SLOW SUMMER

Thought I would share some photos of the weekend just passed with you. I had the best time, like ever. It was amazing, and we all had so much fun, and if you're in London, I would highly recommend heading down to Chisenhale Gallery to see the boat!

VIDEOS

Movie Time! This is movie clips - yes, off my phone.. - from my weekend with some lovely music, which we heard in Milton Keynes at the Lone Twin Boat Project - an entire boat made out of donated wood, every piece with a story behind it, which is being sailed around the south coast of England.

WEEKEND

I have had, just the lovliest weekend! IYP took a trip to Milton Keynes and we got the chance to try some ceramics, play with weird bell things out in fields and sit around and draw and eat a rather large amount of food. Also stayed in a hotel, and all stayed up watching 'Run Fatboy, Run' in one room and then watched the olympics all morning. This kind of thing just insanely relaxes me, I've come home feeling all energetic and productive, such a good way to spend summer really!

BELLS

These are some sound recordings, just played over each other that we made yesterday on a trip to Milton Keynes with IYP. I basically left my phone on the floor whilst we walked around with them, and this is what we ended up with, it sounds a bit eerie, not sure that I like it that much, but I'll definitely be making a few more with the rest of the (20 minutes of!) recordings some time soon.

~ENTER THOUGHTS HERE~

So, I'm currently in the lovely land of Italia. Had a bit of money to spend, and I was looking for some sort of organiser for next year, so I headed to a bookshop after failing to find anything anywhere else. As soon as we got in there, I was hit with shelves and shelves of moleskine books, and had a bit of a crazy moment. Basically what I ended up with, was my lovely new organiser, but also this, an 'art journal'. It's got sections for exhibitions, events, workshops, your own artwork, blogs, anything you can think of really, as well as space for drawings and photo clippings (around about now I wish polaroids were still around and usable!). I have to say I'm ever so slightly in love with it.

GIRLS WHO READ

Holiday reading right here, the Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and Everything is Illuminated. I went into the shop with quite a long list, including the incredible lightness of being, man walks into a room, the valley of the dolls, but couldn't find any of them, so this is what I ended up with. The Angela Carter book, I have been wanting for about half a year now, seems like the perfect mix of weird and fairytale gone wrong, the other one, I heard about after having read a few Nicole Krauss books - some of the most interesting peices of literature, ever. I'll copy and paste the blurbs(?!) below, but I'm hoping these will be two good, interesting reads.

Angela Carter's "The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman" was published in 1972, and is a magical, satirical adventure. Desiderio is stricken with love for Albertina, a woman he sees only in his dreams. He must also battle against Doctor Hoffman and his mysterious machines, as they bend time and space to turn Desiderio's city into a nightmare of lust, insanity and crime. But the evil Doctor is also Albertina's father...

 A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into bizarre new forms; a 'blind' old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr, Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive - a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war. What they find turns all their worlds upside down.

FOLKTAXONOMY

So, talking about Radio the other night and someone mentioned folksonomy. Something which I've never heard of. I don't know if it was the 'folk' part of it or what but i wrote it down and told myself I'd have a look while. And well, these are my findings. It's a term created by Thomas Vander Wal, a mixture of 'folk' and 'taxonomy' and is a term used to describe tagging/grouping of objects and people, primarily used on Social Networking sites. Taxonomy is a term that kinda creeps me out because I then automatically think of Taxidermy which MAJORLY creeps me out, but really it's just the way that things are classified. Like biological terms, are groups within taxonomy. Interesting stuff, really.

SELF

These are my favourite photo's that I took the other day to draw from. Hate taking serious pictures of myself, so these work perfectly.

GALAXY

I really enjoy doing these drawings, because I can be stupid with my facial expressions and do a pretty accurate self portrait without being all, 'my nose is too big!' or 'I hate my mouth!' This ended up nicely, so I put it into a frame just lying about, I'll post better photos in a while but here are some sneak previews!

NEBULAE

Started thinking about the nebulas I used to paint again, then looked at Elfyn Eewis's work and thought, hey! Inspired again, want to do some portraits! So I ended up with this, its kind of like a mixture of paint and then splatters (just to be technical!), which I'm then going to paint on top of it with acryclic or ink or permenant marker or whatever it takes! Finally feel like creating something bigg-ish after such a long time just feeling squashed because of exams and all that.