He don't hang around with the gang no more

Looking back at some dead world that looks so new

some sketchbook pages

xx

The electric feeling

This week at college we've been doing illustration, which was probably my favourite (and last) topic! We were given a brief with five questions/prompts on it, one of which we had to choose and illustrate. I (and most people) chose Explain out of body experiences. I found a really interesting website by the Out Of Body Experience Research Foundation , which contained loads of testimonials from people who claim to have had out of body experiences. Some were cheesy, some were baffling, but regardless of whether they were "genuine" or whatever, I found them poetic and many provided some interesting imagery.  Here are a few examples of my intial ideas, which culminated in a series of four posters and a little zine.

This is actually a quote from an interview with Roger McGough, about a kind of false/altered memory he has.

Nice scanning skillz

This is just a little taster, as scanning and editing is laborious!
I hope your week has been as fun as mine :) xx

I'll tax your feet

Here's a few pictures of my day. I've spent most of it listening to the Beatles and playing with a new app (well, new to me) that takes kaleidoscopic, prism-like photos, whilst making this lovely twinkley sound. It's really trippy and addictive. And then I made a little study/ studio area in my room with this beautiful wooden school desk that my Dad made about 30 years ago. I've also been churning out the continuous line drawings, drawing my face by feeling it, with my eyes closed. It all sounds a bit silly but I really like the results, especially my very first portrait (second pic) which has a kind of sad presence.

And now I think I'll go watch some Derren Brown.

 

When I'm in the middle of a dream, stay in bed, float upstream.... 

 

 

Party Piece

  He said:
'Let's stay here
Now this place has emptied
& make gentle pornography with one another,
While the partygoers go out
& the dawn creeps in,
Like a stranger.

Let us not hesitate
Over what we know
Or over how cold this place has become,
But let's unclip our minds
And let tumble free
The mad, mangled crocodiles of love.'

So they did,
Right there among the woodbines and guinness stains,
And later he caught a bus and she a train
And all there was between them then
was rain.

He pulled the mirrors off his cadillac,

cause he doesn't like it looking like he looks back

Tame Impala Elephant

Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, Blue Jay Way

photo by Ira Cohen

Well I had a lovely day today. I picked up the latest issue of Oh Comely, found an interesting book by A. Alvarez about suicide, and got some new film for my camera. I took a walk around where I live, without direction, purposefully disorientating myself. Sunflowers, stone, white on grey, windows and volkswagens, directions, accents, lingering shadows, keep the engine running, missed opportunities, lips parted, unusual quiet, head against the pane, breeze on my cheeks.
This week I have been on a magical mystery tour of the wonderful world of psychedelia. Seeing the afformentioned Beatles film was a revelation! It was brilliant. I loved the freedom of the camera, the prism-like distortions, the projections and layering. My favourite scenes were probably when they actually performed songs, particularly George Harrison's Blue Jay Way, which was enchanting. I'm also listening to Tame Impala's album Lonerism , which is pretty Beatles-esque in parts. The video for Elephant is probably the best music video I have ever seen. I usually find music videos quite tiresome, I'd rather just listen to the song, but the video for Elephant, directed by Yoshi Sodeoka is so visually arresting, I can barely look away. There are loads of comments beneath it on Youtube about how it is/would be great/scary/trippy to watch whilst high, but I think it works perfectly well instead of drugs, experiencing it sober seems powerful enough to me.
Perhaps my eyes need a rest. At college we've been doing life drawing all week, which was amazing and tiring. I think it's true what they say about how drawing teaches you to look differently, properly, critically. I catch myself paying much more attention to forms and volumes and negative space. I was sat on the bus the other day, daydreaming and looking at the soft curve at the elbow of some stranger, imagining how I would draw it. I could almost feel the shape. It was strange. Unexpected, but welcome.

x 

Elephant

Baby can you see through the tears?

 

I'd never really understood why people kept cacti. As a child, they seemed like the sort of plant that I would only ever encounter dust-covered and cobwebbed on shelves, in the musty sitting rooms of old ladies you were obliged to visit with your mum. Bobbly curtains, saccharine lemonade in yellow glasses,  ancient murray mints. But now I totally get it, they're beautiful! I especially love the flowers, the juxtaposition of silken petals and bristly pines and the rings of blooms like crowns. They look strangely succulent, sumptuous, almost. I think I'll go do some cacti drawings now! 

The next week of my art foundation course will be focused on textiles, specifically screen-printing, which we need to prepare drawings for. Wouldn't a cactus print be amazing?! 

Speaking of art foundation, I've been horribly busy lately, so sorry if I promised you a zine that hasn't arrived! I've pretty much scrapped issue three of Grin and Bear it, as I'm considering taking it in a new direction...

Today I've been listening to the song below non-stop, I love it. It's making me want to go out dancing...but in a sultry, slow motion kind of movie-way. Does that make sense? It does in my head.  I will love you till the end of time. I would wait a million years. Promise you'll remember that you're mine, baby cam you see through the tears?

Journey

Here's a small selection of artwork I've been doing for college, which started today!
I've begun looking at migration, immigration and starling murmurations and have done some drawings/experiments but want to move on to maybe using sound or installation. Anyway I won't say much about it till it's finished, I'm not particularly bothered if anyone's interested or not, it's just helpful to write about it.

Migrations

Getting quite excited about my college project now!

Most of us need the eggs

I made some tissue paper pom poms! I'm going to decorate my flat with loads of them.
I also bought Annie Hall on DVD, which is great.
Anyway I'm going to go make some cakes now... I'm in no mood to do anything but eat cake...and maybe decoupage something.

BE the football captain

I just checked my emails and found I had a newsletter from Dazed Digital about their Meadham Kirchhoff take-over! yay!

Today they've posted their youtube playlists and a bit about why they like them etc. I've only watched the first on so far, but it was so good that I had to share it!

I really liked it when she said "Do not hurt yourself, destroy yourself, mangle yourself to get the football captain. Be the football captain. That's it, it's that simple." This kinda reminded me the part in Whip It when Bliss tells the Roller Derby team that they are her heroes, and they tell her to "be your own hero". I think that's a really good motto, or mantra, or whatever you want to call it.
There's been a lot of talk about role models during the olympics, and while you should be inspired by other people, learn from them and look up to them, I think that ultimately you shouldn't idolize people. You should be your own role model.
Anyway, I'm going to watch the rest of the videos, which can be found here.
xxx

raindrops in my eyes

King of Rome

I just heard this recording of the King of Rome performed by The Unthanks at the Folk Awards. It's so beautiful. I don't really know what to say other than you have to watch it.



In the west end of Derby lives a working man,
He says "I can't fly but me pigeons can,
And when I set them free
It's just like part of me
Gets lifted up on shining wings"

Never fear, Carlton Banks is here!

hahahaha

Sweet Shine

I'm home! And what was waiting for me on the doormat when I returned? Only a shiny new metallic fringe decoration-thingy! For the moment I have hung it up in a window where it glimmers softly in the afternoon sun, reflecting pools of gold onto the walls. Obviously that doesn't really come through in these photographs, but it's beautiful.

Both from my instagram, username: annabel92

I might do a post soon on my holiday, but for now I shall relax.

Oh and WOOO GO ANDY MURRAY!!!!

Leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again...

I'm off on my holidays now! As nelson would say, smell ya later! Xxx

You are here

oh.

ch ch ch changes

Hey guys, as you can see, I've made some changes to my layout. I was just wondering if the new look makes it harder to read the text? (Not including this highlighted text) If so, just comment and I'll change it back! x

peace, man

Suck my left one

Negative Creep from grinandbearitzine on 8tracks.

Had I the heavens embroidered cloth

This is probably the most amazing art work I have ever encountered. I wish I'd heard of it sooner so I could have actually gone and experienced it.

Peace Camp 2012, part of the London Festival, comprises a gathering of tents situated at various coastal areas in England. At dusk "they start to glow, pulsating with a pinkish light. If you walk among them, you begin to hear – above the batter of waves on rock – a fragmentary soundscape of poems about love, snatches of Sappho, Sophocles and Shakespeare." (from the Guardian website)

Doesn't it look breathtaking? Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jul/20/artists-british-coastline-poetry-island

Summer is here

Grit and Glamour

I watched a documentary about the Glasgow art scene the other day, called Glasgow: The Grit and The Glamour which was really inspiring. So inspiring in fact, that I've booked a holiday to Scotland! It was really interesting to hear about art in Glasgow and how the city has become a breeding ground for ideas and creativity. There seems to be a real sense of possibility, as Jeremy Deller says: "This is a city where you can get things done as an artist." I think it's sad sometimes that we think of London as the centre of the art world, as the only place you can make it. Whilst London is a good place to be an artist, and I love being there, it can be expensive (though not always) and sometimes I worry about the anonymity and alienation of big city life. Of being engulfed.

Although when I was at Goldsmiths (briefly) I lived a 2 minute walk from the college. It was last September when there seemed to be a heatwave and I'd be out all day, or in college and I'd stroll back to halls on balmy evenings and bump into newfound friends and it felt like a village, this bubble of familiarity in the vastness of London.

Glasgow: The Grit and The Glamour featured many brilliant artists, such as Deller, Christine Borland (I LOVE HER) and Simon Starling, along with about a bajillion Turner Prize winners and nominees. One thing that really captured my imagination was when they were talking about Glasgow School of Art, particularly the sculpture and environmental art degree course in the 1980s. There was footage of this small clan of students experimenting and pushing the boundaries, and generally just hanging around and doing what they pleased. I really loved that, because hopefully I will be going to art school in another year and the practicalites often play on my mind, usually concerning money and getting a job and a flat and thinking about how I can learn some practical skills that would support my art. All of that is just bullshit.  Sometimes I look back on the nineties or the sixties/seventies and it seemed like it was so much easier to just loaf around and think about art and not have to worry about the real world. Sometimes it feels like todays students/young people are weighed down by thoughts of careers/jobs/money. Though maybe it was always like that and the distance of time gives things a rosy glow.

What a bummer. On a lighter note, Glasgow: The Grit and The Glamour introduced me to Karla Black, who I'd never heard of before. Here sculptures are just beautiful. I love how she makes pieces that seem to hang in space, suspended and weightless, yet sculptural. In the documentary she spoke about how when she went to Glasgow School of Art, one of the first things they told her was that a sculpture is something that stands up on its own, and how she has been challenging and subverting that notion ever since.

I was also drawn to that minimalist sense of reveling in materials. She often uses make-up, cosmetics and pastel bath bombs, not for their connotations, but in the tradition of cavemen who put pigment in their mouths and spat their art onto rock. A quality I admire in Black is her strength, and her outspoken defense of her art. She talks about how her work is described as ephemeral, impermenent, delicate and feminine. As if instability and ephemerality are somehow female qualities. But that's a whole new post...

I think I'll go to bed now, and so, lovely reader, here are some images and interesting videos to peruse at your leisure xxx

Karla Black

Jeremy Deller on his inflatable work Sacrilege

Simon Starling and Alan Yentob

Me. Thinking about the lovely Jeremy Deller...

Link to Glasgow: Grit and Glamour on the BBC iplayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01l1brw/