14 parakeets

There were about 14 parakeets flitting around this tree today. It blew my mind.

Tiny Council

These aren't the best pictures, but I love Evol's stenciled estates by Farringdon. Right down to the tiny graffiti and the fact that people have started to use the space between them as a bin.

South East 17 - Stay Another Day

South East 17 - Stay Another Day from Laurie Innes on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas.

Read a Poem

Read a poem advising me to practice losing things.


I started with my watch (shoved it good and proper down the back of my bed), moved onto the lighter for the cooker (put that sucker somewhere safe), my black and white scarf (I left in a pub), an umberella (in a shop), a telephone number (was kept in my lost phone left on a bus on the way to a meeting held at the 'Seven Wounds of Jesus') and finally I let some friends drift away.

Now I must go, and this blog will lose me in its own efficient way. I will be superseded by a new thought, a picture, a creative work. My writings will shift down and off the page in a day and into the archive where they will remain buried, everything must change.

Welcome guest blogger Luke Warren

Welcome guest blogger Luke Warren. A few days after he's started... A writer and animator you can see more of his work here and read more here.

ARC and a hippo

To entertain myself in the grey days in Berlin I went to the zoo with Dorothee last weekend, the hippo was not so amuzed, and therefore we got to see his giant teeth! massive. So that was a good day. Apart from that I have been meaning to tell you about the journey I made to Paris two weeks ago, but that has to wait a little bit as I am too tired tonight. But! what I really wanted to share is that Joachim, Timo and Toni finally have their webpage together, hurray, so for a trio of fine Leipzig/Berlin based graphic designers have a look here.
And hello Luke!

Under-the-ground commuter

I'm a commuter.

I move in step with the person in front of me.

I walk up the stairs bending my leg when I see the person in front of me bend theirs. I take their cue to lift my trousered leg up. I am a commuter. The people I touch I will never see again, women in all their beauty stand within a hair's breadth and I look through them, they are ghosts like me. We are not here but stowed away somewhere in our thoughts.

Reality does not help here under the ground.

I have a mask that fits the bill and does the job of covering my scream. It is flat and its polythene expression has a flat seam that rubs on the inside of my emotions like a badly made shoe.

I am searching for distraction, filled with the need to consume, like a gumball machine I have been twisted and I spit out treats to those who love me and I love.

I have a soul but it is within four walls in croydon kept there by crayfish guards that will not let you pass unless you have my permission or they are bribed by gold fish food. Can muslims eat crayfish? the chat rooms are full of rumor and I cant find a definitive answer. Well these crayfish are ten foot tall and have golden claws. They are a national treasure and eating them would be a crime because they are a national treasure and will not let me down.

So why do I hide my soul? Because of the danger of exposure to the world of course, because of the last time.

She didn't doubt I loved her it was not about love it was about compatibility it was about: cornish pasties and corned beef, salad cream and tomato sauce, socks and iceburg lettuces, fantasy novels and TV; verses: skin, smell, looks, sweat, the way I gripped the sheets, the hand, the hair, the eyes, the eye, the humor, the warmth the company the laughter and the forgetting.

Pulled in different directions at equal force and in the end … well I am a commuter now parting ways with everyone at every stop.

I like this world it is close but has no meaning the contact with others is unmeant and unmet. A biological father gets on with his biological son, going to private school, his back is straight and his son is to young to realize but he mimics his dad, long live the sharp elbowed middle class. Slowly moving towards their death in an orderly fashion, moving in step with the person in front.

What would happen if saving the planet from environmental disaster replaced football?

All those crowds cheering for solutions, the airplay and debates about strategies and mistakes.

The Wags all being papped as their men build self sustaining environments, get drunk, have tattoos and sleep with other women.

The difficult conversations in pubs about; penalties and fouls, sending offs, the type of shoes their team should have used to create an ergonomic cityscape which would decrease traffic congestion.

And on the national stage who would the manager choose to be worthy to play against the greats like brazil with their strong reforestation play, or china with its notoriously weak defense when it comes to coal emissions.

misunderstood physiotherapist

Proselytizing, she was proselytizing about my knees.

She stood there her hair athunder, her glasses crooked with passion.

I was taken aback to hear such words spoken about my knees. The disciple bent and admitted her mistakes begging for forgiveness.

I rose in fear and obeyed her instructions. Answered questions honestly. Gave secret information freely.

She stripped my knees down to their bone, muscle and sinew, reaching their very soul, their very being.

Then she asked me to stand with my heel on the edge of a tiny piece of paper and the pain vanished.

I left with just one question. Could Jesus, Moses and all the Hindu gods have been misunderstood physiotherapists?

The Giving Tree

Just rediscovered this story and the original animation. here.

Echolalia

I saw this series and was really awestruck. I had to share. Timothy Archibald collaborated on these photos with his son who has autism spectrum disorder.

They are so ethereal and quiet... they seem to prick the surface of the feel of autism and childhood. Have a look at the rest of the series.

Guerilla Gardening

Check out Becca's lovely mural for the gardeners that are taking over the Heygate Estate gardens and using them in a brilliant DIY community project. This week a full feature of the project and the future of the estate can be seen in London's TimeOut. When something so positive can be born out of a near derelict estate, it is a wonder that Southwark council is trying to ban the 'illegal gardening' and claims that the site is too dangerous for the public to be in ( - and they did not mean the safety of buildings structure). I once met two councillors from Southwark and their views on how they see the Elephant and Castle development going were frighteningly sterile, with Starbucks and high end flats, turning the Elephant into just another boring, homogenous part of the city. Jeez. So it is great to see creativity and common sense giving the council two (green) fingers. Visit the Elephant and Castle Urban Forest website to see how you can get involved.

What Is A Peacock? from Laurie Innes on Vimeo.

The Whiff of Britain and other things

Ta da! You can now see the illustrations I have created for Space NK's new fragrance line - Beautannia.
This has been one of my favourite commissions, and it was a pleasure to work with the lovely lovely Jenny Dyson and her team at Pencil HQ. The idea of the brief was to immerse my eyes in British fashion and culture, using the names of the new fragrances as starting points - Bloomsbury, Brideshead and Balfour. Having just read a Bloomsbury-ites biography and been thrilled at the stories, and then beginning to acquaint myself with Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh's letters to each other, I was naturally overjoyed at the images I could draw from, oh the clothes! oh the facial hair! oh oh oh! After collapsing in a taffeta overload and quickly reminded that we didn't live in the 20s anymore, my sketches evolved to looking at modern fashion designers and the shapes and references that were being used on this seasons catwalks. Subtle lifestyle pointers were added to enhance the characters stories and suggest the type of person that embodies the new quintessential British fragrances. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of creating the fictional couples, who had to feel like more than a drawing and reflect the product, I felt like a cross between a stylist with an un-ending closet and a mini-god - most gratifying!
Also my website has been updated with the projects I have been working on since May...maybe you would like to have a look?

Turner Monet Twombly

I'm back now at last after 2 months on and off in Stockholm. I had the very good luck to catch the opening of the Turner Monet Twombly show at Moderna Museet. It was quite remarkable to see their work arranged side by side... the similarities and evolution were really striking. I also had the luck of coming just after a big guided tour moved on from Twombly's The Four Seasons, and I could spend a good old time with them. They're so powerful all together and with a bit of space around. I wish I could have them in a big ol room all to myself. There's so much in there.

Jesper Waldersten

Hej there, I just had a look at Jesper Walderstens one drawing a day for 365 days project and I thought many of them looked pretty damn good, what do you think? Otherwise I am preparing for the big trip to Paris, it's only really a week, but I have a list of museums and libraries that I hope to visit for this project I'm working on, I'm heading there on Sunday and it should be a lot of fun

Wolves

Now I am relatively un-busy I have been trying to keep in a routine, right now I am in bed but I am sorting out admin and collecting things to blog about. Does that count as a good working practice? Anyway I found this and I loved it, specially since I have had to be part of the Londoners commute for a month or so. It was exciting at first and I strode purposefully through stragglers and tourists, Carly Simon's 'Let the River Run' giving meaning to my mornings. Then I realised I was becoming someone else, someone I didn't particularly like, who was impatient, rude and had no time for other travellers. Technically I didn't, because my time keeping is not impeccable, but still I remember that before I would treasure my little knowledge of the big city and feel genuinely chuffed when someone did ask me. Living in London, I thought, was like when you learn the traffic light system of the Glasgow Charring Cross motorway crossing - when you figure it out, for a moment you are master of the city. 
I began to wonder why I was so cross and grouchy, making snide comments to people who were lost or stood in MY way! Shocking! I like to think it is a combination of the unbearable heat on the underground and the people in suits, who cram themselves into the carriages - folding themselves up before adding themselves to the mass of grey and ties, edging towards opening doors and jockeying for the front position. Their mindset is infectious, you start to hear what they can hear in their heads - 'surely I am the most important person, with important things to do and no time for dilly-dallying, not for one second.' This is when it struck me. I am a Londoner now.

ah, bonaparte

also,
I think right now Bonaparte is perfect, for this sunday night.
for example here
and these lyrics seem like the ideas to keep in mind whilst working.
ah or here
so, I just thought I'd share that.

exhibitions, school and stuff in general

I went to see two exhibitions last week, Taryn Simon at Neue Nationalgalerie and then the Prize for young artists from the Nationalgallery at Hamburger Bahnhof, a prize of 50 000 Euros..which I think, is a rather good prize sum to get..They were preparing for the prize cermony when we were there and now it made me happy to read that French artist Cyprien Gaillard had won it from the four nominees, I could have watched his film "Artefacts" filmed in Iraq over and over again for quite some time, with it's slow movements, colors, scenaries and the music set to it it had a kind of hypnotic feeling that at least worked very well on me. The film will be on until 8th of January so if in Berlin don't miss out on it. For samples of his other work have a look here or here for information about the exhibition. One of the number of the interview magazin mono kultur was also about him recently so have a look at that. I guess he is everywhere right now, good on him, the film is great!
Then the Taryn Simon exhibition, so beautifully presented, perfected and designed that one almost wish someone would draw on the boxes with charcoal or spraypaint them golden or something because it is perfection almost at the limit, a friend called it "An American Blockbuster of an exhibition". So be it but the topic, the immense amount of research, the travels, the questions raised through this exhibition are all very interesting and well, very professionally presented and actually breathtaking. I also really enjoyed her work at the Venice Biennale and think her combination of art, politics and documentary are bringing shadowy topics into light in a way that maybe is best done through such clear, objective presentation and texts. I missed her talk in Berlin on Thursday, which is a shame but instead I went to Leipzig to see the Meisterschüler presentations of students at the HGB Leipzig where I am studying for my Meistershüler too, I kind off wanted to see what I could expect of this procedure where the students prepare an exhibition, hang it and stand infront of their work talking/defending it for a group of professors and fellow students since I will be doing just that next year at this time if all goes well. I really liked the work of Sebastian Speckmann, image above, have a little look here for his stunning linocuts, I must admit that my knowledge about linocuts is about zero but what he creates with his dimly lit interiors and shady greys I think is pretty amazing.
Now Im back in Berlin and have a week of work infront of me which feels very good, but first it's sunday night and doing nothing time.

Hitchcock and Design

A couple of weeks ago I had a days studio work at It's Nice That, it was great to get to work in a lovely studio and a lunchtime picnic was involved. So I was very happy. The reason for this was to create spot illustrations for their publication for London Design Festival. (I realise I am a bit late with these). The image above is a sculpture of Hitchcock that resides in Islington where he used to have studios but is now a private garden, I had NO IDEA this existed but it looks AMAZING. Who wants to go with me to see it for real?

Research

At the moment I am busybusy but I don't really have anything to show for it yet, other than a sore shoulder and strained eyes. I am super excited about the projects I am working on, especially the Pencil Agency commissions. As a taster I thought you might like to warm your eyes on these beauties I have been hoarding as research.

  

Hokusai and Berlin

Back in Berlin, no more summer holiday, no more cows outside the window and mushrooms in the forest, no more lazy warm evenings on the porch.. but enough of that! Here in Berlin we went to see the Hokusai exhibition that is now taking place at the Martin- Gropius Bau until the 24th of October and it is really an amazing exhibition! With japanese woodcuts and many of the books made by Hokusai with pages full of drawings explaining how to draw clouds, people dancing, funny faces, magic tricks such as evaporating or growing long arms or blowing out smoke in the shape of a horse, the books are incredible. And the prints still have such beautiful colors, pink and greens and blues. We stayed in the exhibition for three hours and I wish I could zap you Plats people over here to see it because I know you would love it too!! The buildings, the trees, mountains and sea, just perfect. So that was a lot of fun and I would love to be able to flick through one of the many comic books he illustrated, so detailed, oh wow. Exciting!
Apart from that I have been busy in the studio working on new images, I have discovered some beautiful rooms on one of the empty floors in the building and it's brilliant to be there and make photographs. I can't believe how lucky I have been to find this house to work in, it feels like a true treasure box to me..So that's what I will be doing next week too, and the next.
but the Hokusai exhibition..I really wish you could see it!

Walking sculptures

I've only just discovered Theo Jansen and his incredible strandbeests. (You can watch them move here.) They're designed to walk along the beaches of Holland and move the sand around. Watching them move is somehow quite overwhelming in the intricacies of the movement that make them seem so completely alive. He gave a Ted talk a while back, so if you're as amazed as I am you can see even more here:

Back from Stockholm

I'm back now from a few weeks away running around Sweden and Stockholm. Hence the silence. I have eaten many delicious shrimp and fish and swum many many times. I also saw some really good art shows and am now rejuvenated and inspired. I finally made it to the newly renovated Färgfabriken in Stockholm and enjoyed an almost completely unpopulated gallery of industrial interventionist artworks.



Including, Daniel Knorr's installation 'Natural Cultural.' Luke made a wee animation of walking through it which does it more justice than this photograph... but ach well. The bright industrial hall is filled with row after row of pillars, with the number of pillars doubling each time, until you reach the end and can just barely cram between them to look back. It's very surreal and exciting in its simplicity. At first I didn't even understand which bit was the intervention, it's so cleanly applied and I was ever so slightly dense. It makes sense from most directions, but it's really through moving through it that you really experience the continual surprises of something relatively straightforward.



I'll be going back and forth to Stockholm more often now that I'm starting to study... So I intend to keep up with posting about things there.

HHMI illustration

Illustration for Howard Hughes Medical Institute. August Bulletin - 'The Goldilocks of Cells - Too much or too little cell death can lead to disease. Scientist's are learning how to find the range that's just right.'

A holiday!!

Finally a break, goodbye work, goodbye riots, goodbye London. I'm off to see Nadja in the forest and to swim in lakes. Phew.

Today 08/08/11

THIS NOW

THIS NOW TOO

THIS NOW TOO TOO

THIS NOW TOO TOO TOO

THIS NOW TOO TOO TOO TOO

Sneaky update

Hats in the secret Garden

Sophia and I made some hats with fellow festivalgoers this year at the secret garden party. It

was fun

British Council A.D.F paper

PLATS was invited to be featured and interviewed for the British Council July issue of their Architecture, Design and Fashion paper. Of course we jumped at the chance! It is an amazing opportunity for us to get our name and work out onto the international design platform and I am really proud of the recognition of PLATS and your wonderful talents. Let's all give ourselves a little pat on the back and take the chance to feel a little smug!

Readymade Magazine

I made this image for a magazine that promptly closed the day after I handed in the final compositions. I don't think it was my fault.

M&S Ecclesall Road

I finally managed to get hold of photographs from the M&S eco-friendly Sheffield store at Ecclesall Road to show you all. I was most excited about the process of printing that GTF decided upon, unlike other M&S stores, the illustrations were printed onto wood panelling. I am so impressed with the detail you can see, the combination of inks and wood grain is super super sexy! (At least I think so.) I think I could make great tables with the off-cuts.

RIP Lucien Freud

People like us and summer break

If I lived in London, I know exactly what I would do,
I would go to see People like us, Vicky Bennett, here:
Preview Event: Thursday 28 July 2011. 6‐10pm. Shortwave Cinema, Bermondsey Square. FREE.
A collection of short films by Vicki Bennett/People Like Us ‐ including Excerpts from "Genre Collage" ‐ will be screened on loop throughout the evening, with an introduction by the artist at 7pm. There will also be musical accompaniment provided by Osymyso and Mainwaring & Jurgensen in the bar.

And I would also already buy tickets for her show "Sound Of Fear" on 3rd of September at London's Southbank Centre.
But sadly I do not live in London, but the rest of you do! Hurray for you! So, I would really very much recommend this.

I am also taking an internet break now, I will be on holiday from next week until the end of August and hopefully only very rarely see a computer and instead read books, swim and hang out in the forest.
So, I wish you guys a nice few summer weeks with plenty of sun and swimming and I'll write when im back again, ciao!

PLATS at Secret Garden Party

Katherine painting a lovely tee shirt for our workshop at the Secret Garden Party next Thursday. We are teaming up with All We Need to produce headgear and such for a day of their gaming. Then we will see Blondie. Hot dog.

Bird Heads and Harmoniums

Working on a wee video spot and found the brilliance of a found harmonium and then the Penguin Cafe Orchestra with this cover art gem.

Cy Twombly RIP

Funkhaus Berlin- open studios

Tomorrow, Thursday the 30th of June, 18-22, there is a summer party, two exhibitions and the presentation of the "Funkhaus Artprize" in the place where I have my studio. There are also open studios so I will keep mine open too. So if you happen to find yourself in Berlin tomorrow evening then come by, although it is a bit far out it is a very special place well worth a visit! So come by if you can, my studio is on the fourth floor in the giant tower. More info here.

Booty Sale!

The Art Car Boot Sale is Sunday... Five Dials is running a wee booty something and their illustrators (like Emily and I) are going by to do some drawing and artistic tailgating.

forgot...

I also forgot to mention that Jockum Nordström has an exhibition in Stockholm now, and as the fan of his that I am I would recomend all and everyone to go. And for those like myself that can't then atleast to look at the page of the gallery: http://www.gallerimagnuskarlsson.com/
ok. byebye

Venice Biennale 2011

So, I just got back from Venice and the cirkus known as the Biennale. Full of people, sounds, colours, sunshine and orange Aperol drinks. Not quite sure where to start telling about this adventure. At the beginning? We went to Venice because our friend Timo Grimmberg has designed a book called the "Romanian cultural resulution" that just recently got published by Hatje Cantz. The book is a sort of update on contemporary Romanian art and the starting point for it was made by CCP, Club Electro Putere, an artspace in Craoiva in Romania. We went to visit it last year to spend some time with Adrian Bojenoiu and Alexandru Niculescu, and now again to celebrate with them their space at the Venice Biennale, which is located on Nova Strada bang smack in the middle of Venice. So congratulations to them all as the book looks great! That was what brought about the idea to go to Venice, and the opening was the night that we arrived after a long, long trainjourney. The days afterwards we spent trying to see as much as possible, queing in lines and looking at all the others doing the same. Everyone trying to gather as many free bags from the pavillions as possible, getting the free champagne , being styled from head to toe and always trying to find out where the next party was. I had been in Venice once before to see the Biennale but that was end of the summer and the Giardini was almost empty, a much nicer way trying to actually see the art then now in this mess. So if I am going back then definitely when things are calmer. A few things managed to break through the barrier and for me stand out in all the chaos. The first favorite being Christian Marclay, here and here, and his video piece, "The clock", a 24 hour long film working as an accurate clock put together by filmclips constantly showing or commenting upon time, this piece was such a beauty and it was wonderful to sit down in the sofas and relax in the dark looking at the film and time go by. What an incredible amount of work! And the thing is that it was constantly interesting to watch because it was so beautifully cut and always held the tension, I thought this was absolutely brilliant.
The second favourite of my list is Denmark. Whereas the Swedish pavillion unfortunately to me seamed, I don't want to say it but..rather boring, the danish pavillion was full of life and questions of relevance. It was called Speech Matters, here, and offered plenty of opportunities to research yourself and interact with the pieces, looking at different samples and reading about the interesting work of american photographer Tary Simon and the funny and uncomfortable video piece by Han Hoogerbrugge and his three faced man. The Danes also managed to make the nicest party, atleast for us as we took the ferry out to the island San Servolo were they had placed a little bar on a float called Osloo, we danced there all night until our shoes looked like on the image and then walked for an hour trying to find the way home to our hostel that was up in the north in the old ghetto. A great place to stay since it was not so full of other tourists and seemed a lot calmer and maybe possibly as if some people actually lived there. We stayed there with friends from Bremen who were in Venice to launch there book "Look at me", although I missed the actual performance which was on a boat and a bit confusing as to which of the overfull vaporetto's it was going to be on, I hope to have a look at the book which deals with Celebrity culture at the Venice Biennale, something there was actually more of then art. The big curated show Illuminazioni, with 83 artists, I thought was a bit hard to follow, or, I didn't see the thread, I thought many of the rooms did not work with the pieces and I did not quite understand the selection. There were some things that stuck, like the small collages of Cyprien Gaillard, who recently did a pyramide made up of beerbottles in KW in Berlin, inviting the audience to come in, climb it and drink it. I also liked the 5000 stuffed pidgeons which were decorating the Giardini rooms by Maurizio Cattelan and ofcourse the massive wax sculptures by Urs Fischer slowly burning up. But I don't understand the selection, and there was so little information for each artist or piece available, only a short birthdate and lives and works, which was mainly in Berlin for some reason. I think a lot of the pieces would have been more approachable if there would have been some more information about them, now they were just stood there next to each other in one room after the other.
Of the big pavillions Denmark comes first for me, but I did also really like Germany and it's dark installation of Christoph Schlingensief "Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir" stepping in from the sunshine into this dark and slightly smelly pavillion, turned dark church, worked very well and we ended up staying for a long time in the universe created by the films shown in this setting. Walking around Venice one afternoon later I came across this church, not sure if you can see it on the small image but there is a beautiful skull above the door and coloured lamps swinging infront of it. The British pavillion I went to see on the last day, there had been a one and a half hour queue infront of it for most of the time and people running int to see it at ten o'clock in the morning, it was artist Mike Nelson and the whole pavillion had been rebuilt over a period of three months into a labyrinthic space looking like the backrooms and courtyards in Istanbul, you had to search your way through it and came upon diffrent dark spaces, it seemed like a whole world in there, with a darkroom wih black and white photographs hanging to dry and dust covering everything, it was probably great fun to build but I don't quite see the point of it, and once again the British idea of Health and Safety stunned me, we got told at the door to please explore but be careful and mind the gaps and your head and bla bla bla. So that kind of took the excitment away.. I also liked the Israeli pavillion and the work of Sigalit Landau's, One man's floor is another man's feelings. Read about her here, I thought her work provided a careful and poetic insight into the drawing of borders and the passing of time, this was one pavillion were I wished I would have had some more peace and time to look at it, but all the people made it hard to focus. And something that irritates me incredibly was that I missed out on the polish pavillion, everytime we came there there seemed to be such a long queue and in the end I missed it. But please read about it here as it seams to have stirred up a lot of feelings in Poland and it sounds very interesting. There were a lot of off spaces aswell, I don't even know how many and I don't think we managed to see all of them, not sure if that is possible at all, you would have to run around like an art-out zombie to manage that. But we found one, thanks to Devon based artist Mat Chivers that we met late at night between parties on a square. He is participating in an exhibition called "The Knowledge" in the Gervasuti Foundation curated by James Putnam. The exhibition was crammed into a small darkspace but somehow that suited the works and apart from Chivers work I also liked the machine of opening and closing drawers with dangling keys by Nancy Fouts. And then Sophia, you wanted to hear about Karla Black, and I did go to see it! Ofcourse, having lived in Scotland and all. But I am not too sure what to say about it, I kind of like her work usually but this time it was very hard to take it in because I was overwhelmed and nauseated by the smell of Lush soap, that built up many of the sculptures, stinging in my nose and the rooms must have been 30 degrees warm..this together with art fatigue is maybe not the best way for forming an opinion so..well, have a look for yourself, here. I think that is it, maybe that is all I have to write about the Biennale. I can also write that after almost a week in Venice and many Aperol Spritz and late nights and boat rides (which made me rock from side to side even in my sleep)it was definitely time to leave. But me and Joachim went to see the cementry island, which is beatiful with all it's graves on top of each other like blocks of flats, the images on them with all the laughing or serious faces of the now dead also somehow appeal to me, especially those ones that had been there for a long time where the photograph was almost gone. Like this one which now just holds an echo of it's former function. I also many times wished that I could draw because all the boats on the Grande Canal are amazing and I think they would be much more brilliant as drawings then photographs, what a traffic! We spent an afternoon very tired lying next to a vaporetto station at one end of Venice were all the big/small boats and massive ferries were passing and it was incredible to see all these ships driving around like busy bees. Then it was leaving time and two friends from Buero Total in Leipzig had rented a car so we went with them to Trieste, a city north of Venice and it was beautiful to come to a "real" city after the fantasy land that is Venice, instead of crossing canals we now spent two days walking up and down the hills of Trieste, I'd love to go back there again, seemed like such a great place and was perfect after all this art, or im not even sure if it was that much the art that was overwhelming or rather all the people everywhere, having to stand in line to cross a bridge sometimes and being packed on to Vaporettos travelling down the Grand Canal. I liked walking around in Venice though, at the upper north and the south were it seemed like people maybe lived, but I suppose it is better to do that at another time of the year too. But it was exciting to see this whole massive old machine that is the Biennale Opening. Worst of all was the Italian pavillion, I have no idea what they had been thinking, everything just thrown in, artist on top of artist like a massive jumble sale where it was impossible to look at one thing without being overcrowded by the next. At the entrance of it a naked Eve in a high chair and opposite her a sort of Adam I guess, needless to say all the big black cameras of the press were focus on Eve's wellshaped boobies. tja..I suppose that to is art. After Trieste we spent another 23 hours travelling and now we are finally home, home to studio and focus and work. Which feels very good. I end with an image from the fishmarket near Rialto, that is a beautiful place. And from there one can take a gondol taxi to the other side for 50 cent, which seems a more reasonable prize then the 80 euros for 40 minutes that it otherwise costs..haha. ok, I will post this now and I hope there are not too many spelling mistakes and confusing statements. bye bye.

Fashion. Turn to the left

I highly recommend perusing Alexey Brodovitch's portfolio of work, especially his covers for Harper's Bazaar. Here he creates beautiful abstract shapes, graphic patterns from interesting crops and compositions that are to die for.