empig & stupig are to wedpig <3

I've not posted much lately, partially due to extreme engagement excitement. All I'm really thinking is wedding right now....so my posts will be a bit wedding themed for a bit.

It's going to be in autumn amidst fallen leaves! :D Reception is in a pub with a hog roast, and as you see from my little mood board, primary colours and jamjars galore!

I'm very much looking forward to decorating the pub and making all these bit and pieces. It's going to involve a lot of paper, cutting, folding and ribbon!

I'm also making my own dress but I guess I won't put any pictures up of that in case Stu looks :)

photos yoinked from:

http://allywedding.blogspot.com
http://www.dazland.com/
http://www.ohdeedoh.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kc_reflections/3476416594/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28705294@N08/3137609305/
http://vickytrainor.blogspot.com
http://santaclaritacraftlab.blogspot.com/

Macoto Murayama

http://www.psfk.com/2009/08/macoto-murayamas-flower-illustrations.html

Beautiful computer images of flowers.....I don't understand how it's done in the slightest but it's amazing. There's no getting bored with nature is there, there's always something fascinating and wonderful.

Surface Stories Pop up Shop

Camden Council is opening a new pop-up shop at 54 Tavistock Place, WC1H 9RG , and we are holding a launch event to mark the opening of this very exciting initiative which uses vacant high street shops as galleries until they are brought back into commercial use.

The current installation titled ‘surface stories’ by a group of young designers will be showing from 28 September until 15 October. You are invited to attend a private viewing of works on Monday 5 October from 6pm.

The shop will then be open Mon - Sat from 11am - 5pm until 15th October.

The designers exhibiting in the gallery for the duration of the installation are:

Alana Florence
http://www.uniteddesignlondon.com/seiten/alana.html

Alessia Giardino
http://www.alessiagiardino.com/

Clover Robin
http://www.cloverrobin.co.uk/

Gemmie Payton

Emmie Joseph
http://www.emmie-joseph.co.uk

Samantha Warren
http://samanthawarren.co.uk/

We look forward to seeing you there!

( We also have a collective blog at - http://www.surface-stories.blogspot.com/)

ShadowBookBlind @ Nissan: East meets West - London Design Festival

Emmie Joseph is exhibiting with Nissan during London Design Festival and would like to invite you along for another chance to see her decorate & illustrate using shadow as a transient form of print. Also, the work of 20 other designers across many disciplines under the theme of East meets West. Other designers include Alana Florence, Alessia Giardino, and Solenne Morigeaud.

23rd, 24th & 25th September - Doors open 2:00pm with guided studio tours commencing daily at 3:00pm and 5:00pm.

Nissan Design Europe

Rotunda
181 Harrow Rd
London
W2 6NB

From Paddington Station, look for signs to Sheldon Square. then follow the canal.

"Nissan Design Europe will open its doors and organise a series of tours of the facility where one can discover the automotive design process.

But that's not all: NDE will aim at celebrating the diversity of London's creative industries and become a creative hub hosting arts and design displays by various artists under the theme of 'East meets West: the crossroads of Creativity'."

Yinka Shonibare - Odette Odile

I went to the Deloitte Ignite event at ROH last weekend, although I really went to see this, and left for Pestival after I saw it and didn't really take in anything else. Nothing else caught my attention. I liked this alot though. It's a play on Odette/Odile in Swan Lake - 2 ballerinas, one black one white, wearing african textile tutus dance and mirror each other on each side of a fancy mirror frame. It's very very beautiful. As I watched it I found myself forgetting these were 2 seperate people...then remembering, and wanting one to cross the invisible line of the "mirror". Like when Dorothy helps Ozma out of the mirror in Return to Oz! Maybe.

Yinka Shonibare does a lot of installation type art using African textiles in European settings, like the ballet, or ballgowns. He makes his point in a very visually attractive way. I like that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/africabeyond/africanarts/news/18050.shtml

Radical Nature @ Barbican

I am so sorry. Goodbye - Heather and Ivan Morison 2008

This is good. I love this bird-like house, and it is outside the Barbican by the lake for the Radical Nature exhibition. you can sit inside and feel relaxed while looking out of triangular windows!

Green Room by A12 is like a little tardis but when you step inside, it's mirrored and you feel as though you are in a large kaleidascopic garden. It's quite magical. I'd like to sit in a corner of it and read books.

There are lots of interesting concepts and ideas, though I couldn't understand some of it. I don't think it's entirely my fault either, I think some of it plain doesn't explain or make sense. But it's nontheless fascinating and visually exciting.

My highlights were the Blur Building and Agnes Denes, more details below.

It's well worth going to this, it gives you alot to think about. I wish there had been more real nature inside that you could touch somehow. I wish the floors could have been grass....but I guess that would be a waste of grass. And effort as it would quickly have been trampled and dying.

http://www.morison.info/iamsosorry.goodb.html

http://www.barbican.org.uk/radical_nature

Agnes Denes

Agnes Denes is an environmental artist who planted a wheatfield in the middle of new york, and planted a forest in a beautiful mathematical pattern. Planting things and nurturing life in the name of art seems very lovely to me. The forest is someting that will continue to grown in beauty over time and eat some carbon dioxide. Seeing a wheatfield in the city is an amazing contrast and thought provoking. Her ideas are simple, interesting and meaningful.

http://greenmuseum.org/content/artist_content/ct_id-198__artist_id-63.html

Blur Building

Why had I never seen this before? It's beautiful and amazing, a building shrouded in mist! So poetic and suggestive of a fairytale or futuristic narrative.

(Dillier Scofodio & Renfro 2002)

http://www.nextnature.net/?p=39

Oh! Oh! Oh!

Raspberries cost way too much. Especially when you grew up picking them from the garden. But I had to bake these because they looked like heaven. A layer of brownie, a layer of cheesecake and a layer of raspberry cream. They taste SO GOOD. And they're pretty :) They almost look like they do in the book!

Thank you Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook for giving me this pleasure.

I heart cake.

Exquisite Bodies @ Wellcome Collection

Wellcome Collection always put on fascinating exhibitions and this is no exception. It goes from fairground grotesque to anatomical learning. The detail in the models are amazing...you could think they were real. It's amazing to think of them being made. It's all so complicated that it seems unfathomable to think how scientists and doctors worked out what everything did!

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/Exquisite-Bodies/index.htm

Fish.

I just watched this over at treehugger.com... I wish I had the moral strength to be vegetarian. But I enjoy my food so much. I try to convince myself it is ok to eat meat as I eat it rarely and I only eat free range chicken. But while I'm aware the fish is running out I've not thought about it.

Arr it's so difficult and expensive to try and live right. To be completely good is impossible. But it's important to have the right attitude at least and to make the best choices you can.

I hope this fish 4 u stuff is available in my local sainsburys.

tales from outer suburbia - shaun tan

I think this is more a book for adults than children, but we sell it from the children's section at work. It's a beautiful illustrated book with odd disjointed little stories mixing imagination with suburban life.

http://www.shauntan.net/

New home - decorated by shadow and books!

I made these shadow lamps about 3 years ago, and they have never given so good an effect as they do in out new little flat. Mr Emmie and I have just moved, cramming ourselves into a little studio...so far it seems fine, nice and cosy :) and I'm thrilled with the beautiful shadows. I almost don't wnt to hang my Babar picture...

poor.old.tired.horse @ ICA

visual poetry. playing with text. prints. there were prints created by typing with different colours from a typewriter. some looked like cross stitch samplers which i thought was quite charming. liliane lijn had rotating cones of poetry! the picture above is one of janice kerbell's circus poster style graphic/poetry pieces.

Telling Tales @ V&A

Lasting Void - Julia Lohmann

Can you hear what I hear - Kelly McCallum

Perished Bench - Studio Job

Moulded Mole Slippers - Niels Van Eijk

I loved this one! How storytelling influences design...it's like they set it up for my personal enjoyment! And I'll probably go multiple times as it is free. It had 3 gorgeous sections, Forest, Castle, Heaven/Hell all beautifully set up and you can see some of my favourite pieces above. Which I suddenly realise are all dead animal related. Intriguing.

It's the second time I've posted about Julia Lohmann's work. I really like it. She uses her work to make a point, and can use or concern something found to be repulsive and yet her work is so elegant and beautiful.

Once upon a time...Artists and Storytelling @ Somerset House

Interesting little exhibition with two parts. First is old childhood story illustrations, second is artists storytelling, illustrations and films. I liked Oskar Kokoschka's artist illustrations best. He makes a story from where he was in his life, like a storybook diary. I guess this is what I do so is probably why I'm drawn to it. But I also like the drawing and colours. Picture above is from The Dreaming Youths by Oskar Kokoschka.

All I found a shame is that it would have been lovely to have some books to actually look through. A little picturebook corner. But maybe that's just me.

15 books

Note 15 books that have made their mark on you and will always stick with you, for whatever reason.

These are mostly childhood books...Anyone read any of these and love them like I do? What are your important books?

London Wetland Centre - Widgeons!

I ent to London Wetland Cetre for the first time yesterday and it is lovely lovely! At first I was a little disappointed, because it seemed like a bird zoo catered to children, but then it got quiet and there are wild areas, gorgeous and marshy with exciting ducks and lilies and reeds and tumbling plants :D -happy sigh- and the weather was so good (and i made an amazing picnic).

bird glee:

- fat moorhens running around with giant feet
- baby moorhens with extremely giant feet
- brown ducklings that kept bobbing under the water and reappearing elsewhere
- golden sparkling something mist under the water (not bird related but nonetheless good)
- 2 wigeon on opposite sides of a fence wondering how to reach each other
- blue beaks
-general amount of ducks

the pictures aren't mine (links below) but the top one is white headed duck (should be called blue beak duck) and bottom one is widgeon ( i heart the name widgeon).

http://www.beakspeak.com

http://www.natureconservationimaging.com

http://www.wwt.org.uk

MA Design for Textile Futures Final Show

I realise I've left posting this extremely late as the show is almost over...but if you want to see my final work and the work of 20 other textile futures designers, head to Central Saint Martins Southampton Row (nearest tube Holborn) today or tommorow between 12-8pm! Once inside follow signs heading to MA Design for Textile Futures.

Click here to see what you can expect :)

Hope you can make it!

Dead Moth Dirty Plate

I left my washing up to do in the morning...and when I came to do it there was a dead moth drowned in this greasy plate :( sad. disgusting. strangely beautiful.

Grassy Cat Car

I spotted this while walking up Caledonian Road! I'd like to imagine it was real grass but it was probably pretend. Mmm ugly :) My favourite bit is wing mirrors as ears.

Wall.E

Er..and I finally saw this...and got totally involved in the robot love story between Wall-E and Eve. I almost shed tears. Mild shame. But I think the film is lovely, I want to own it, the depiction of a destroyed, abandoned, empty earth was well done. Depressingly, I see this future. But without the hopeful ending. Boo.

Let's end this post happily though.. yay for robots that turn into cubes when they are scared! :D

2001 A Space Odyssey

Watched this with my dad...barely paying attention at first...but by the end I really liked it...despite not really understanding. I like stories with human versus robot where the robot is going wrong because of the way it thinks. Like I, Robot (book not film).

Madness & Modernity & Wellcome Collection

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/Madness-and-Modernity/index.htm

The Wellcome Collection never fails to fascinate me. I took my sister for her first visit weekend before last! Madness & Modernity...not something I'd had any interest in before. The exhibition is both disturbing and intriguing. I certainly learnt alot. The part I like best was the very las part though, with art by patients. The painting above is by Joseph Karl Radler. Click for more info.

Kuniyoshi @ RA

Caught this on Saturday :) Good. Times. Delicious detailed woodblock prints of epic battles. Many with oversized animals :D

Part of the joy was definitely the descriptions that went with the prints, telling the storys. Example: "He disappeared beneath the sea and reappeared moments later with a crocodile under each arm. An unprecedented feat."

The picture at the top shows a bird that thinks it has landed on a nice branch but in fact, unfortunately, it has landed on giant lobster whisker!

Yay!

Sinister storytelling + beautiful prints = <3

Newgrange Passage Tomb

Today, I learned there are many many more stone circles than just Stonehenge and Avebury. Including this one, in Ireland. I badly want to see it and go inside! Going inside something cave-like is much more exciting than just a circle....and there are carvings! I never thought about stuff like this existing before. Fascinating.