Blog
Christmas Cards
- Details
Christmas is almost here and the year, thankfully is almost over! Not that I’m wishing my life away but like countless others I’ll be glad to see the back of 2020. We have high hopes for you 2021 - be radiant and golden, deliver beautiful things!
Ok, I decided to make some Christmas cards this year – nothing clever or over designed, just something simple and unique with heartfelt words to accompany them. I made 36 monoprints and then added oilstick and fluorescent crayon to each one in different combinations. They were then glued to blank cards. Simple!
LIVERPOOL LOVE AFFAIR
- Details
I have just returned from Liverpool, my third visit in just over a year. The love affair continues. I find the city so inspiring . . .
Albert Dock (the Buddha on the long boat and the beautiful Pumphouse chimney)
Clouds dancing over the Mersey (to the beat! And the beat goes on . . .)
The Beatles statue, Pier Head (I could not see L8!)
The acorns in John’s hand (cast from ones that were picked up outside the Dakota building in New York)
The Three Graces (simply majestic, poetry in stone)
Baltic Fleet (ale paradise and the conversation flows too)
Rum Porter (King of Ale)
Duke Street Market (Lamb Croquettes!)
Tate Liverpool
Wassily Kandinsky’s Cossacks
L.S. Lowry’s The Pond
Mark Rothko’s Light Red Over Black
World Museum
Walker Art Gallery
Rose Wylie’s PV Windows and Floorboards
Dancing clouds over Lime Street
Woolton Village
Eleonor Rigby gravestone (Joe from Maryland says “Hello”)
Think like rice, act like a cloud at Strawberry Field
Walking the labyrinth
Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue
Dreaming beneath a blue suburban sky
Cains Brewery
Baltic Triangle murals (especially Yellow Submarine & Klopp “We are Liverpool / This means more”)
Hobo Kiosk (sadly closed but one day . . .)
Liverpool Cathedral
Tracey Emin, I Felt You And I Knew You Loved Me
Bluecoat (worth it for the posters alone, Yoko Ono 1967 especially & the little garden)
Probe Records (Wild Billy Childish & The Buff Medways - The Xfm Sessions and Michael Rother – Fernwärme cds)
Bold Street (watching the people)
The “bombed out church” (All Together Now - Christmas Truce Memorial . . . and all the little creative bombs that exploded in my mind . . .)
RECENT LOCKDOWN INSPIRATIONS
- Details
ART
Sadly, no gallery visits or exhibitions; the world has been put on ice. So I turn to books, catalogues, the Internet and local skies for inspiration.
Cy Twombly: Fifty Days at Iliam – I have treasured this book since I bought it on a London trip in October 2018. It still astonishes and ravishes with its beauty and intellect!
Cy Twombly: Lepanto – The double page spread on pages 30/31 of the twelve panels in Gagosian Gallery in New York is sublime. I don’t know how many times I have drooled over this photo!
Cy Twombly: Coronation of Sesostris – I was fortunate enough to see this exhibition at Gagosian New York in 2000 (big thanks to Joe - "It's almost religious."). I bought this book the following year. The ten panels are beyond beautiful . . .
This is my number one on a bucket list of many! It looks an extraordinary place and this site has given me much joy and uplift of mood during these frozen months - Benesse Art Site Naoshima
The clouds over the Firth of Forth and Seafield beach in particular.
My new discovery, assemblages
BOOKS
On The Road – Jack Kerouac
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
Metropolis - Philip Kerr
MUSIC
Situation – Buck 65
The Gouster – David Bowie
Is It Any Wonder? – David Bowie
Secrets Of The Beehive – David Sylvian
Like A Fire That Consumes All Before It – Eraldo Bernocchi
Mixing Colours – Roger & Brian Eno
Now This – Gary Peacock Trio
Lady In Satin – Billie Holiday
Forever Now – Psychedelic Furs
FILM/TV
Jojo Rabbit –Taika Waititi (one of the most emotionally uplifting endings I have ever seen)
The Lighthouse – Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson
Mrs Lowry & Son – Timothy Spall & Vanessa Redgrave
20th Century Women
Margot At The Wedding
20,000 Days On Earth (this must be the 6th time I’ve seen this documentary! It is so inspiring)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Of Gods And Men
Frances Ha
East Of Eden
LIKES
York
Wolfgang Flür – Summerhall (last gig before the virus)
The walk through Starbank Park and Trinity to Wardie Square
Joe in Maryland
QUOTATIONS
For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them. – Thích Nhat Hanh
Stop clinging or be dragged! – Anon
Life begins where fear ends – Osho