Matthew Harris

Beautiful paper collages from here

Esteban Lisa

I saw a lot of Estaban Lisa's work at Arco Madrid, I loved it, so much joie de vivre, just lovely.
I am nearing the end of my landscape journey and after seeing these am desperate to get back to abstraction.

If you love all things abstraction I have found a brilliant website called Abstract Critical here and the images are from here

The view from here

Emin has man flu, of course that's just an excuse to snore all bloody night and eat rubbish. Last night he was fumbling around the kitchen searching for food, he managed to burn two lots of toast before dropping a box of a dozen eggs on the floor, much to the dogs delight. Even then he persevered until he went to soften the butter in the microwave and forgot, melting the entire block! He marched out of the house declaring he was off to McDonald's, Leyla begged him to get her a burger but he declared what was good for him was most defiantly not good for her. I then cooked her a chicken burger and just as I was ranting, calling I'm a self centered wanker he walked through the door with a pizza. Leyla took great delight in telling him I called him a wanker, he was way to tired to answer back. Last night, no joke I caught him googling the symptoms of Pneumonia! what a sap.
I am still undecided as to whether Monday was an unmitigated disaster or a brilliant stroke of luck.
I left school bright and early to go to a curators talk at the Tate Britain, the last two talks I've been to have been really very inspiring, so what could go wrong? Picasso and British artists, it sounded great. My intention was to get some face cream before I went as I'm close to the dregs and forgot to top up at the airport. I get the train to Victoria which is THE windiest place on earth, and I am blown down the road before getting seduced by the windows of Zara.
Kitty has given up on Zara, as well as H&M, having worked in retail she has become very fussy with fabric and both of those places sell cheap synthetic fabrics. GAP are great for jeans but their jersey needs hand washing, making it very high maintenance. I have introduced her to COS and so yesterday she went and bought two more tops from there. It has been interesting see the retail world from here point of view, I struggle to get clothes large enough she struggles to find them small enough!
So Zara, great trousers coupled with the worst service anywhere in London, really the very worst.
Walking into House of Fraser to buy some Clinique I was met by hoards of bored listless sales staff, I couldn't face trying to battle past them so gave up and walked to the Tate.
The walk through suburban streets is lovely and I was hoping to grab my ticket and whip round the exhibition before the talk. Draconian jobsworths prevented that so I went and looked around the new contemporary exhibition instead. It is brilliantly curated but what is sad is that being at Tate Britain rather than Modern means not that many people see it. From that one quick walk around I was able to garner my thoughts and plan an 8 week A' Level Fine Art syllabus. That was the good.
The bad was the appalling talk I PAID for, that was basically a PowerPoint of all the Picasso paintings they did not get for the show, coupled with the raging mediocrity of British painting. It was so bad and poorly delivered too.
The only British artist that could hold his own and then some was Henry Moore, the juxtaposition of Moore's work with Picasso's painting was brilliant and beautifully curated. During the talk someone asked why there were no female painters represented. The answer was none had met and been inspired by him, what he should have said is why would any women be inspired by such controlling misogynist? They had too much sense. The idea of pastiching Picasso seemed to be a man thing!

The view from here

Friday's post hid a myriad of blues, the goal we have been marching towards finally arrived on Thursday and the news was bad, Leyla despite jumping through numerous academic hoops failed to secure a place at her sisters old school because we lived to far away. She has got into a very good school, but the overwhelming sense of grief that we had all worked so hard for so little was overwhelming. We both cried Leyla and I and of course the minute Emin see female grief he gets ratty and irritable, so we tore chunks out of each other all night.
I did shock horror get an apology the morning after, combined with a flurry of texts which cumulated with the news that he had booked flights to Amsterdam and Berlin in June for a well deserved break. Yeah, I know I have non stop breaks this year, but even I got quite excited at the thought of finally returning to Amsterdam, a city I have not been to for over 20 years! Berlin is a different story, but there are plenty of galleries left to explore. What made me laugh was that having booked to escape the Queens celebration we were going to a city with their very own 'Queens' celebration!! All be it later than we go, maybe they are making a holiday from it.
Walking the dog on a very wet drizzly Sunday evening I remember a similar evening where I caught site of a post Sunday lunch kick back through a window, I lamented that I thought my life would have become convivially languid like that, but instead seems just very overcrowded. Then I got to thinking that I may not have dinner parties, but I do get to travel in some style and sometimes I realise that is way better.
Back to last week though, it will come as no surprise I had a whopping migraine, but my mood was light as Lucy had booked a pre-theatre dinner at Hix, I've never been but quite fancied it for a change and I am happy to report it was great. Lucy of course always reads those Internet sites, I don't because the only time people write on them is when they have had a bad meal, people rarely write anything when they have had a great meal because they are left with such a soporific sense of well being they can't put digit to keyboard. So ignore the review it's great.It was not cheap mind you but my sister has the MOST annoying habit of ordering a cocktail which always bumps up the price.

We had tickets for an Alan Ayckbourn play, and here is the gist of my gripe, why are all theatre critics men? And what is it with men and nostalgia? So this play was set way back in the late 70's and it was so S-L-O-W really very, very, dull. You know you are struggling when you fixate on the set. The play got rave reviews because of course it appealed to the paunchy old hacks who hanker after the days when cigarette ash fell down on their typewriter keys as they slurped their fourth tumbler of whisky. It appealed to their sense of misogynistic nostalgia when men were bread winners and women were unfulfilled, ergo hysterical and dissatisfied. But all this is fine if it moves at a pace, truly this was like watching sandwiches curl.
Part of my research into female artists has led me down that whole feminist route, which is dated but quite interesting. Reading around it makes me realise how far we've come and watching that play made me realise how little I want to look back.

Cat Walk Shopping

I used to be glued to the screen when the cat walk shows came around, my favourite port of call used to be style.com, sadly the website is so full of moving this and flashing that I have had to move on to elleuk.com, which is where these images are from.
I only ever chose something I would defiantly wear so it has been slim pickings this year, falling back on some old favourites, struggling to wade through some very formal eighties glamour, not me at all.
First up

Doo Ri

My favourite goldish yellow, I do love a bit of asymmetry

Limi Feu

Always does good draping, luckily I am just about tall enough to get away with this as long as the layers are thin.

Phillip Lim

Just how lovely is this coat? Perfect
Finally

Margaret Howell

What I love is that she never compromises comfort for vanity, no pencil skirts and cinched in waists here, just perfect shape and portion.

I do miss photographing my clothes, I hope to have a go over Easter, but otherwise my head has been down reading, reading, reading. I'm trying to research and write about the almost impossible dynamic of Artist Teacher Mother Wife, does such a thing exist? Well often 3/4 has been achieved, but often it is the husband not the children that destroys an artistic career. My favourite research so far was an interview with Louise Nevelson, no slouch in the style stakes herself, but the vitriolic gossip she dishes from New York in the fifties has been riveting. Many artists have been unveiled in a whole new light shed by what can only be described as searing honesty! This is always the fun bit though isn't it the reading. I have also been sidetracked by a couple of books which confirm what I knew in that my own art education was so monumentally poor it is a wonder I left with any self esteem at all. As late as the eighties it was not uncommon for classes of 70% female or more to be taught wholly by men, most of whom were never to be found. I had two tutorials in 3 years! It appears to be very different now, but in a way I wish I had been aware of it earlier.

I have a tutorial next Friday, and boy am I prepared, this time they are going to earn their salary!!

Andrea Canepa

Sometimes you see something that just blows you away, it is increasingly rare to see, but at Arco Madrid I saw this work by Andrea Canepa, which defiantly loses something in the stills, but luckily I found a short clip for you to watch. I love it

Documentación de la instalación "El Revés de lo Doméstico" from Andrea Canepa on Vimeo.

The view from Arco Madrid

It being a Sunday, I was well aware that the buyers would have been and gone and most of the Gallerina's would be on dress down, even so there was plenty of Spanish style but it moves very quickly and the light inside the fair was woeful, making shots on the hoof very tricky. Here is an unedited selection, sometimes I like the rawness of the image rather than the close cropped photographs. The above shot maybe vague but what I liked apart from the lovely blue of the tunic, was the proportions of the outfit and the lovely deep tan of her coat. There was a LOT of that deep tan both bags, boots and coats wise.

Above this woman was wearing by far and away the most carefully curated of outfits.

I chose this and a previous photograph just because on the insouciance a jumper teamed with black trousers can bring, it seems to me that many of the Gallerina's here were very comfortably stylish.

Tan bags were everywhere, I have been searching for such a thing for years, and stupidly let one go last year because of the price, a mistake I will not make again now I know how hard good ones are to find. I particularly like them teamed with grey.

Slim pickings I know, being with my sister did hold me back form suddenly hurtling off at some random tangent if only someone would pay me to do this full time, I do love chasing people!