Degree Show One at Central St Martins

Every year I intend to visit the graduate shows in London and finally this year I did and brought my lovely friend Alex along for the ride! For those who aren't aware, every year UAL (university of arts london) Central St Martins opens up it's doors for a week for the general public to have a looksy around their students' final pieces for both BA and MA courses. Last weekend included work from the fine art, photography, art & science and moving image courses, as well as a couple more.

Some of it was really cool, some of it v.thought-provoking and some of it I just didn't really get, but I think that's ok when it comes to art. It's such a subjective subject; something that speaks to me might not speak to someone else and visa-versa. What is important, I think, is that we try to look at as much new stuff as possible - it's gotta be good for our brains to be exposed to new positive experiences. It's always interesting to see how other people think and how they choose to represent those thoughts in a physical form. Plus, this is a completely free show, always a bonus in my opinion (especially the weekend before payday).

Sadly the Degree Show One is now finished but the Degree Show Two is coming up next month! I'm particularly looking forward to this one as it features all the work from the textile, graphic, jewellery, ceramic and product design courses. Should be good!

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I was absolutely rubbish at recording the names of the students who's work I photographed so I've just done some research and found some of them. Apologies for my ineptitude. 

Untitled 11 (bubble wrap and paint house) Yasmeen Sabri (FINE ART BA) 

Lab No.1 - Theo de Gueltzl & Octave Marsal (FINE ART MA)

Lab No.2 (etching on perspex) - Theo de Gueltzl & Octave Marsal (FINE ART MA)

New Street_London+Seoul+Oslo+Lisbon,2014" - Yeonok Jang (ART AND SCIENCE MA)

Left: Stabat Mater (chicken wire and aluminium horses) - Tess Dumon (FINE ART BA)
Right: see below

Glitter Box - Vera Bohl (ART AND SCIENCE MA)

The reluctant (35 pages of 'The Reluctant Dragon' in glass jars) and the dry ice piece both - Boris Raux. His pieces were all based around smell. He even had a piece which was scratch and sniff! 
(ART & SCIENCE MA)

Woodberry Down (bricks, coloured yarn and graphite) - Holly Owen (ART AND SCIENCE MA)

Left: Matter of the Heart (oil drums) - Jean Baynham (ART AND SCIENCE MA)
Right: Foucault pendulum - Roderick MacLeod (ART AND SCIENCE MA)

Paris Dakar - Ophelia Finke (FINE ART BA)

Lonely by the sea - Christine Donnier-Valentin (PHOTOGRAPHY MA)

The screen prints of Rebecca Price (ART AND SCIENCE MA)

the illustrated packing list: the lake district

This morning my friends and I set off for the Lake District, hopefully by the time you read this we'll be well on our way! Two days ago I made my packing list. Unfortunately whilst the south of the country is having a heat wave, Cumbria will be experiencing much milder temperatures this weekend. I'm not too disappointed as I don't think climbing a mountain in 22 degree heat would be fun at all. We've got lots lined up - a mountain to climb, the coast and lakes to see, some rock climbing and a few local pubs to try out. I am hella excited. Learning from my experiences on Snowdon, for this trip I've invested in some proper walking shoes as well as walking socks, a light weight waterproof jacket and, just in case it pisses it down, the most unattractive things I've ever seen - waterproof trousers. Hope you all have lovely weekends, see you on the other side!

puffin & ponies

A few months ago I rather abruptly (and randomly) became interested in needlepoint. I tried a few different patterns but after a couple of weeks or so, I put my frame and tapestry wool to one side and promptly forgot about them. Then, last week, I dug them out thanks to a brainwave about what to make my mum for mother's day. And here he is, a little needlepoint puffin (she loves puffins).

This doesn't happen very often, but he actually turned out exactly as I'd imagined him. Needlepoint is incredibly satisfying, if a little labour intensive. I simply drew the puffin on the canvas and basically coloured him in with stitches. It's in no way perfect but my mum liked him anyway and I might have a go at trying to make another animal...

Yesterday, what with it being mother's day and all, my family headed down to the New Forest to see my auntie and uncle. The gorgeous weather, lots of cake and the presence of the ponies meant that it really was a perfect day.

On saturday I did something un-thinkable: I went to Oxford Street. Yes, I know, only crazy people go anywhere near there on a saturday but I can assure you, it was for a good cause. I needed to go to Berwick Street to pick up one of the fabrics for my wedding dress (and a zip for a different dress that I'm making). Despite the glorious weather, central London was heaving but thankfully the shop had what I wanted and I made a swift exit. I'm actually off to buy the remaining fabric for my wedding dress this afternoon which is pretty exciting. I will feel so much calmer once I've handed all of them over to the dressmaker in a couple of weeks. Hope you all had sun-filled weekends too :)

the illustrated packing list: budapest

This time next week I'll be in Budapest! The holiday, much like April, completely snuck up on me - where has the time gone?! Worries of already being a quarter of the way through 2014 aside, I am super excited to be flying off to Hungary.

Travel websites and BBC weather seem to share the same thought that, although it can get unbelievably hot in the summer months, Budapest in April is very similar to the weather here in the UK. With that in mind I've started to think about what I should pack...

At present the forecast is a bit of a mixed bag for next week so an umbrella, tights and sunglasses are all making the trip with me just be on the safe side.

in an alternative (tattooed) universe

There's a bit of tattoo fever going on over here at the moment, apologies, but I really wanted to share the work of Shopped Tattoos. 

Cheyenne Randall takes iconic individuals and gives them a bit of a make-over. These are my faves.

Don't they look ace? Loving Princess Leia's "Han" heart. 

He's also done a few "women in WWII" which I'm liking a lot. those outfits + tats + power tools = YES. 

And here's the one that lead me to his tumblr...

There's lots more to peruse on his site including a rather lush looking river phoenix :)

triangle love

A couple of weekends ago my sister and I had ourselves another super sister saturday :) (you can read about our previous adventures here and here). On this particular saturday we decided to get our tattoos. We'd both been thinking about getting them done for a while (2 years or so) and the gods that be (read: the people who dictate my sister's rota at work) meant that she was actually free on a saturday and that it was time to get ink done (ha! as if I would ever say that phrase out loud). We went to Tattoo UK in Twickenham and within 45 mins of us arriving we'd both been tattooed by the lovely Ben.

My sister got Tolkien's illustration of Smaug - she is a HUGE Tolkien fan. I really love it and it suits her down to the ground. Me? I got these three little triangles. It's small and simple and I love it. I say simple, but, Ben confessed, mid tattooing, that I'd picked one of the hardest things to draw: straight lines. Poor Ben, my design was ALL straight lines. However, he did an amazing job.

After getting tattooed we hopped on a bus to Richmond and had a very civilised lunch at The Tea Box - home of the best savoury scone I've ever eaten (goats cheese + onion, mmm), before taking a stroll by the river - the weather was gorgeous.

Back to the tat...Did it hurt? Yes, yes it did. Thank god it only took 10 minutes to do because I actually don't think I could've taken much more. Please don't let that put you off if you're thinking of getting a tattoo, I am a massive pansy and my pain threshold is small. Two weeks of scabbing (sorry if that was too much information) and it's healed perfectly. The pain was worth it I reckon.

right now

★ Reading: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. So far so good, I'm liking the concept a lot.

★ Watching: Community season 1 - I wasn't so sure about this initially but after the first 2 or 3 episodes it's just got better and better. I'm a big fan of all the movie references/homages throughout the series, some have been hilarious. It's sort of been filling the huge gaping hole which was left by parks and rec (obvs it's not as good but it sure makes me laugh). Also, we've been watching the new House of Cards (omg, that first episode!!!) and the great British sewing bee :)

★ Making: I've been fannying around on InDesign a lot lately (pic above) with the view to make our wedding invitations. The crochet blanket is coming along nicely and I'm in the midst of making a dress - it's too early to tell how well it'll turn out but I'm feeling positive.

★ Eating: The most amazing homemade pizza courtesy of my v.talented friend Alex who also made us a seriously lush coconut and blueberry jam cake (yeah, I know, amazing) on Saturday. My sister also gave us a batch of her white chocolate rocky road at the weekend so I've been completely spoilt! 

★ Wearing: My more spring-like coat! There's been some really lovely days recently when not only has it not rained, it's also been sunny and relatively warm. I actually went out to get everyone's lunch yesterday without wearing my coat! C'mon Spring, don't be shy.

★ Feeling: Quite reflective. Packing up the flat has meant I've been thinking a lot about our time in Brixton and how bloody great it's been. Also, v.tired - between packing, socialising and going out a fair bit, I've run myself rather ragged and it doesn't look like I'll get much of a chill out until we make the move to my parents'. Ah well, no rest for the wicked I suppose. 

★ Loving: The unexpected gift of a bunch of daffodils which are currently in full bloom.

art & too much wine: a tuesday night at the hay hill gallery

A colleague at work v.kindly invited Mitch and I to the private viewing of her partner's show at the Hay Hill Gallery on Baker Street. Not having been to a private viewing (nor the gallery) before, curiosity and the wish to show support meant that I RSVP: Oui!

It's a lovely gallery, a 5 minute walk from the tube station with floor to ceiling windows encouraging you step inside. Once we ditched our coats and were given some wine, we took a wander around the gallery.

The title of the 14 piece collection was: "The Financial Crisis Show: Art as a Derivative". Which did sound a little dry on paper but on canvas they were great! As you may know, I'm a sucker for colourful geometric shapes, lines, repeating patterns etc - so these certainly appealed to me from a distance (and especially as a collective). But, once I got close enough to read some of the 1,500 or so words on each painting, I realised that they also appealed to my love of a good quote. Yes, these were quotes relating to finance, wall street, bad loans and the like, but they were poignant and some were rather amusing ("Mr Perkins is an extreme risk to the market when he is drunk" - was a favourite).

After listening to the artist give a succinct and interesting speech about his work (whilst quaffing our third glass of wine) we decided to explore the lower floor of the gallery where this painting caught my eye. It was completely made out of wax - crazy eh?

Also downstairs we saw this painting and, egged on by another gallery-goer, decided to take some pictures with it. I sincerely hope the artist wasn't in the room.

Clearly we were in need of some dinner to soak up the booze. With hurried goodbyes and a short walk down Blandford Street, we found ourselves outside Pieds Nus. A teeny tiny little place with a tasty sounding menu and stripped back decor. On offer: a varied selection of small, tapas like dishes, but, as we soon discovered, the flavours (and ingredients) were very big indeed. We opted for the bread selection (avec hummus) to start, followed by the salt baked artichoke, wild mushrooms and truffle supplement (I'm still not entirely sure what that is but this dish was divine). Next we had the scallops followed by the spiced lamb neck with aubergine purée - ohmygod it was amazing. Melt-in-your-mouth, drooling-about-it-now (two days later) amazing. Can you guess it was my favourite of all the dishes that night (in spite of my guilt at eating lamb - something I haven't done for over a year)? To round off the dinner we shared the Tart Tatin which was v.nice up until I crunched down on a big star anise. It was pretty gross, particularly as I hate the taste of liquorice.

source

It was expensive, or what I would deem expensive, but the flavours (save for the star anise) were insanely good. I looked it up when we got home and it turns out that Pieds Nus is actually a pop-up from the owner of two michelin starred restaurants!

So Tuesday turned out to be a rather fancy affair. I do love it when a lack of planning leads to fun new things :)

Hope you're all having a good week!

art faves

A couple of nights ago my sister casually asked what artists I liked (something to do with christmas perhaps...) and I ended up spending a good couple of hours looking over my favourites before finally emailing her some links to choose from. Then I thought, maybe it would be nice to share these favourites, perhaps they'll help with your own present buying...but if not, it's always good to look at pretty things.

BETH HOECKL

Collages, as you'll soon see, are a big hit with me and Beth's work is pretty much perfect. The two below are the prints I covet the most.

NAN LAWSON

I absolutely love her illustration style and her choice of film and tv characters (yes, han solo!). The little knight is my current favourite.

SLINKACHU

The little people project and his book 'Global Model Village' are ace. 

TANG YAU HOONG

I particularly like his negative space collection but all his stuff is very clever.

GUY CATLING

More awesome collage art. The cut-out floral mountain and the one below are my faves.

SAMMY SLABBINCK
And whilst we're talking collage art, I think Sammy's work is tres cool. So surreal. I like Goodbye Blue Sky best.

SANDRA DIECKMANN
Beautiful illustrations - so many details and different textures.

HEATHER LANDIS
A mix of collages, illustration and photography - v.pretty stuff.