Mycology by Valerio

quite a few years ago now I purchased a book ' Psilocybe Mushrooms of the World ' by Paul Stamets !! and at the time of purchase, I will admit  my interest in mushrooms was purely limited to the psychotropic properties of particular species ….. but it was only a few short years ago that I was stood next to a guy outside ' Bourbon Street ' in Amsterdam that was complaining that the size of my spliff was jeopardising his mushroom made hat …. ha ha I didn't actually even get to the lecture he was giving while in the city , but I had certainly intended to

remarkable as it is , I have only just recently seen a ' Paul Stamets ' Lecture online … and was absolutely inspired by a living human being ( now that really doesn't happen very often !! )

I have been conducting something of a mycological survey of some of the local green spaces around the boroughs that I frequent ( simply out of a marginal curiosity really ! ) so for just a minute there I was a little excited after stumbling over a load of woodchip this autumn and finding a wonderful fruiting of what, at first I assumed to be lovelly Psilocybe Mushrooms ….

and I would have just taken my first assessment to be true … and probably ended up with a stomach ache lol

its always worth assuming that you know less than you think you do …. this is a good philosophy all round ! just look at Donald Trump for goodness sake !!!

so succumbing to my natural curiosity and adapting my given problem solving ability … I was very pleased to have not just run in with my enthusiasms x

so as my curiosities flourished and the scale of the task at hand began to dawn on me … there was a lot more to the subject than first meets the eye ( isn't that always the case though ) 

and it occurred to me that if the authorities had any inclination to prevent the poisonings of so many keen psychonaughts they would just put out a few informative field markers.... 

so the ' Z by V ' series are Zodiac images by Valerio / the ' D by V ' are dinosaurs by Valerio …. so these little depictions are ' P by V '  as in ' Psilocybes by Valerio ' , and not only do these things hold the obvious rendered likness , but I have inoculated paint and medium with an excess of psilocybe spores ,..... you know to share the love x x x contact for availabilities x x x 

JOB OPPORTUNITY : ROYAL MAIL x

you know the economy is so bad in this country that I was considering taking a little part time work over the Christmas period doing the odd shift with the ' Royal ' Mail … now let make no mistake , was a decision not to be taken lightly … you see I enjoy the idea of working for the ' Royal ' mail about as much as the idea of working for the daily fucking mail ( its weird , no , ? how all of these ' companies ' with a little motif of the crown are all full of halfwits and or child molesters  .. at least at middle to upper management level ??!! 

I know , I know before you ask ! the principle of my personal ' general strike ' does have room for what has become so common these days … outsourcing !! you see every now and again despite meticulous planning to the contrary …. working capitol ends up as stock , and sometimes there is a bit of a time gap between the production of stock and the retailing of that stock  , which can leave the old bank balance a little drought like , sometimes for some weeks ! 

anticipating just such an occurrence in the coming January / February months … I figured what the hell I could do with a few hours to supplement the working capitol over the Christmas period, which in turn should leave me with adequate time and resources to then build up of the following spring and summer season … its a relatively well tested strategy .. even in recessions and basket case Brexit shit ! 

so having a little look online I found that the only people around here for quite some miles !! is government !! or the little private franchises that used to be government ! you can work for the NHS, the Council, the military . the navy . or royal mail … that's pretty much it !! there are a few companies that still operate from this part of the world …. but the only way they survive ( actually naybe the sole reason they were engineered ) is to absorb government contract ! … of course work in costa coffee or starbucks , but the shaky nature of the economy doesn't leave a great deal of faith in the franchise silliness … by the time you have sent an application , the company has already gone into administration ( ha ha ha that's a funny use of language to me ) 

so just to test it out really and be able to discuss my findings ( never been afraid to burn a rotten bridge ) I took a shot for the ' Royal ' mail …. and oh my god !!!!!!! 

the debacle begins with my dedicated filling of all the relevant boxes on their website , an extraordinary amount of pages , largely repetitive regurgitations of reformatted questions from previous pages 

I submit the application, to be treated to a wonderful automated response from some third hand agency .. this goes on or some time !! I think I received around 10 e-mails from these people … conforming my name and age and eligibility to work in the u.k , offering me all manner of red highlighted type regarding the ' standard procedure ' for application 

and my god , I was invited to attend a briefing ( not an interview ) but entry to the waiting list for recycled positions ! and you can imagine how fucking excited I was !!! 

so I read through the relevant junk, print out the copies of email correspondence , my extraordinary c.v as much as the supporting garbage they need to see to be able to assure themselves and the powers that be , that I am not some foreigner here to destroy the royal mail .. ppffft 

I make my way to this ' briefing ' for my allotted time slot ( when I get there I find that there are  50 others that have turned up for the same 15 minute time slot ) this is where I am starting to get demoralized ! and this is for a job that I don't even want !! 

but oh it gets better … the 50 people that were in the 15 minute time slot before my 15 minute time slot are still being ' processed ' 

and so to speed things along there is some chirpy airhead of a manager working along the ' waiting area ' asking every applicant if they have all their relevant documents photocopied for their files 

everyone looks blank … you see the intern or pertemp that put all of those e-mail instructions together obviously made an oversight ! and left out some things from the ' detailed instructions ' 

so this chirpy little manager idiot is darting around trying to convince everyone to hand over all of their private and personal documents to her , and she will run off and get everything copied so when its our turn to sit at the first of many interview ( instruction ) desks we have all the relevant things we need to be processed !! and people are falling over themselves to throw passports and driving licences and social security documentation , utility bills... this is to ' facilitate ' the agencies application process >???

I would like to point out at this stage …. we are all there to apply for temporary Christmas period positions …. for which ALL of the vacancies have been filled !!! so we are applying for a job that does not exist … only to be put on a waiting list , should a shift come up at some stage ! 

now I am sat there … and I am looking at the 100 other applicants ( ranging from toothless crack heads to old guys in suits ) and I am wondering why the hell would royal mail pay an agency to run applications in this nature ? well it occurs to me this agency were employed to process applications ( and like I said there are desks of them maybe 15 - 20 people just processing presumably about 50 - 100 applicants every 15 minutes or so) 

why would you process 15,000 applications for 2500 positions … well if you were an agency , maybe you charge per application processed ! ? if you are royal mail ( even though most of it is sold to private companies  thanks again you fucking tory assholes ) well even though you are mostly a private company , a lot of your spending revenue comes from .Gov i.e the taxpayer .. this is a fucking scandalous rip off!!! 

so this chirpy little moron manager type comes along to me and starts trying to insist about her importance , I don't want to give my personal details to this bitch ! for a job that I don't even want …. which is good because the job doesn't actually exist anyway ! this is a bit of a head fuck even for me ! and I feel sorry for the people that this has become the norm for … I left I lost my temper made some insinuations about Brexiteers and the failed administrations of this country  , quite insistently and went dug out a commission for a dinosaur !! fair enough I have lean times between the sales of paintings and dinosaurs …. but thank fuck I have got that ! because jeezus man its a fucking joke of a depressing shit show out there …. if the majority of  you are willing to drop your knickers for these bastards for £7.35 an hour …. no wonder everyone is getting fucked !! 

Council Tax can fuck off !!!

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Autumn / Winter Competition 2018

once again its got to that time of year when the supermarkets are flooding the shelves with pumpkins and all manner of plastic ghoul themed crap destined for landfill as soon as novemebr hits … and then of course the obsessive compulsive acquire'ers go into overdrive … on whats left of the high stree,t and of course on line!  Tinsel … I a sure boxes and boxes of the stuff are already clogging p shipping routes the world over … its a madness really and a far cry from its original point of intent !

I am sure that you are already aware that in my little home studios , productions are getting streamlined for the ' festive rush ' and indeed my own little workshops are feeling rather like santa's  this year , brimming with Dinosaurs and all manner of Palaeo things that I would have loved as a kid ….

and this year the Christmas / winter competitions should of course incorporate a little bit of a dinosaur giveaway !!

Lifesized handsculpted bass relief wall art 

so , as well a our usual like and share competition ( Like a artbyvaleriopage facebook post and share the shop page while tagging a friend - between October 31st 2018 and December 28th 2018 for your chance to win )  Holiday packages at both 'Artby Valerio's Art B&B in Amsterdam' and of course the' Artby Valerio's Art B&B in Cornwall' up for grabs … this year I will be doing a few little extra sketchbook pages that will be available through charity auction … as well as a dinosaur giveaway a little closer to Christmas …

so get your likes an shares out … tag friends and family tht might be interested in these awesome limited edition/ hand made/ hand signed originality driven giveaways from 'Artby Valerio's - The Arts Hole x '

original handrawn ' sketchbook pages ' framed accompanied by the limited release' got wood' illustrations