Wales 2008

After my father high tailed it to China I decided my mother needed cheering up so I booked a cottage in Cornwall for a week at Easter, before I knew it my sisters and niece had gatecrashed the party and we had a great if somewhat cramped holiday sans Leyla who went to her homeland in search of culture this was 2003.
2004 we went to the Pembroke coast in Wales again wonderful place and house but this time lacking gourmet food.
2005 Cromer in Norfolk, house by the sea but fog, fog, fog, great food but expensive and nearly bankrupted us all.
2006 Back to Wales found a supermarket so dined in using the aga, great success
2007 Flamborough Head wonderful bird watching, fantastic pubs but stayed in a barn conversion with tiny windows overlooking a caravan park I could have cried.
2008 Back to Wales the photos are the garden of the house we stay in and the view I have from my bedroom.. whats not to like
All this is now traditionally sans Leyla so I get to really unwind and relax I cant wait

The summer show

Had fun last night not a cheap date with my sister but hey we only live once. We met at the Royal Academy to see the Summer exhibition and whilst it is fashionable to sneer at this annual jamboree of amateur meets professional it’s always an interesting event.
Not much caught my eye and some of it was truly awful, mostly from artists who should know better, yes, you know who you are Mr Hockney. The images above are from three artists whose work I at the exhibition was lovely.
No 1. Is by Arthur Neal represented by the lovely Lynne Strover Gallery
http://www.strovergallery.co.uk/
No 2. Is by Trevor Sutton who like me seems to have a bit of a stripe addiction he is represented by http://www.flowerseast.com/
No 3. My absolute favourite is by Harland Miller perfect on every level colour, composition and humour what more could you want for £5000. More of his work can be seen at http://www.whitecube.com/
We ate delicious dim sum at Yautcha and then a pint at The Coach and Horses, Soho, perfect.

A Sight for sore eyes

I have been fighting some artistic demons recently but I came across this beautiful work by Maurice Esteve today and it has totally uplifted me from the gloom, both in and out of the art room. More to revive a jaded palette includes the new Helio Oiticica exhibition coming to the Tate Modern, The Body of Colour looks sumptuous.

Tomorrow I am meeting my sister for the buyers private view at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, Pimms and art always a good mix....

Twenty Five Forty Five

Twenty years separate the 2 pieces of work above the first a fan I found buried under a pile of paper in my cupboard was from a series I painted 20 years ago, the later a more recent collage but I am still stuck on the same theme..

I did not think that turning 45 would have much of an impact on me, most people focus on the zeros 30, 40, 50 etc but as mile stones go I have paid little attention to them. My first and I thought last milestone was turning 25 this was the first year of full employment having managed to stay on at college until then so it dawned on me that this was it the daily bump and grind of earning a living. After completing my degree I made the huge decision not to pursue a career in design but to teach it instead, all be it a temporary measure whilst I got my own work up and running, 20 years later it does not feel so temporary. I did come close to success but not close enough to give up my job especially with the hormonal clock ticking, I needed some stability. At 25 it also dawned on me that relationships were a font of disappointment too and again I made compromises which would inevitably end in tears. So here I am at 45 and it feels like a much bigger milestone than I thought it would. I am only half way through my working life 20 more years of teaching stretch ahead so I have resolved to buck up my ideas as an artist and put some of it out there. The other major change is I cannot carry on dressing like a 25 year old its time to tone it down not easy when I feel like I am still 25 but the mirror is telling me a whole different story, gravity a thickening waist add up to some sartorial changes. As for relationships disappointment has turned into despair and resentment lets hope this fuels my creative output a la Van Gogh!

On A Happier Note..

Just as I despair about the sanity of this world I stumble across these 2 fabulous web sites the former image belongs to http://www.lizcohnartstudio.com/ I love the sparse nature of her collages. I had meant to start making some collages when I got back from Oxford but I have been so stressed I have been painting instead as it calms me down. The second image is from the wonderful blog of http://www.camillaengman.com/ not only are the photos utterly beautiful but she lives in the most wonderful country on the planet, Sweden, I have visited both Stockholm and Goteborg and the surrounding countryside its a life style I Would love.

For The Love Of God 2012...

How bad is this?

This and Tony Blair make me despair of being an English woman.

For The Love Of God

When I was an art student back in 1981 I was a little in love with Trevor slightly older than me and far more worldly wise he had a thirst for understanding the roots of modern art. In stark contrast I was only interested in the decorative and the superficial. We would talk for hours about so much but Trevor’s biggest prophesies has now been realised, He felt skills based artists were redundant, that the way forward to fame and fortune was to have a brilliant idea and pay someone to realise it for you. So it was a case of getting others to realise your potential and then you sign it with your name. His hero was Marcel Du Champ. Last week he was vindicated as once more the spectre of Damien Hurst took hold of the media arena. He is the magpie of the art world stealing ideas from friends and getting technicians to make them, this time to sell for £50 million. For The Love of God his latest piece, nice work if you can afford the technicians. It is not a well kept secret that the idea came from a friend who’s work is very similar, the friend has shrugged it off what else can you do in the face of Damien Hurst’s PR Juggernaut. He said in an interview that he thought it looked too bling, he is right it does, it has the tacky stamp of a Hatton Garden jeweller embellished all over it, perfect for David Beckham or a Russian oligarch. But unlike the sale of my beloved Rothko I doubt any good causes will benefit from its sale.
If this piece of glitz does one thing I hope it is to remind us of beautiful Aztec treasures, including the crystal skull on display in the Museum of Mankind London that is now thought to be a fake. Best of all in the British Museum is the mosaic skull from Tezcatlipoca or the mosaic skull in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco Maybe Damien Hurst could bequeath his own skull to his friend to decorate, now that would be a piece worth seeing