I can't believe I stopped for so long!

I got so caught up with wedding planning and life that I just stopped blogging. I still can't believe I'm married now...people keep asking how it feels, it feels the same, but with rings and and extra underglow of happiness :D Yay.

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.

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.

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

shadows to blinds...

Now I'm making linen blinds with shadow casters attached behind. Trying to sort out the sustainability of linen...so far I think it's pretty good...apart from the bleaching...but I want it white! Thinking thinking.

Days of Reading - Proust

Favourite quote -

"For me, voluntary memory, which is above all a memory of the intellect and of the eyes, gives us only facets of the past that have no truth; but should a smell or a taste, met with again in quite different circumstances, reawaken the past in us, in spite of ourselves, we sense how different the past was from what we thought we had remembered, our voluntary memory having painted it, like a bad painter, in false colours."

There was also a long memory description of stolen moments reading as a child and it reminded me of myself reading as a child <3

I miss Japan...

Nagasaki

Karatsu

Kawaguchiko

Takedao

Japan was amazing! It was so good to see family even though I could barely communicate - my sister has given me her textbooks now though so we shall see. Most amazing was staying near Kawaguchiko, one of the lakes near Mt Fuji. It was incredibly beautiful surrounded by misty mountains and loads of lavender. I love the way the air smells in Japan, it smells familiar, it's a piece of my childhood. And I love hearing chirping insects. I love the food. And I especially love the bathrooms. I want a japanese bathroom!! You shower on the floor, then relax in the bath. Everyone shares water because you get in clean, then after the water goes to the washing machine to wash the clothes. They're wonderful :)

I don't love mosquitos. Though they love me.

Julia Lohmann - Kelp Construct - Grand Designs/Icon Experiment

The second talk I went to was really good. Julia Lohmann showed her experiments with using seaweed to make lights. She collected lots of seaweed and wrapped it round geometrical forms so it hardened in pretty shapes. She also talked about her other work, leather sofas in the shape of cows. All her work has a sort of message, somethings she is trying to bring attention to. Like the sofas are about eating meat/using leather. She made lovely lamps out of animal stomach and made the good point, why should that be disgusting if leather is not disgusting? The seaweed I think is about ocean sustainability and over fishing. I like that she has something to say but that she does it rather beautifully and usefully. It is very experimental and more like art than design. I tend to feel alot of art is ugly and pretentious, saying something no one can understand. So I like art to be beautiful. I like design because it can be beautiful and useful. Julia's work is a nice mix I think.

http://julialohmann.co.uk/

http://www.iconexperiment.co.uk/

http://www.granddesignslive.com/home

Design Debate - Grand Designs Live and Icon Experiment

Went to Grand Designs/Icon Experiment at Grand Designs :) It were good.

There was a design debate, with Jurgen Bey and Tony Dunne vs Dick Powell and Luke Pearson. I missed the start but I couldn't quite figure out how they were making different points. I think they were all saying the same thing. That designers are not designing for real needs but for brief wants. (Obsolescence) And that designers need to take responisibility. Really think about whether what they want to do is neccesary and what materials etc they use. Future design should be positive and attempt to change things. Sustainability should be forefront. It should be more than lip service. (ie. rather than ooh this is 20% recycled, stop and think is this product neccesary at all)

At least, that's what I understood. And I agree...but I don't know that consumption can decrease, especially just because designers stop designing. I think they said something about educating consumers, but how can that be done, really. Bah, this is too much for me to think on right now. I'm not sure I'm making sense or that I understand myself.

http://www.iconexperiment.co.uk/

http://www.granddesignslive.com/home

I heart Poland

I had such an amazingly good time in Poland! We stayed with family I never knew I had before as our families had lost touch. They are lovely lovely lovely, cooked us lovely food and took us about. These are pictures from their home and from our visit to Pszczyna which had a castle museum place (where you must wear slippers over your shoes) and the cars got clamped dammit!

Karolina (my new distant cousin) and I showed each other music and videos on youtube which is where I picked up Efterklang and the shadow video in my March posts. She got good taste :) We also watched some Lost which made me want to watch it properly...and now me and Stu are spending far too much time watching Lost from the beginning.

Krakow is beautiful though I've not put any pictures in. My favourite favourite is the interior of St Marys church. It is stunningly beautiful! I'm not religious but I love beautiful churches and cathedrals. I never take my own photos inside religious buildings, I feel weird about it. But I will look for other peoples in a bit.

Salt mine is incredible too..salt miners carvings, statues and a whole church made of salt!

I can't remember the last time going abroad made me this happy...I usually find it a bit exhausting.

Have now looked for photos of St Marys but I can't find any that do it justice. Here's a link with other reactions and a description though - http://www.cracow-life.com/poland/krakow-st-marys

Sad Pears

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

I like the crying pear image.

D'aaar

I've never wanted to make work that made a statement. Or to change life for the better in any other way than to self indulgently make things I found beautiful, because beautiful things make me happy and perhaps my beautiful things could make other people happy. Because it feels good to be surrounded by beautiful things. But I do want to be as sustainable as I can. I don't want to contribute to throwaway trends. And I don't want to be bad with chemicals. But I do love delicious shiny plastics. And lovely glossy naughty inks :( It hurts my head thinking about it. I need to find a way to do what I want to do sustainably...

banana design :D

Ignoring the religious stuff, bananas are genius :) Cradle to Cradle.

Drawing Workshop with Lina Kusaite

Relaxed drawing at the workshop :) Nice to have the pressure eased. I am a small triangle hugging round spiky Stuart. I also had a dream I was washing a sheep with no legs. But it was ok, it had legs, they just hadn't popped through yet....

Do I just want to make things look pretty or do I want to do something more?

Mmmm Smart Yogurt

BT Technologies is intriguing. Researched predictions on what the future holds. Smart yoghurt eh? Not sure I understand but I like the image. Kaleidascopic flowers. Cyberwar. Embedded smells. Emotion detection (which sounds very intrusive to me). Video clothing. Things that caught my attention.

I always imagine a Brave New World type future. Been a while since I read it but when I did I know I felt like we were already on our way. Where everything is super efficient and shallow and emotionless. Fear.

Lots of drawing was done last week. All these sort of experimental drawing excerises. Looking at an object then drawing without looking. Visualising. Concentrating on each sense. Dancing and drawing with feet. It was like being allowed to play and not pressured. I feel kind of better for it. Aint drawn in a while.

I <3 Layers

At present, the layers of reflection on background in my travel photos. Mmm.

Seduction: Sex in Art @ The Barbican

Araki

Duchamp

Egon Schiele

Hans Bellmer

Aubrey Beardsley

Shunga

Juliao Sarmento

Then the next day it was Seduction at the Barbican. A multitude of bizzare cocks :D cocks morphing into animals/object, flying around, changing scale. Yes.

I really liked the old stuff, roman pottery depicting sex etc. And Japanese Shunga prints. Indian paintings. There's so much detail. And landscape. And expression. Chinese ones were very landscapey and had poetry :)

Juliao Sarmento did big porn sillhouettes, which naturally interests me. I like sillhouettes. And sex. Pretend I've said something more intelligent. I can't think of anything. Shame.

I have discovered Aubrey Beardsley, an illustrator from 1872-1898. Lots of ink, contrasty black and white, detail and space. His drawings are beautiful and the next exhibition I'm excited to go to is Age of Enchantment at Dulwich Picture Gallery which involves much Beardsley. Mm even his name is excellent.

Hans Bellmer's etchings caught my eye, gorgeous fine twisting delicate lines forming bizarre scenes with surreal genitalia. Apparantly he is best known for dolls but that doesn't really interest me. I like these.

There are Klimt drawings there, I've always liked Klimt. And with him Egon Schiele who I've never paid much attention to before but I actually like his drawings. Intimate and raw. Next to that were etchings by Marcel Duchamp. Which I mention cuz I quite like them despite never liking his urinal rubbish. I find that sort of conceptual thing too pretentious. I like beautiful things. I guess I'm a simple person.

Erotos by Araki is repulsively compulsive. Photography. Really real, detailed and somehow beautiful as well as kind of disgusting. Close ups of hair and tongue and skin and suggestive foods and objects. Why is hair so disgusting? Hair and moisture. Ugh. I guess it's just so personal. It's strange to see it huge on a gallery wall.

Finally Heartbeat by Nan Goldin. A slideshow of photographs of couples, long term in love with families couples interacting and loving set to the sound of bjork. The music was lovely and it set a lovely mood. It was pleasant to sit listening and looking. I never usually bother with the films in galleries.

Sleeping and Dreaming

I found the energy to go out today :) to the Sleeping and Dreaming exhibition at the Wellcome Collection. Good stuff. I found myself knowing things already from my sleep research and felt clever. Yay! :)

I like Nils Klingers photography of movement during sleep, using a very very slow shutter speed. That's the bottom two pictures. See more here.

Also like the drawings of a dream. 'My Dream' by Sergei Pankejeff. A Freud patient who dreamed of wolves in a tree. Freud claimed this was to do with seeing his parents have sex and that he managed to cure 'the wolf man'. Apparantly he didn't cure him at all though. Says wiki.

I was intrigued by a print by Goya from Los Caprichos. Mmm creepy and old fashioned. That's the first image. I might get the book.

Discovered Mandrake roots are actually real...I though they were mythical plants...heh. What a fool :)

And I got pointed towards Kubla Khan by Coleridge. Which was apparantly written from a dream. Mmm description.

One of the information boards said something that interests me, apparantly recent research finds that individual sleeping conditions can bring not only loss of intimacy but can lead to serious sleeping disorders. (People didn't always have their own bed and special sleeping rooms) Aha! We aren't meant to sleep alone! I knew it :) I always found it very difficult to sleep before I was sleeping with Stu, and it's still difficult if he isn't there. Now there's apparantly scientific reasoning.

Ooh and I saw an advert for Fry's Pure Concentrated Cocoa from about 1880. It was a semi transparent print, of sleepy girl with eyes shut next to a tin of cocoa, but hold it to the light and it's a wide awake open eyed girl with a cup of cocoa :D That's kind of like what I've been working on, but cleverer.

On my way out I spotted interesting looking books in the shop. So I'm considering Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales, Sleepfaring by Jim Horne and the exhibition book Sleeping and Dreaming. Saw a lovely kids book - Not a Box by Antoinette Portis :D about a rabbit playing in a box and pretending it's all sorts of things and definitely NOT a box :D

I actually left the house intending to buy a dress but I hated ALL the clothes. Stupid shopping. Yay Sleeping and Dreaming.

when my sister was small she couldn't say peacock so she called them teapots :D