor. Fusce id quam erat, ut dignissim ligula. Duis mi ipsum, sollicitudin ac fermentum in, commodo sed risus. Suspendisse potenti. Nulla urna quam, condimentum nec vestibulum et, porttitor feugiat elit.

  

• • Untitled #1

    Nulla odio eros, feugiat in lobortis ac, tincidunt sed elit. Sed vitae nisl nibh. Aliquam luctus odio sit amet tellus gravida convallis. Vestibulum adipiscing sem nec enim dapibus a luctus erat vulputate. Nunc eleifend vulputate metus, at blandit tellus facilisis ac. Maecenas pellentesque nisl sit amet ligula commodo egestas. Morbi imperdiet, mauris vel semper tempus, odio tellus volutpat velit, a consectetur nulla leo ut dolor. Sed orci neque, auctor tincidunt facilisis in, laoreet a leo. Proin vitae arcu tortor. Fusce id quam erat, ut dignissim ligula. Duis mi ipsum, sollicitudin ac fermentum in, commodo sed risus. Suspendisse potenti. Nulla urna quam, condimentum nec vestibulum et, porttitor feugiat elit.

  

• • Drag And Drop Me

    In the middle of a field, a tree stood, scorched and bent, surrounded by ripe wheat. "It isn't working out" she said. He turned, didn't want to say anything. What she said was true, and anything he did say would hasten the end. The day had showed potential, but now all thoughts turned to closure, the move out and the move on. The relationship was a garment that hadn't fit either of them properly, but had kept them warm, kept the rain off - for a while...

  

• • Yes I Did

    Nulla odio eros, feugiat in lobortis ac, tincidunt sed elit. Sed vitae nisl nibh. Aliquam luctus odio sit amet tellus gravida convallis. Vestibulum adipiscing sem nec enim dapibus a luctus erat vulputate. Nunc eleifend vulputate metus, at blandit tellus facilisis ac. Maecenas pellentesque nisl sit amet ligula commodo egestas. Morbi imperdiet, mauris vel semper tempus, odio tellus volutpat velit, a consectetur nulla leo ut dolor. Sed orci neque, auctor tincidunt facilisis in, laoreet a leo. Proin vitae arcu tortor. Fusce id quam erat, ut dignissim ligula. Duis mi ipsum, sollicitudin ac fermentum in, commodo sed risus. Suspendisse potenti. Nulla urna quam, condimentum nec vestibulum et, porttitor feugiat elit.

  

• • Coffee Not Bin-offee

    Nulla odio eros, feugiat in lobortis ac, tincidunt sed elit. Sed vitae nisl nibh. Aliquam luctus odio sit amet tellus gravida convallis. Vestibulum adipiscing sem nec enim dapibus a luctus erat vulputate. Nunc eleifend vulputate metus, at blandit tellus facilisis ac. Maecenas pellentesque nisl sit amet ligula commodo egestas. Morbi imperdiet, mauris vel semper tempus, odio tellus volutpat velit, a consectetur nulla leo ut dolor. Sed orci neque, auctor tincidunt facilisis in, laoreet a leo. Proin vitae arcu tortor. Fusce id quam erat, ut dignissim ligula. Duis mi ipsum, sollicitudin ac fermentum in, commodo sed risus. Suspendisse potenti. Nulla urna quam, condimentum nec vestibulum et, porttitor feugiat elit.

  

• • Non Coffee-Making Wanker

    It started without intent, organically, naturally, for fun. It was only when we realised what we had created that we scanned it, encoded it, resized it, chained it and applied it. Saved 'forever' for 'everyone' to see. Without a beginning or and end, it floats freely without the heavy weights of creativity about its waist - the only true expression of chaos within its suite. Cherish the naivete, for it doesn't cherish itself.