Banana bleeding

Been having a major clean up of the studio this week ahead of our open studio show.

Taking my new banana obsession quite far. It's my new metaphor for the importance of caring for the planet - there is only one species of banana, and once one goes, they're done for! It's like the planet - there's only one. I've been getting super interested in Fossil Free Southwark and local Greenpeace efforts - saw a brilliant film last night called Do The Math about the Divestment movement, which you can watch here: http://350.org/

anyway - catch ya later x

Thank mercy the magnolia trees have sprouteth....

Playing with dye, monprinting, tipi diagrams, painting, and the mysterious glitter frontier.

I have a show coming up at the Small White Elephant in Peckham, and also an exhibition of works in progress at my studio with fellow studio mates Hermione (http://hermionebenestillustration.tumblr.com/) and Rachael (http://rachaelpilston.co.uk/) on 24th April, so getting busy and ready for those: poster by Hermione :)

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And hats eternally off to Grandma with her most beautiful garden.

just keep swimming

Some snaps from a recently developed film of mine - just around and about; a creepy dried up tower fountain in Peckham Rye Park, view across Horniman Gardens, Sydenham and Penge, Skiing in Italy... and other ones: captioned as such!

Been a slow week: bank holiday mixed with sunny weather and perpetual rejected job applications hasn't fuelled me with 100% motivation.

Snowdrops in my window.
The pots marking the graves of our pets - Poppy, Wizz and Mango. Long may they rest!

Dom displaying his spectral qualities

Tsonga's doormat

An amazing coppiced hedgerow that my Godfather, Paul, made at our house. I helped him on the second day and he taught me how to do it and about some of the different plants that make up the hedge. Very skilled fellow.

This hut above is way up in the mountains on the French/Italian Alpine border. We went with my aunt Jane, and she was telling us of a man she knows called Bob-in-the-Woods who lives, clearly, in the woods and is a conspiracy theorist. I love the sound of this character and maybe this is his holiday home?

plans

Above is one of my sketches working towards some fabric banners - in keeping with my new resolution towards making work that is entirely portable, shrinkable and foldable. I'm going to use batik methods inspired by the African Peckham fabric shops, with vegetable and spice dyes from foods bought on Rye Lane.

I think banners are such a brilliant communication and thought mechanism; they're the stuff of activism and causes, and they are often text based, which when you're aiming for a conversation or some sort of discourse, if effective. I wanna make things that put a thought out there, and then the response (said or unsaid) is the development of the piece.

in progress - tribal town tower tunic

being totally gangster swag in my new tribal tunic

It's ironic because i'm not showering so much these days

painting detail

painting detail

printed/painted wall hanging detail

clay, glitter, paint, ink mmmmmm

making plans

some palazzo style pants i made ages ago from old sheets and dyed - but i like these photobooth photos - they look glitchy and wierd

baobab tree and it's small friend

greenery - in black. therefore: blackery

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Bathtime is the most imaginative time of day.

Water seems to provoke imagination at any time, in any place: rockpools, rivers, dams, oceans, lakes, puddles, waterfalls…

But when you are submerged in it, it seems especially magical.

Kids’ bathtimes (I only know this because I’m a nanny, not a soppy mommy-blogger) are pleasant for everyone; they’re usually happy cos you’ve just eaten tea, and because they’re in one place their imagination seems to work overtime to think up crazy adventures and sceneries in the watery playland that represents places far away. Everything in the bath moves at a gentle pace, placid and quietly responsive if it meets an obstacle. Imagine if our streets were like our baths.

Actually, this is the same for any person’s bathtime. You are observing what is right in front of you, and I don’t mean this in terms of the body (this is not a body project). You are consciously feeling and seeing the water and the room/place and the air that immediately surrounds you; the temperature, the mass, the movement. This is so rare throughout the rest of your day. In the bath you feel able to observe and survey, and also to reflect on that, and extend your mind into imagination. It’s like being in very calm control of your own imaginative kingdom. It’s therapeutic of course, but also productive.

Bathtime is a perfect tool to slow us down and make us observe and reflect, and to then make new decisions.

Bathing is historically a communal and sociable pastime. This isn’t so much the case now, but I would suggest that bathtime is still social, because it provides this time for reflective behaviour, which when understood can be helpful for socially (and others sort of..) cooperative behaviour.

So I might do a bath / water based piece of artwork. I'm thinking black glittery bathwater... But it can't waste water cos that would be hypocritical.

I'll just have to have a bath in some glitter and paint.