LOVE this blog

http://fuckyeahbooks.tumblr.com/
The really do love books! Check out the site for tons of pictures of imaginative uses of books love the above and below!

Claire Potter Design staycation @ compARTment @ the Open Market

The way claire potter design have transformed the stall in the market is awsum

YOUTH

Have been involved with PLAYGROUND magazine behind the scenes helping with the newest issue themed YOUTH (to be out the end of September). Have found a really interesting article on the subject o the New York Times website called 'What Is It About 20-Somethings' http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

Naked Girls With Masks

Found this on another blog (http://conglamorart.blogspot.com/) with the title and sub title 'Why Do We Reveal Our Faces, Yet Hide Our Bodies? asks photographer Ben Hopper in his recent project 'Naked Girls With Masks'.

hmm..... was drawn to it thinking it would actually answer that question in an interesting way, instead it has just shown me lots of faceless (very) skinny girls' bodies.
Although if you ignore the amount of ribs on show these photos are quite something

I find it weird I can see where the tub is upstairs

The things I don't like about my house make it a real house

To make it really true to life I've put them in black and white and upped the contrast (why are serious hard hitting photographs always in black and white, yes we can see the texture and yes they are beautiful but that's not how life sees. Anyway I'd rather see in sepia)

a gift of moral education

I received a very belated gift from two good friends of mine last week, a beautiful book of aesop's fables. Originally written by a story teller and a slave, an interesting mix of art and life. Some good moral reading for my journeys around Europe next week.

The Little Theatre of Dolls

Saw an ad in the Big Issue for their show /installation in London and wish I could get there (ends on 29th)
check out the tempting image in the ad and they have a beautiful explanation of themselves on their website http://www.thelittletheatreofdolls.com/
Have recently began to expand what it is that I see as art, from reading 'the blurring of art and life' it's come to make me realise it isn't about conforming to mediums or techniques, its more of an open ended exploration of the world we find ourselves in. Need to apply this to my work however!

I need to read more of this book...

'We are unable to accept rewards for being artists, because it has been sensed deeply that to be one means to live and work in isolation and pride. Now that a new haut monde is demanding of us art and more art, we fins ourselves running away or running to it, shocked and guilty either way.'
Why do I try to run away from it?

First play written by a women to be performed at the Globe

Bedlam by Nell Layshon, 5th September-1st October
http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/theatre/annualtheatreseason/bedlam/

Claire Potter Design staycation @ compARTment @ the Open Market

www.compartment.org.uk

Most depressing thing I've read today

First couple of paragraphs from a review of the Klaxons new album by Chris Cottingham in the latest Big Issue....

'Last year, the first draft of the Klaxons' second album was rejected by their record company, Polydor. In the kind of self-abashing tones more commonly associated with an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, frontman Jamie Reynold told NME: "We've made a really heavy record and it isn't the right thing for us, I understand that. First and foremost, we're a pop band. I haven't thought about that for a long time."
That's the sound of creativity and self-expression being kicked out of someone right there.'

urgh...

zine

Homesickness is missing eating breakfast with my family
SERIOUS homesickness is even missing listening to my brother eat cornflakes noisily

Through my work with compARTment I've been lucky enough to get involved with some interesting projects and above is the most recent example of that. Residing in one of our stalls currently are a photographers collective who intend to work with the local community and create documentation of the Open Market as the unique space that it is. They have begun by photographing the wide range of people who visit the market for example Klaus who works there....I at the space for a brief period on that day and it was interesting to see how the project got people talking like nothing else has done so far. Makes me think about the accessible nature of photography and how interesting it is to photograph people.
for more info about what their up to check out http://compartment.org.uk/projects/the-open-market-photographers-collective-compartment/

Fourth plinth the contenders

During my routinely browse of the arts section on the guardian website I came across the contenders for the fourth plinth. I know you I'm backing! 'Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla's piece, Untitled (ATM/Organ), is a working cash machine connected to a functioning pipe organ, which produces different sounds depending on the action the customer is performing' www.guardian.co.uk. Image below also stolen from the good old guardian website!

Really hope this one gets there. Not for any critical interest really, but because of the simple fact it is such an interesting and ridiculous idea and I love it! any excuse to draw money out. Would love to read more...
I think maybe one of the things I like about this piece is that it appealed to my non art educated self, the part of me that is interested in peoples ideas and things that you can happen upon as you go through life.

Off The Latch review by Joanne Lee

Joanne Lee's Off The Latch review is one of the review's of the month on a-n!