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Tuesday 21 February 2012

blessingforce


nice little exhibition at the OFS - particularly taken by the Meg Ryan orgasming / Lion roaring juxtaposition & Sebastian Thomas's dislocated collages - it's funny as his large piece "it's here, there & everywhere" is a direct quote from my art history lecturer's increasingly manic cry when talking about PostModernism, which ST's work clearly references.

blessingforce

MegRyanLion
did a coupla sketches there, one a copy, one original, which I've scanned then vectorised in Illustrator.  Guess the lionlady is a little disturbing, but it sums up something about female sexuality.  Kinda wanted  to make the Seb thomas collage homage more accurate, as he is very anal about geometry, but I'm not him, and too tired anyway :)

Monday 20 February 2012

The Waiting Room Props

Does everyone get this?  I think it's funny - not sure if Wills does :P

Time waits for no one... Is it pumpkin time?  What time is Love?




wolf punching in time card
Wolf Mug

Friday 17 February 2012

Grimm's Fairy Tales Icon Set 1



SO, after long nights and days, my mind is now aching and I can't move my head - but I have something I'm pretty pleased with; 30+ fairy tale icons from my own fair hand, with a couple of sneaky stolen images.  Now I have to decide what to do with them: I like the second sheet with the giant fish more, thin I'll play around with resizing and rearranging them today...

btw, to the right is proof that Wills and Kate are evil!  taken from the Canadian commemorative coin released april 30th last year!

Wednesday 15 February 2012

dara Birnbaum @ South London gallery

Old haunts, on the 36 bus from vauxhall, passing the route to my old squat, the churchyard where I used to sit and chat in the sun with an ex girlfriend - Camberwell Green & Southwark Town Hall.  We were looking for the South London Gallery & an exhibition by seminal (or should that oval?) American video artist Dara Birnbaum, on the grounds that my ladyfriend Martine V might gain something from seeing some early work from someone else involved in performance art.  It was kinda a Valentine's date too.

At first didn't really know if we were in the right place as theVictorian facade gave way to a characterless corridor - further weirdness as we had to follow a sign pointing downstairs to the second floor.

Birnbaum's Attack piece was in a small room on opposing walls; it showed a black & white playfulness, puppy retriever games, with male photographers with immediately obvious 70s mustaches & collars apparently trying to film dara's Butt - it seemed innocent, fun.

We discussed filming each other - M said we should try to shoot each others' asses; I suggested we wear assless chaps, or maybe just each others' faces as we walk around, alternately backwards.

At the end of the corridor we found a silver curtain from behind which came cafe sounds; when we pressed our eyes to it we could vaguely make out people down below sitting & talking through tiny holes in the fabric- it was vaguely voyeuristic

 Put on headphones for Everything's Gonna be Alright and listened to her monotonous voice reading out relationship drams cut with 70s disco dancers; swapped before the end for....

12 Views of Liberty - shots of Statten island ferry with Interviewees giving their age, sex, location - dreary!

the last room upstairs had 6 monitors showing rather stereotypical b&w performance art pieces with her wrestling folding chairs, rocking on her knees like a nutter and standing in front of a projector with rolling eyes.

Finally, downstairs, a large room, black, 4 projections, 3 of YouTube clips of women playing Arabesque by Robert Schumann, the last showing still from the Song of Love featuring Kat Hepburn (allegedly a rampageous lesbian); Then Clara Schumann's composition for him with quotes from her diaries about how she would die if not allowed to express herself artistically.

A little girl got up and danced in front of the projections, but was grabbed by her mother and told off, the mother tried to take her outside but she lay on the floor and refused to leave - I wanted to get up and dance in front of the screens too, in solidarity, but was too inhibited.  I was angry, I wanted to find the mother & say " Do you think Dara B would have grown up to make this show if her mum did that to her?"  - M said I should be more diplomatic.

On the way out We discussed male vs Female Art: M said how male art was considered "universal aesthetics", white male events "history"; whilst white female art was 'women's art' and black events 'black history'.  I argued that this wasn't even commonly recognised amongst women, only the intellectual middle classes, working classes being too busy getting on with stuff to really notice or care. M felt, I think, that I was belittling female art, but I tpointed out that in the art world there is much more equality now than there was, although I concede that 99% of classical  ''masters' were men, and there's not much attempt in art history to redress this imbalance.

I was quite inspired by the first and quite moved by the last piece - the disparity between the fame of Schumann's Arabesque and Clara's untitled piece (oops, see, I called him Schumann and her Clara!) despite her piece sounding to my ears more emotionally deep, was a pity.  It would be very interesting to find out more about hidden female composers, artists and so on - it's kind of like a lost world waiting to be rediscovered.

Here's Martine's take on the visit

Here's the Official Stuff

Monday 13 February 2012

Henna Peace Sign Pullover Present

Here's a photo of my wonderful Lady wearing the unique roll neck pullover I made in the screenprinting class - I gave it to her on her Birthday back in October, but have only just got round to posting it.

thanks to the lovely lady at the Oxford market who sat next to me one cold winter's day and sewed the patch on.

PS Does anyone have any advice on washing stuff like this? It's silver screened onto black course fabric sewed onto wool - we're thinking just soak, rinse and hang dry...

PPS She does look kind of Aryan soldier in this shot - is it bad that I find her sexy like this?

Read her thoughts on it below...

martine in development: A picture of today 4: I look so proud in this picture, almost like a soldier. I didn't spot the small swastikas on the fabric behind me untill I looked at t...

Sunday 12 February 2012

OMG so thought I'd added stuff to the blog since last term - I suck!

Anyway, I found I'd been looking at this page so I add it here - really enjoyed Steve Fowler's Rubber Stamp session, and no, he's not an abusive American Wife Swapper!

http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/fowler11/1.htm

BTW if anyone knows what I've been doing for the last TWO MONTHS, please let me know.  Answers on  a Postcard Please!!!