Ten of the best antique iPads.

My notebook is my baby – sad but true. Yes, I have an organiser and a calendar on my phone, sticky notepads stuck to my laptop screen and a calendar hanging off my mirror (a failed attempt to make myself look at it daily, then realised I don’t look in the mirror daily), but it’s in my little notebook of scribbles that I’ll actually look. I trust it to give me the right information and to dismiss the need for emailing on the go, phoning people or asking where the nearest tube is.

It is my Bible, but my Bible is on its way out.

So, with three naked little pages to go, it’s time to find a successor (notice I do not say replacement) and as each book lasts me about three months and is the gatekeeper to my entire life, I’m happy to invest a bit. I like to make sure that my little square of paper and card is one that I’ll be proud to hoik out of my bag on trains, in meetings, at press views and, most importantly, that’s nice looking enough to make writing an article whilst half-frozen on the District Line an endurable experience.

It’s also got to be hardy, with narrow lines and no fabric – I’m a writer, not making namby pamby lists of shells I found on the beach.

So, on that nautical note, I’ve trawled through the internet and fished up ten of the best – as varied as Birmingham’s seafood markets but without the stench or slimy catcalling. Enjoy!

LIFE notebook from Cyd, director of The Sweetest Occassion, on her Keep profile – the pinterest for shopaholics. Simple, inoffensive, and if this were my notebook it would certainly do what it says on the tin.

Six Continent notebooks from Christian Lacroix for Libretto; it’s a worldwide fashion show in six parts, unfortunately I’m not sure if I’d be able to pick one (after much deliberation having to post a photo of all of them I couldn’t make my mind up!)

They’re enough arty enough to be interesting, yet demure enough to be sophisticated.

These Personalised Leather Bound Notebooks from Hope House Press mean that even when you’re snowed under with work 1. you won’t forget your name, and 2. even if you forget your notebook, hopefully a friendly colleague will pick it up for you. They’re soft leather and come in three warm shades, perfect for presents or just to treat yourself!

I love this cheery book from Peony and Thistle. It makes me far more optimistic about being a very busy bee, and the tough hardback cover is great for writing on the move – no more balancing on one leg whist leaning awkwardly on a lifted up knee!

When talking about notebooks, you can’t ignore the big fat elephant in the room…or mole. I’m not much of a moleskine fan, usually thinking of them as good quality but overpriced and dull – but alas, that’s all changed thanks to new series from a brilliant artist who’s inspired me repeatedly over the years. Ricardo Cabral’s cover art is simple and bold, and the books come in packs of two, both filled with neat squared paper like an old maths book – and I for one can remember the obsessive satisfaction gained from carefully fitting words into those squares. Hello tidy new life!

This steampunk notebook from IdeaObscura of Zazzle can take you out of that grubby tube carriage and up up up into clear blue skies.

Third of my top three on this page is this upcycled book made with vintage book cover and even interspersed with pages of the original text. Stories and Divinations has all sorts to pick from and each is one of a kind, some for sketching, some for notes but all completely unique.

Number two of my top three is this very simple vintage map covered journal: skilfully made by Heather Dewick for Folksy, it’s thick, well bound, has a little page marker (I’m always writing on random pages in a hurry, then losing my notes) and a tough but pretty pastel cover. Each one is made from a real London map so also may come in handy if your iPhone dies, they are rather old maps but still probably not much more unreliable than Googlemaps.

In first place are these ...I Met And Liked... books from Archie Grand. They’re funny, fresh and super cheap! The eighty styles range from Blondes I Met and Liked to Communists I Met and Liked, but personally the Gallerists, Excuses and Faux Pas pieces are most suited to my topsy turvy life – with Artists I Met and Liked being the clear winner. I do tend to write about artists who seem like genuinely hard working craftsmen, rather than pretentious successes – and I know which of the two I’d rather meet for a drink.

Finally, I had to put this one in. It’s not the illustrative wonder that I’d usually go for - but it could be the motivating factor I need at times. Perhaps not particularly conducive to the the cool, calm, collected persona I try to portray, but truthful at least!

Right, I really have gotta get done so I’m off! Have a nice day everyone, and write things by pen not printer once in a while –  it’s good for the soul.

Wolf Vostell… haphazard headlines.

A few weeks ago I was pottering along to Spitalfields Market after helping out my friend Bex at Comica Comiket and I bumped into a kindred spirit – another third year video artist stressing about THE FINAL SHOW – and we swapped webs and emails. Accidentally did that networking thing on my way to grab some lunch and look at over priced clothes, a standard Saturday morning. Anyway, he pointed me over to this artist whose work is a lot like mine, and who no tutor had ever informed me about.

So here’s one of my films – ‘Splits’ from my second year -followed by a couple from Wolf Vostell: painter, sculptor and the man who coined the phrase ‘de-collage’. His subject matter was the present so he began by making Happenings tearing down billboards and drawing attention to the aesthetics which characterised the ‘now’; as television took over the media he began to work with this, making incoherent montages of news programmes which leave the viewer to make sense of the chaos of the world.

Sun In Your Head – 1963 – Wolf Vostell

More from the Pompidou tomorrow, it’s nice to have my digital diary back!

Comica Comiket and being a mate.

I spent my last Saturday morning over by the Gherkin, trying to find a bank – FYI all banks in the business section are closed on Saturdays. The reason for this was that my little childhood friend, Bex, was selling some of her wares at the independent comic and ‘zine festival Comica Comiket.

I’m not really into superhero stories, but there was more than enough printing, illustration, writing and small novelty items to keep me amused. Which is where I come to Bex’s work: drawing, print, painting, collage and charming little books are her thing. She would kill me for saying ‘charming’. Bex’s books are small and cute (again treading dangerous territory here) but also dry, witty and politically aware – see the naively titled: The Day I Met a Fatty.

So if you like ‘zines, decent illustration (none of that naive-art bull…), and interesting little stories check her out.

Here’s few tiny tasters….

…lovely handmade screen-printed robot cards, and Tick, a book about a little steampunk robot and his quest to find a purpose in our modernised lives…

An excerpt from Rumble - the battle between Mike Bison and Trevor Bearbick (ahaaa..)

Finally a couple of snippets from The Day I Met a Fatty – which taught me that make-up does not make you stupid, and not to be scared of chavs. I wish all helpful life lessons could be learnt in this way…

…more to come from Comica Comiket in the next few days.

Thank you to Miss Bex Bagley for helping me to discover a new genre of doodles.

Farley Farmhouse: The Surrealist’s secret Sussex hideaway

The fireplace at Farley Farmhouse features Penrose’s interpretation of the face of The Long Man of Wilmington, an ancient chalk figure carved into the Sussex hills – the house looks out at the Long Man, but here Penrose has invited him inside.

So a few weeks ago I wrote a blog about Lee Miller: muse of Man Ray, Picasso and many others of the Surrealist circle. I went to visit the house she shared with Roland Penrose yesterday and was ahhhhmazed.

Farley Farmhouse is a little place in the Sussex village of Chiddingly, near Lewes, and it looks very ordinary: a modest red brick cottage set in pretty gardens. However this was actually the home of  a Surrealist painter/writer/biographer, and his model/muse/photographer wife so inside the house it’s a whole different story. Above the Aga is an original Picasso ceramic haphazardly plastered between ordinary kitchen tiles, the dining room is a salon-hang of Penrose’s works, original Man Ray collages adorn the hallway and items from Hitler and Eva Braun’s last billet sit in a case in the living room. These are only a handful of the amazing pieces on show, of course there are also Lee Miller’s modelling shots, and her own photographs of famous Surrealists in their studios, the horrors she witnessed as a war correspondent and happier snaps of her travels with Penrose. The artworks featured in the house are endless, I could go on and on and on! I wasn’t allowed a camera on our tour so I was just scrabbling away at my notebook which I got a few weird looks for, obviously the rest of the group weren’t artiiiiistesss pffft. I’m not really a tour person to be honest, and I was quite dubious about it but it was actually incredibly informative and definitely necessary to understanding the lives of the couple that lived here – and anyway you aren’t allowed to just wander about the house as of course it’s filled with priceless pieces.

Sorry about all the screenshots and googled images, I had no choice.

Roland and Miller above, solarised profile of Lee Miller below – between them the couple developed the method of Solarisation.

 It’s worth going to Farley Farmhouse just to listen to the tour and gain an insight into how the 1930s Surrealist circle lived, great fun but with some pretty horrific consequences. Muses are lovers, husbands are left behind, alcoholism was rife and beauty was treasured above all. Lee Miller had an amazing life which was possibly a lot down to her equally amazing face: if it weren’t for the men who fell in love with her, her life would have been very different. Siggghhh to be a beautiful American in Paris.

I’ve studied the Surrealists a lot, but maybe only specific ones as somehow I hadn’t heard of Penrose – he rings a bell but no artwork comes to mind. This must just be my own ignorance as he’s a key figure: he started the Institute of Contemporary Art which is still going today (and whose new TV exhibition I want to see), was Picasso’s biographer, invented our very first army camouflage and was also a pretty decent painter!

I won’t give you his life story, but these paintings above are portraits of his first wife Valentine. The first is called Conversation between Rock and Flower,  1928, you can see the ‘flower’ on the left is Valentine, with her feminine form on the front of her profile and an angrier craggy face on her back, whilst the ‘rock‘ is Penrose with one eye looking out at her. Below this is Winged Domino, 1938, again of Valentine but he painted it during their break-up so it was finished from photographs. The necklace of thorns is stabbing into her neck and the butterflies sort of claw at her lips, so you can see that obviously things weren’t good. According to Laura, our very informative guide, Valentine was a bit of a fiery one, sometimes soft but often aggressive and cold – hence the two-sided, or two-faced, ‘flower’. Apparently this was all just due to her hormones, simple PMT, but it made her so difficult to live with that she and Penrose split, freeing up space for Lee in his life.

Penrose and Lee adored each other; they married in 1947 and here are just  a few of Roland Penrose’s many many portraits of her.

The paintings are all mysterious and dark like Miller whose aloof and distant appearance was a product of a horrific attack she experienced when she was only seven years old – it left her with the ability to disassociate herself from people and it was possibly this cool quality which attracted her lovers – as well as that face. Anyway, her detached nature caused Penrose to often paint parts of her as absence, landscapes and floating clouds. The piece above is a portrait of Lee Miller after the war, in 1946, whereas the painting below was painted in 1937 before she became a war photographer; for this reason in the above painting she’s fragmented and only has a hint of a face whereas the portrait below is much happier and her earthy legs fix keep her grounded. Miller had a fascinating life but it wasn’t plain sailing: her modelling career was cut short by an agency selling her off to a Kotex advert – after which the Paris fashion mags wanted nothing to do with her – and after visiting Belsen and Dachau the day after they were liberated she suffered post-traumatic stress. Then, to make matters even worse, once she returned home to take back her Roland who had now shacked up with a second woman, she fell pregnant, after which she was plagued by post-natal depression. All of this, plus her already troubled childhood meant that the beautiful Lee Miller became an alcoholic for twenty years.

Below…Lee Miller and Roland Penrose with First View, his portrait of a very pregnant Lee.

Still, she got over her alcoholism by becoming an obsessive cook and finally became the caring mother to Anthony, her son, that she couldn’t be before. Strangely, she, Roland and Roland’s first wife Valentine all lived together until first Lee and then Valentine died, following which Roland continued to live at Farley Farmhouse with his son and a series of girlfriends until his death – old habits die hard!

I didn’t intend to write a summarised biography of Penrose and Miller, but I got so into it that that’s sort of what you got. Sorry if it’s all too wordy. Anyway, go have a look, see the house, the gallery and the sculpture gardens……

 

….then after all that culture take a ten minute drive to the town of Lewes afterwards and have lunch at Bill’s like me and my Mama did. It’s tasty.

Pick Me Up again please…

I may have mentioned this a few posts ago, but Pick Me Up is back this year! Somerset House will be absolutely jam packed with illustrations, typography, graphic design, animation, film and installation from the most exciting up and coming artists based in the UK. It’s big enough to be amazing value for money but small enough that you don’t get exhausted (and if you do, last year there were giant bean bags in the film room to collapse on), there’s work to buy from just a tenner and, the best bit, I don’t think last year’s show contained one piece of boring art. Not one!

This year it’s on from the 22nd March until the 1st of April so I shall be pottering through at some point during my Easter break.

Last year, however, I went down on St Paddy’s day, so unfortunately my photo album ‘Pick Me Up’ is more of a record of every beverage served in every pub in East London – plus a curry – than a decent representation of the art fair. Anyway, I did manage to salvage these few piccies, if you like then head to Somerset House for an Easter outing. It’s only a fiver for a little cultchaaa, a LOT of inspiring material and for all that educational hard work you can surely reward yourself with a belated St Paddy’s bevvie!

I’m afraid I don’t have the names for every artist featured, but I’ve tried to hunt down a few.

The above image is by Seiko Kato, seriously amazing paper collage artist, and next up is Polly Becker, assemblage maker and ink illustrator.

Possibly more Miss Becker….

Julien Roure….

I’m afraid I’m not sure who the star sign etchings are by, I’ve been googling away but to no avail!

Last but not least, an alphabet illustration by Jessica Hische - her website is VERY nice. Worth a snoop.

Pick Me Up: most interesting art fair I’ve ever been to and all for the price of a Pret a Manger salad, can’t argue with that!

xxx