The River Magazine

So, after months of endlessly complaining that I still don’t have a job… I do! I’ve been working for The River Magazine for a couple of moths now, and I can honestly say that this slim book of glossy A4 pages  has grown rather close to my heart.

The magazine is a complimentary quarterly publication which promotes the most interesting people, events and businesses in SE1, but we’re soon to be expanding to include much more of London.

With sections on Culture, Food & Drink, Property, Business, Style and one just For The Soul, there’s always plenty to do!

The April – June issue is currently available in cafes, hotels, bars, salons and a range of businesses in SE1 and articles include afternoon tea London Bridge Hotel, an interview with the Shard’s choice florist Igloo Flowers, the BFI British film season, the fascinating life of Royal Academician Norman Ackroyd and a chat with Globe actor, James Garnon – oh and not forgetting our token celebrity David Cameron, joining Brigade bar on Tooley Street.

Working with The River has allowed me to meet all sorts of people I wouldn’t have otherwise, and I think that after a dismal spell of monotonous job hunting had slightly destroyed me, it’s given my confidence levels a bit of a kick. It’s just nice to feel useful, isn’t it?

Norman Ackroyd and James Garnon were two of the people I interviewed for this issue, and both showed such boundless passion for their work it really was contagious. Norman may live in central London but is preoccupied with the most extreme edges of Britain – always seeking the highest, furthest, oldest point…

James, or Jimmy, is a well seasoned Globe actor and for his ninth season at the Globe is taking on The Tempest’s Caliban. He is enthralled by the role, and I can’t wait for the play to open on the 2nd May. He’s a powerful actor famed for bold performances, interspersed with quirky subtleties to create truly captivating characters.

Our Cover image is from photographer Rebecca Parker, who uses locations in the West Midlands for touching wedding fashion photography. Her works bears more similarity to fine art photography than fashion – filled with emotion and utterly evocative.

If you’d like a copy, then take a stroll around London Bridge and you should be able to find yourself a copy to skim over with a coffee. We’ll be putting the most recent edition online very soon, but for now you can see our previous two editions here: http://www.therivermagazine.co.uk/

If you’d like to advertise with us then contact us via the website; or if you’re an artist looking for publicity then we do have a page titled The Gallery on which we feature artists, drop us an email if you’d like to know more.

Huis Clos… surreal, intimate, stunning.

This series was created by French photographers Amélie Chassary and Lucie Belarbi as an examination of our everyday habits, literally turning each subject into a personification of their daily routines. The title, Huis Clos, derives from a French play and translates literally as ‘in camera’, referring to a private conversation carried out behind closed doors; with this series, people’s privacies are exposed as they openly wear their rituals and routines on their sleeves.

Simply conducted but effective, and I think they’re pretty darn beautiful.

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!

Forecasts, Fortunes and Funfairs.

We found one of these on the Brighton seafront a couple of weeks ago, in the amazing Old Fashioned Penny Arcade. Mystic Meg was very informative…

Your lucky day is Thursday

Your lucky colour is yellow

Oh not forgetting - Beware of that scrounging neighbour – you know who I mean.

The Meg never lies.

Here, have some toys, I’m too sleepy to write but look how pretty they are! This lot were collected over 40 years by French couple Fabienne and François Marchal, and recently auctioned off in Paris, too bad they couldn’t wait two weeks until I got there. I could’ve had my very own Professeur Kheudj’shi to wake up to every morning…sigh…

It’s the stuff of nightmares really isn’t it…?

Magnificent Mini Moo Cards!

New business cards!

I hope you like them

Today will be spent recovering with my housemates so I’m making this a quickie…

…apologies for the rubbish pictures, I STILL haven’t got round to replacing my camera lens so it refuses to focus properly at the moment, and Photoshop’s on the blink. A very ill-equipped blogger.

I  could’ve gone for your standard Vistaprint order of 200 free business cards, but they’re dull and big and bulky so instead I paid a little for 100 Moo mini-cards printed with sixteen different stills from one of my film pieces. I like the idea of a couple of people picking them up and comparing their cards – Chloe Top Trumps – and the cards give a little insight into what I do so no one wastes their time looking at my website only to find they don’t like my work! Phew.

Stuck a sneaky QR code on the back just to prove that I am, in fact, down with the kids.

Happy Sunday.

 x

Saturday’s sunshine substitutes…

As is stretched and opened my eyes this morning, I peeked out of my window hoping for a few weekend rays of sunshine and was let down…Birmingham has maintained it’s usual grey for another day. Boo… But here are a few happy little prints from I Love Doodle on Etsy guaranteed to brighten up your days – courtesy of my brilliant manfriend who sent me the below I’ll Never Let Go print yesterday and without whose support I’d probably be falling apart without at the moment! That’s the sickly part over, promise.

Never Let Go

Bee Happy

You can can

Moonstache!

Dandy Lions

That’d be me, hiding my head under the covers on Monday morning.

Three more weeks then I’m free and off to Pariiiiiiii’!

Anyone else feeling like their head’s stuck in a higher education vice at the mo…?

 SMILE. Tomorrow’s Sunday. The best day of the week, always. x

Antiques and strip clubs.

Furniture doesn’t normally pop up on my blog, but I’ve been redecorating and – apart from the dreaded fabric choosing palaver  – I’ve really got into it!

This fancy lot is London-based Lee Broom‘s Neo Neon range – weird,  but I kind of like it. It’s got just enough of the gothic, trashed up look for the neon lighting not to place it in a cheap strip club, and surely that’s all you need from a set of furniture!

The furniture used in this collection comes from Parisian markets and top-end antique shops, hence the slightly agonising price-tags, but you can find furniture like this in flea markets across the country – there’s an amazing one in Reigate, Surrey where I got a beautiful French chair for £70, but I think I could’ve haggled it down if I hadn’t been so desperate to get away from the insufferable owner. I shall find out the name when I go back there!

Got a boring kitchen chair? Hang a disco ball off the back and wrap some fairy lights around it and TA DAH: You’ve made a Lee Broom.

Gemma Correll wrote a book about me.

More from Comica Comiket!

 Not only was I bringing my dear friend coffee on Saturday, I also got to have a good snoop at Comica Comiket and discovered this illustrator, Gemma Correll. I’m not normally into childlike drawings but I sort of fell in love with these Zines and prints – mainly because they actually narrate my life. It’s uncanny.

I am the above image at the moment, last three weeks of uni are killing me. Meh.

Anyway here’s a little insight into the problems of scatty, disorganised, hypochondriac, creative types.

And me.

…I leave a trail of these like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs…

…hypochondria vastly increased by third year stress levels…

…cats are far more interesting than silly pretty boys with tattoos on their necks and deep Vs…

…at least you can always rely on one thing to make it all better!

That is why tonight will be red wine fuelled, yay!

More pugs, cats, dry wit and less me-related-stories from Gemma Correll can be found here.

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.

Lucas Simões: memories and matchsticks.

Brazilian artist Lucas Simões lives in São Paulo where he melts celluloid prints, cuts up books and makes portraits of his friends from layers and layers of photographs and the aid of an iPod.

Absence

Nostalgia

Adios

Who plays with fire.

I love these very simple but evocative images, go burn some holiday snaps.

Here are a few wonderful words by the artist…

“You tripped us disaster-prone stars

But for the me you were the star between the stars”

“The intimate infinity is
Mine and yours
Has no beginning nor end
But ends in you”

Have a look at his website, he makes all sorts.