The view from here

I have particularly enjoyed a couple of musings in blog land this week. La Belette Rouge on wearing black was great (as are all her posts) As I said in the comment I left her, I have always wanted to be that cool stylish fashionista who favours cut and construction over colour and texture. Sadly this will never happen, Its like that involuntary twitch we get in our eye when we are tired, I just cannot help but go for colour. I did in homage where head to toe black yesterday with a splash of turquoise jewellery. But this is an expectation not the rule and today I am back in the arms of chocolate brown, soft faded biscuit and cool navy with a splash of burnt orange. You see even the names of colours are delicious, how am I not to be tempted? So I will occasionally dip my toe in monochrome black but it will only ever be part of the story.
Last week, as I was meandering down Bond Street I was as ever watchful of the clothes people were wearing. I spied someone in the most beautiful fitted linen cardie. Then I had an epiphany and realised that I had that same cardie. Where was it? I actually felt sick/stupid. Do I really have so many clothes that I can actually forget what I have? So that night I scoured the house and found a small case filled with an assortment of tops and bottoms. Most were for the scrap heap but there at the bottom was the wonderful cardie. Reunited yes, but as it is made of linen It is too creased to wear so it is hanging up in the vain hope the creases will drop. The best way I have found to eliminate creases is to wash in Woolite and dry on a mild breezy day. I recently did this with no less than 15! pairs of linen trousers. It worked they looked brilliant.
Finally a great post by Une Femme highlights the age old issue of the spreading waist line. I do not pick at my food, I do have a healthy appetite and I enjoy what I eat and try to off set the damage with exercise. I walk to and from school and go to the gym. Still like King Canute I am unable to push back the tide of fat that creeps almost imperceptibly onto my waist line. Luckily for me I live with a body obsessive who never fail to remind me that I am loosing this battle. Yet strangely I am not too upset. Its life, I am trying to reign it in a little, but why let it spoil the fun?

Laura Mousavi Zadeh

Beautiful paintings from last weeks RCA degree show more from the web site here

Another wonder exhibition can be seen on Kate Genever web site. sadly all copyrighted so I am unable to whet your appetite. Normally when this is the case I do not bother to link but the work is too lovely to overlook.

Frances Wadsworth-jones

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Drawing inspiration from Japanese aesthetics, my work seeks beauty in the ephemeral realities of nature. However, its function as a memento mori is secondary to it being a playful celebration of the small things we often disregard as unpleasant or unimportant. At the boundary between repulsion and seduction, my work explores the tension we feel when the ugly becomes beautiful. Things are rarely as they seem, with each piece demanding closer inspection, or hands-on exploration, to reveal its full meaning and beauty.

There is a website on its way which I would imagine will give a better flavour, her necklaces are so delicate and cleverly constructed to see them in the flesh is a must.

Elliott Erwitt

Marilyn Monroe, photographed during shooting for Some Like It Hot (1959). 'She was nice, smart, kind of amusing, and very approachable. Not a bimbo at all'

New York City, 1948. 'I don't know what it is that gives some pictures their magic, although the test is whether it really hits you and gives you a strong emotion'

New York City, 1984. 'Although the magazines that do these kinds of stories are long gone, the idea is as valid now as it ever was. I am still perpendicular, so I am still taking pictures'

Paris, 1989. 'Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures'
This last comment is the most pertinent. I agree, If you take 50 photos, you stand a much better chance of success than if you take 5.

A must see exhibition at Hackle Bury Fine Art and you can see images here as well as reading his story.

The view from here.

Friday I went to both the Royal College of Art degree show, and then on to the Royal Academy summer show. The former was excellent the best for a long time. They have eschewed the previous marquee and gone back to a split show. On Friday I saw the photography, printmaking fine art, painting and jewellery the latter was just some of the best and most innovative work I have seen for a long time. The photography was very classy always. There is a very strong house style but the prints are of an amazingly high standard. The show was brilliantly curated allowing the individuality of the students to shine through. This for me made it a vintage year as the personalities appeared stronger than for many years.
I will post favourites separately.
After the show I walked back through the streets to find the HackleBury Fine Art in Launceston Place. I had missed the exhibition I wanted to see but was able to wander around the new exhibition that was being hung. Elliott Erwitt. The photographs were rich and diverse, they were the focus of an article in the Guardian magazine the next day. It is not often I am ahead of a preview, but I was here. In the same magazine Launceston Place restaurant was also featured I sadly had only pressed my nose against the window as the prices were slightly steeper than a sandwich, however the menu looked great if only it was closer to home, as my sister remarked W8 seems like another city to us SE girls. The whole area is one of beautiful houses with pretty mews tucked away round every corner which is where the photographs were taken.
The summer show was as good as usual maybe more varied. I was able to get some new names to research which is all to the good.

Visually exhausted I wandered around Dover Street, Bond Street, then down through Soho to meet Daisy and Kitty for a bite to eat at Satsuma.

Bokja

The lure of the east now on at the Tate Britain, it looks sumptuous, I will drag both Emin and Leyla to this one. Emin has not stopped waxing lyrical about his visit to Istanbul since he got back. I have always wanted to go but it currently does not look likely. Ironically he stayed in a boutique hotel which rubbed extra salt into the wound, something he has point blank refused to do before now. He is currently trying hard to put together a budget non flight trip to Europe this Christmas, it does not look very promising. It takes no less than 4 days and 4 trains to get to Stockholm alone so we shall see.

Beautiful Ottoman style furniture from Bokja Design The photos are from this wonderful blog So Sylvie What beautiful furniture.

Elle Deco

One of my favourite pastimes is flicking through a large pile of English Elle Deco back issues, some of the other European ones are worth looking at too. Some how as I was searching for more info on Swedish textiles I found this blog, I am amazed I have not seen it before. If you like Apartment Therapy you will love this.