Hekate has been honored to work with the artist Coates Walker over the last several years. We asked him to jot down a few thoughts and with his permission, have interspersed some recent work, mainly from his Neuro-Linguistic Programming Series,

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As a child I spent a lot time drawing as all children do, trying to make sense of the world and giving vent to emotions. Some of us continue to use drawing/mark making for that purpose beyond childhood, I'm one of those, so perhaps I haven't reached adulthood yet! After 80 years on planet Earth I'm still trying to make sense of it all and making collages is one of the ways I
can use to express some thoughts I have about that.

Man is affected not by events but by the views he takes of them..png

I must say though, reaching any conclusion is still a long way off.

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The "digital age" has had one of, if not the most significant impacts on global society. The World has become much smaller because of digital communication systems, we are all tuned in to Global News and world events that was not possible just a few decades ago.
This can be viewed as a benefit but it also has some rather worrying aspects too. For instance the World Media industry is in the hands of 8 companies, I think or there about, and the fewer the companies the easier it is for governments to take control of the information that is made available. So in my opinion we are constantly being programmed with carefully selected information and maybe, just maybe, the world isn't quite the way that we are being told it is. The collages I make have this as an underlying influence, I guess it's a mistrust of "reality" or of the "truth". This must be in my bones because I went to a church school and at 11 years old I
refused to go into church any more. When asked by the Vicar I told him that I didn't believe what I was being told about God, that was accepted and was given other tasks to do while the rest of the kids were in church. Hope I've made the right choice!

Every day begins with catching up on the what's happening in the World, mostly through independent news websites and comparing those views with what is coming out of the Main Stream Media. I do this to try and get a balanced view. Then the next task is usually doing
some research, this involves searching the "net" for visual information that can be used for making collages. Gathering usable information takes up about 80% of the time involved in collaging. Most times I start a collage without any fixed idea, just some loose thoughts about
subject matter e.g. Neural-linguistic Programming or A.I. Then it's a question of picking some "found" images and playing around with them, making changes to size and or colour and the juxtapositon of one image against an other. The whole process really becomes, once the message has been decided, one of composition....it has to LOOK right. Almost without exception the collages are 100% digital, I find this process the most liberating way of working....there are no restrictions, it's easy to scrap an image and to start over again, change the colour or size at the flick of a switch, and what is the most bizarre these images prior to printing only exist on a microchip! So perhaps they're not real either, the mystery deepens.

Luck is what happens when you are prepared.png

Advice to young artist? Remember you are the owner of your ideas only you can express your ideas in a meaningful way, don't be brow beaten by others. All ideas have endless possibilities make sure you explore them. Digital advances have created such a wonderful range of
working methods, from image creation both 2D and 3D, ideas in sound and video, all of this gives endless ways of getting your views "out there"take full advantage them.