Matisse: Cut Outs - Tate Modern

This was open all night last night because it is the last weekend/popularity so I went at 6am. It was glorious. Space to look at leisure and just wonderful.

The colours and the energy and the joy in the cut outs made me so happy.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Natural History Museum

I always enjoy this annual exhibition. Although every year it seems to get more crowded! So many beautiful photos though. Elephants greeting each other in the distance in black & white simplicity surrounded by sparse trees. A sunlit field of flowers. A view of trees from under water, framed by bubbles.

Here are two of my favourites.

Simplicity by Valter Binotto - blurred dew around a delicate violet.

Twin Hope by Diana Rebman - the MOST adorable baby twin gorillas in their mothers arms. No one I've excitedly shown my baby gorilla postcard to seems to think they're as cute as I do but I can't stop melting when I look at them!

Wildlife photographer mainly celebrates nature and its beauty but also at the end there are photographs showing how it is being destroyed. There seemed to be less of this, this year but there are some traumatising photos of elephants killed for ivory. It was really upsetting. Although the elephants had no heads, the guys who worked in the wildlife park could still tell which elephants they were as they had cared for them closely for so long.

I think the destruction hits harder after having looked at so many intimate photographs of life and beauty. I hope this exhibition can help us to think of the environment and creatures that live here. It's so hard to be good, everything seems to be bad. I'm slowly making tiny steps. I usually only eat free range meat. (I'm not ready to be a vegetarian but at the very least I think farm animals should be well treated and respected) I'm starting to avoid palm oil (I'm unclear on the details but I believe deforestation to get palm oil is destroying habitats). Sometimes it feels like these small things don't matter and can never make a difference and I get embarrassed if I have to mention it because people think I'm being ridiculous. But little by little attitudes do change and little by little things can change.

On till 23 March 2014.


Links:

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Diana Rebman

Valter Binotto

Compassion in World Farming

Say no to palm oil

World Wildlife Fund

Kindertransport

I've seen this play before perhaps 7 or 8 years ago. And that production was ok but this one had me weeping throughout.

I forget that the Kindertransport is not a commonly known bit of history. I know about it because it is my history. The Kindertransport evacuated thousands of German and Austrian Jewish children just before the second world war. This took them from their families but saved their lives. My Granny and her sister were two of those children and my Granny has published 3 diaries chronicling her experiences as a refugee, her new life in England and her crazy love life as she grows up. I feel so lucky to have such a detailed window into her past. Plus she is awesome.

The play is more about mother/daughter relationships than the holocaust and I think this is shown wonderfully as well as showing how the holocaust tore families apart and the harm done to those who survived. It breaks my heart that war is still tearing families apart today. 

In the play, past/present/memories/fears all overlap. You see layers of life and how it interconnects emotions and relationships. I believed these characters had real affection and history and that's probably why my eyes wouldn't stop leaking. 

One story is of Eva, a German Jewish child evacuated to Manchester and taken in by Lil who cares for her as her own. Eva learns English and prepares for her parents to arrive. Eva's parents intended to join her in England as soon as they could but 'war breaks promises' and she finally has to accept she will not see them again and starts a new life.

Second story is of adult Eva who has changed her name to Evelyn and denies her past. Her daughter is preparing to leave home when she discovers a box containing proof of Evelyn's past as Eva. She feels betrayed at not knowing her real history or real family and that she has been so closed off. Evelyn doesn't want to remember who she was and all the pain of her childhood. She want to be an English woman.

Third story is Evelyn's memories and internal torment. Her mother survived the war and came for her but Evelyn had grown up with a different mother and didn't want to go with her. She feels guilty for losing who she was. She turned away from Judaism, her real name, her childhood, her real family. 

These stories are interwoven beautifully and interspersed with terrifying visions of the ratcatcher from Eva's childhood storybook.

I saw this production at Derby Theatre but it was only there a few days and ends today. It will be touring though and I hope if anyone reading this is interested, they manage to catch a performance.

Links:

Kindertransport - A Hall & Childs Production

My Darling Diary by Ingrid Jacoby

Kindertransport - wiki

Cheek to Cheek

My friend Frances who dances has done this lovely lovely dance film :) I love the use of shadow and reflection and the blend of happiness with melancholy. It's about loneliness and memories but it feels uplifting to me :) Good times.

Amy Kligman

Amy Kligman does these beautiful paintings. I love the simplicity and child like dreaminess :) And they kind of remind me of my Gran's drawings.

Out There - 1907...After the Party

Not certain what this was about - white rooms filled with confetti - but so much joy! Maybe about joy :) Much confetti was thrown in the air and sprinkled over us!

Umbrella + Blossoms = Happy Walking

Pretty :) I like peeping out from beneath my new umbrella that doesn't smell because I haven't left it wet in a plastic bag for long periods of time :) I like the many many blossom trees around here :) Taking the time to stop and photograph and smile cheered me right up.

Kurt Jackson <3

Kurt Jackson is my definite favourite artist. I love the energy and passion in his work. I think it's utterly beautiful. His paintings remind me of my childhood. And of happy moments when I can stop and breathe and appreciate. He paints the same scene repeatedly in different lights, moments. These paintings are memories. And they capture how beautiful England is :) I love England so much...I think sometimes people don't realise how lovely this country is. And it hurts to think what climate change might cause us to lose.

I love that he lives in Cornwall with a big vegetable garden near the sea :D and he paints the garden and the vegetables and his wife tending the garden. I know gardening is hard work but it sounds so dreamily idyllic. I imagine him spending his days painting the land he knows and loves so well and coaxing delicious fruits and vegetables from the garden and everything being simple and beautiful. Probably nothing of the sort but I like this idea.

The paintings are even more intensely wonderful in real life, I grab any opportunity to see them for real. I hope another one comes soon!

Lina Kusaite

Lina Kusaite who led our drawing workshop does lovely lovely drawings. Creepy and beautiful and illustrative and sort of melancholy. She kind of reminds me of Kiyoshi Nakashima.

Travelling

More Nakashima

Kiyoshi Nakashima

Kiyoshi Nakashima is an artist local to where my mum's aunt lives in Japan (So my memory says). He paints beautiful pictures of Japanese landscapes and young children playing in them. Often the children are sad or crying. I love them because they are melancholy and beautiful.

Julian Trevelyan

I love love Julian Trevelyan's child-like prints. They're so beautiful and innocent! Just so lovely :D

lego ducks swimming on plastic

The other day I left for work in the cold and dark. It smelt so wintry and wet and it reminds me of a christmas evening walk when I was small. I'd been given lego and me and my dad made ducks out of two yellow bricks and made them swim on the plastic film window on the packaging. Then we went for a walk saw real ducks. I love this memory...it springs to mind as soon as winter comes and I smell cold streets. I think a lego duck story would be nice...

Nebula and Phillip Delamore

Phillips Nebula Project

I've been researching light...and the Phillips Nebula Project is very similar to my project. I'm making bed lighting to soothe people to sleep - dimming like dusk. Nebula is interactive though, people can project any computer image or message on to the ceiling, they can scan anything in.

Emotionally durable design - it can change continually and personally.

My design falls down in that respect. However I do intend mine to be a beautiful, well made piece of functional bed-decoration. The dimming light should be a part of the users bed-time routine. In being a beautiful, comforting, daily part of the users life I hope it would not be gotten rid of. Anyhow, I will be thinking of ways my design could be interactive.

Also went to talk by Phillip Delamore - designer/researcher at LCF - about Digital Futures.

Similar to Cradle to Cradle he spoke about how our vision of the future hasn't changed since the 50's - but he sees a soft, organic, furry future.

One of his projects was an enormous repeat print, so big that no two garments had the same patterning - mass individualisation - meeting individual needs on a production level. Other examples were moving prints projected on to garments, photographs were taken and the customer chose from the stills which print they actually wanted.

Computers can simulate how a real product will behave, where it's weak points are etc. Can simulate the individual (bodymetrics/avatars) and these can be used for product development and seeing how clothes look on a person. The longer things are kept digital before being made real the less waste there will be. There is even research being done in to virtual touch! It reminds me of The Matrix.

Second life - virtual life, real business takes place in this virtual world.

If individuals begin designing for themselves everyone is a designer - perhaps the designers role will change - designing ways to design?

A digital future could be emotionally durable as it makes individual needs easy to meet on an industrial scale. It also cuts down on material waste. We wouldn't want to lose the creativity of doing things by hand though. Although much of my work is digital, I'm aware that digital work has a very different quality to hand-crafted.

Thinking back to Cradle to Cradle - does it mean we should eventually lose our history? There's alot of amazing design that is cradle to grave - I keep thinking about this and then realising it's silly - we will probably never acheive a completly cradle to cradle system, and the cradle to grave stuff is stuck here - it's not going to degrade, that's the whole problem. But. . .I can't stop confusing myself thinking about it.

Interactive Design

Phillips - Nebula

Philip Delamore

Cradle to Cradle and Emotionally Durable Design

I put aside the fiction for a couple of weeks and read these inspiring books. Worthwhile.

Cradle to Cradle is so positive! It's easy to understand, conjuring images of houses that are like trees, abundance that goes back to the earth, in a circle - the way that nature works. Everything is stepped out manageably and I find myself feeling all is not lost, people are creative enough change the way things are designed. The writers present several case studies of companies they had worked with - a company that made upholstery fabric - their effluent ended up cleaner than the water going in! And the book itself is not paper, but a sort of plastic that in recycling won't lose any quality.

A quote I like that may inspire future stories (relating to chemicals that are emitted from everyday materials):

"So be careful - you might un-intentionally be eating your appliances."

Emotionally Durable Design seems to aimed at Industrial designers really but the gist of it is that products need to have an emotional connection with the user to lengthen the life of the product. Todays culture is so disposable with many products being designed with built in obsolecense. People throw things away and buy things on a whim, slaves to trends. I think it's important for surface decoration (which is what I do) to take emotional connection into account too.

At the end of each chapter important concepts are listed, followed by suggestions for designers. Very useful. Despite this, while I believe I understood what the book was saying, I'm not certain how I would go about putting it into action. There weren't really any examples, possibly because there aren't yet any products really connect emotionally with the user. Also much of it related to industrial design as I said before. I probably need to look over the book again.

I think Linda Florence is an example of a designer who works on making surface decoration more emotionally durable. She has printed wallpapers/flooring using inks that gradually rub away to reveal a new design underneath. This kind of slow interaction draws out the life of the product.

Linda Florence
Cradle to Cradle
Emotionally Durable Design

Rob Ryan

Met my old friend Zac yesterday for his last day in London and went to see the Rob Ryan exhibition at the Rebecca Hossack gallery. It's to go with his lovely new book which I am buying as soon as possible. The gallery is lovely, bright and airy with a tiny twisty staircase leading upstairs. It was bigger than I had expected the window was decorated too :D

Rob Ryan does beautiful intricate hand cut sillouette drawings, much imagery of nature, people (and lots of ladders) with text, very romantic and lonely. But believing in love. A contemporary fairytale?

Scan of Rob Ryan postcard sold at exhibition

It appeals very much to my love of the decorative and my though I don't like to admit it, romantic nature. In ways it it is similar to my work - it's intricate, illustrative and centres around people and emotions. But Rob Ryan's work has a more crafted, drawn and personal feel. It is as if the artwork is his diary and the feelings portrayed are his feelings. My work is less honest in that way. Although I draw, it is on the computer and has a less drawn feel, and is more simplistic. Also my stories never admit to being about me even if they are. I think this is a valid way of working and I like that some people see my work as humourous while others see more to it.

Page from my current storybook

I'll be keeping an eye on what's going on at the Rebecca Hossack gallery from now on as it's a really nice space and an interesting gallery with a strong focus on aboriginal art. I saw a beautiful book they were selling called The Night life of Trees by Bhajju Shyam, Ram Singh Urveti and Durga Bai. Really decorative yet simple prints of the spirits in the trees after dark. I think I might have to buy this book too as it is gorgeous. And as an excuse my current story involves a tree with a spirit!

Page from The Night Life of Trees

Afterwards Zac and I had lunch at Pure California, I recommend it. It does really good fresh smoothies, you can build your own salad, they only use natural ingredients and best of all they use free range meat. This is important as since I read Planet Chicken by Hattie Ellis I've decided against eating chicken that's not free range. But I won't go into that. (though I will link the book, it's good, however if I were to criticise I'd say the argument was one sided and I'd like to see more of what battery farmers had to say in their defence)

• Rob Ryan
• Rebecca Hossack Gallery
• Night Life of Trees
• Pure California
• Planet Chicken
  

Ever and Again - Experimental recycled Textiles

I just caught this exhibition before it finished yesterday at Chelsea College of Art and Design and I'm glad I did! It is the work of TED designers and some guest designers creating new textile products from old ones, giving things new and increased value.

I particularly like:

Rebecca Earley's heat printed shirts, old shirts freshly printed with gardening inspired prints. floral but modern, intended for wearing in the garden, growing your own food.

Emma Neubergs plastic bag/packaging laminated skirts. They are bright, fun, and make a statement by twisting the slogans. It is almost storytelling.

Kathryn Round and Charlotte Mann's work, printing photographs of old clothes on organic fabric, to keep the memory of well loved clothes. I hate getting rid of things so I have piles of useless things. Clothes that don't fit or that have no armpits or something. So I love this idea that I could still wear something that is really too old or doesn't fit. I don't know that this is recyling so much though. Is printing on organic fabric, a photograph of something old not a bit of a tenuous link? I guess it means the actual item can then go to someone who it does fit. Or also, it means the item has served another purpose even though it's part is soon over.

Gary Page's dress that goes through 3 redesigns to freshen it up and lengthen its life. It starts as a plain organic cotton dress. Then it is indigo dyed and ruffled. Then it is printed by Rob Ryan (Yay!) and finally its restyled and sparkled. The owner sends the dress to get redesigned when ever they feel it is time. This is a lovely way to lengthen the life of a product. In a way interactive. After being with a dress through 4 incarnations I can see a person being emotionally attached to the dress and less likely to throw it away.

http://www.everandagain.info/