Service Wash

me and rp got ourselves organised long enough to enter something into the 

urban commons ideas competition earlier this month…i'm glad we did because:

a. it's a strong jury so we'd be stoked to be one of the 8 selected winners
b. i've been trying for a long time to find an angle for my launderette fetish

fingers crossed.

Black, and white

How have I never heard of Marlene Dumas before? That’s all I could think as I walked around a retrospective of the artist’s work at the Tate Modern earlier this week. The large paintings were good, equally moving and horrifying in their watery depictions of the human form, but the small black ink drawings were all I needed to see, I loved them.

Black Drawings – 111 drawings on heavy heavy paper (some of the sheets apparently drenched in ink and water) and ‘1 piece of slate’ –  got the fullest burnishing from my eyeballs which acknowledged the collective assembly for some time before moving over every item in turn (including that flat lightless stone) then pulled back taking them in as a whole again. Dense faces, ghostly faces, 111 faces, all in the same medium but no two showing the same tone or expression; a remarkable set of drawings.

Of course it’s the wrong way around to suggest a major artist reminds you of your own work (modesty lock is in position) but I was jolted back to my days as a confused art student in Leeds when I covered my desk in inky scribbles on found bits of scrappy paper. At some point I collated these and pinned them to the wall, a way of formalising the output I suppose but it never moved forward much from there. I never recorded them as they were taped to the wall, but some time later I photographed the pieces individually, like little slips of evidence….

I only wish I’d been alerted to Black Drawings; the subtle questioning, the manner and the form might’ve pushed my focus a bit.

Je suis architecte

Working late again...but at least it looks like the real deal...

Slowly, slowly

After months of this:

And weeks of this:

I finally have this:

pettibon

My plant stall debuted on Chatsworth Road Market today!

'i'm criticising this chair by the way that i'm sitting on it'

...thumbs up AA Night School yesterday evening

Making Collections

a wholesome bank holiday weekend down in Cornwall at the invitation of TRP.

high tide

low tide

Observing the creek, going on walks and making collections...

Doodle Plug

Reminded myself how to wire a plug.
Drew some circles.

Scratch

I did some etching today

Cloggin'

what a start to the year...
..received an email this morning from NYC based architecture fanzine CLOG that my submission for CLOG : Brutalism has been accepted. Good times...looking forward to seeing the finished issue; should be some good stuff in there.

I submitted a short piece of text and a couple of images of the Moorfields Highwalk captured using a pinhole camera I made... here's one of the set of prints that I didn't submit:

..and a few of the negatives...

I set out to take images that would capture the derelict and slightly melancholy atmosphere of the site...I had no idea it would be demolished just a few short months later
- they definitely make me sad to look at now...