Keeping You Informed

After a manic bout of work, Anna and I have been busy-beavers, learning Dreamweaver and other fancy stuff. We have finally updated our website- Wahay! New featured projects are: Disclosure Magazine, our Christmas card and a recent window display. Keep your eyes peeled for our work with Sense Magazine and Plastique Magazine which will be published soon too and no doubt hitting a shop/bar near you! Here's to the last few days of January....phew.

Grim

Friday night. I'm such a twat. I left the rest of my lip in an estate in Kings Cross. I didn't put my hands out to break my fall, but did put my lips to the floor. Ouch. it's funny but it hurts when I laugh. I really am such a twat.

The Magic Hour

A simple walk in the park today was so beautiful, as the light was so intense. I always look forward to this time of day during the winter. It inspired me to return home and search for the name of a film I have been trying to find for a couple of years. I found it and took the following description from the Magic Hour website. Now I just need to find a copy of the film.

"In 1978, Terrence Malick directed one of the most stunning and beautiful films ever made, the Oscar winning DAYS OF HEAVEN. The awesome photography (shot by cinematographer NESTOR ALMENDROS) was achieved by shooting much of its 90 minute running time during 'magic hour' - the time between when the sun sets and the night falls - when the light seems to come from nowhere...a magic place.

'Magic hour' is actually only about 20 minutes, so, to be as prepared as possible, the actors would rehearse their scenes during the day. As soon as the sun had set, they would shoot as quickly as possible, often frantically - fearful of even wasting a minute.

Malick's decision to shoot so much of the film in this light was not simply for aesthetic reasons. Historically and in the context of the story, this was the period when these scenes would really have taken place, for the field workers would rise before the sun and work until it set. Their only 'free' time being this 'magic hour'.

The result is a film that lingers in the mind long after the last credit has rolled."

Nails and ting....

If you go down to the woods today i'm sure in for a big surprise... well ok not that big, but I did my first night shift last night at Topshop. It was good fun. I painted stripes as you can see. It's for the petite and tall range. All change down at Topshop for the next couple of weeks. Today I had a rest day and got my nails done. I like the nail shop I go to in Lewisham, they have joke posters on the wall. The dude in there thinks I'm weird and never wants to do what I want him to do on my nails because he thinks it's too tacky or over the top. He fails to see, that is they exact reason I get them done anyway, the tasteless the better!< Talking of tasteless, on the wall they have special offer sign for kids to get special prices. I always wonder who does that? Gets their kids nail extensions? Then I went and met Ruairi at Nando's (yep proper Lewisham afternoon) and there was a little girl who was only about 7 or 8 with acrylic tips. EEehhgg! Grim.

BOLD!

I was admiring the boldness and bravery of this headstone in Highgate Cemetery (sorry crap camera phone photo) a few weekends ago when the widow of the deceased introduced herself to me. She explained that she had it made from a few thumbnail sketches that her husband had left behind. If you're gonna go, and you know you're gonna go, why not make a statement?!

wHo WeArS wHaT?

For anyone passing through Priory Road in Hornsey soon, Anna and I bring you some colour and fun for January. We did a Mighty Boosh/Castaway/coconut shy inspired window display where you have to match the glasses to the Celebrity. I am yet to take some photos of it but as soon as I do I will put them on the website. I am excited to say that I finally got the hang of Dreamweaver last night. Although I am a novice, I managed to sort all the bits that were niggling away at me without completely F*****G the whole site up. I am proud to say that I am feeling very proud of myself!

It's Not the End of the World if You Miss it.

I was walking to Aldgate East Station on Friday and I passed this demolition site. The two bulldozers resembled over-sized scorpions, savagely attacking something. Quite a few people were stopping to watch. I found it quite sinister. I sometimes find it really scary to know that something that takes so much time and effort to build can be destroyed in a second...

Topshop Creative Department

I started at Topshop Creative department on monday. Early starts are killing me! Actually I lie ,the earliness is not so bad it's the lack of daylight. I get there at 7.30 and leave at 5pm the only daylight I see is if I go outside at lunch. Bit weird. Maybe you get used to it, who knows? Anyway they have had me painting and making a range of things from big coat-hangers to lego headpieces for the ground floor mannequins. Getting some good learning in. Been looking at some fun stuff for the YCN meeting tomorrow. cut out dolls, more stuff to do with winning. Hours of interactive fun!!

Bus from 'Speed'

The last few weeks have been intense. I have felt like the bus out of the film 'Speed' except I am not quite sure what would happen if I now went below 50 kmph. I think it might be the opposite of an explosion. I identify more with the pace than the outcome...Blah blah blah anyway. Anna and I finished the final shoot for Plastique Magazine and decided to celebrate the end of our hard work in the good old Oxford in Kentish town. One phonecall changed all of that. I went from this:



to this:



More work and no sleep for the wicked. I am now assisting Jennie and Lisa of Webster and Stokes on a fantastic shoot for Muse Magazine. They are art directing it and sent me off today, skip-raiding and sourcing all sorts of weird and wonderful props. Right up my street. The photographers are Nick Thornton Jones and Warren Du Preez who have a very experimental and futuristic style to their photography. I am very curious to see how all the collected bits and bobs will be used... Exciting. From today, for the next month, I will also be working with Lucy (Lampshade) Butler on the window display for Matches in Notting Hill which will coincide with London Fashion Week. The state of my hands each night makes me go to sleep with a smile on my face. Hurrah. I have always believed that no job would ever entirely satisfy me unless my hands got dirty each day.



Other news is that one rascal named William Edmunds of the Leeds-based Nous-Vous Collective tried to be sneaky about accurately depicting my 'Sunday Face' on his private blog but I got clever and found it.

I tell you, nothing is sacred online now, no mater how private you try to be and anyway what he didn't realise is that I can be in several places at once... If you watch his Special Effects video REALLY closely, you will see that I pop up for 1/25 of a second and then again, blowing up a carrier bag later on wearing different clothes. That very same day I was also in Leeds at Sub-Dub...












Last but by certainly not least, Anna and I are working with Alex who founded Fever Zine to produce a beautiful book with YCN charting the process of the Piñata 'Call for entries' promotion/competition. Well done to Kate Moross and Tom Merrell for their fantastic winning entry. It was colourful, funny and beautifully filmed in an AMAZING location. A lot of time and effort obviously went into it.

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This isn't to say that there weren't some other really amazing entries but we thought that giving a joint first prize was a bit of a cop-out. Especially after wallet washing Christmas has just been and gone. A big thank you to everyone who took part. You can see all the entries here.

Wendy Bevan

Have loved Wendy Bevan's photography since I saw it in Tank magazine earlier this year. My friend Lucy is helping dress the set on her shoot for an Italian fashion magazine tomorrow so I checked out her website for the first time: Really ethereal, 60s style, full of atmosphere. Good to see someone using a less (conventionally) technical correct approach to their work. It definitely stands out, well to me anyway.

Also It's Nice That plugged it recently but I am completely blown away by the Polaroid Kidd's photographs of modern day train jumpers. He captures, a spirit and sense of pace in life that is so hard to fully appreciate whilst living sometimes, let alone in a photograph. Really honest photography, beautifully emphasised by the warm colours of the film.



P.s Anyone who stayed in and saw (or got back early enough to see!) the BBC2 documentary about Sigur Ros on Saturday night was hopefully as amazed as me...perfect.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, How Lovely Were Your Branches...

I was driving back from the studio today and I saw a massive pile of flames dancing dangerously close to a house. I was about to call the fire brigade when I realised that it was only a pile of Christmas trees being dramatically disposed of. The residents of Brooksby Street in Islington have a very definitive way of saying goodbye to Christmas. In my tired state, I felt a bit sad.

I have spent the weekend engrossed in my work. The daytimes have been a mixture of sticking, cutting, sanding, painting, casting and driving round London finding materials. By night, my mind has been swimming with rabbits, harlequin floors, playing cards, white picket fences and green sweets. Constant travelling has also led to me to test how many routes there are from Deptford to Crouch End. With the neverending (and believe me I am not complaining, just not sleeping very well) piles of work at the moment, it has been giving a refreshing meaning to the saying 'we'll cross that bridge when we get to it'. I love driving through London at night.

Last night I settled down to (try and) shut down for the night by writing some 'tomorrow lists'. The Dragons Den was on Channel Dave and Peter Jones came out with another one of his usual, witty and cutting quotes, "Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity". Wishful thinking, my budget could just about afford me an apple turnover at the moment. I much prefer some of the quotes I found scribbled in the back of my sketchbook as I was leafing through. My favourite being Ron Norsworthy's answer to the question "What are you doing today?" His answer: "Well loads of bullets are gonna be flying my way and I just have to decide which ones I dodge and which ones hit me." Amongst my New York doodles, my little black book is full of his wise words, frantically noted down, so as not to miss a (legendary) trick. A wealth of advice and encouragement to which I constantly refer.

Christmas Cabaret

Just found this flick of the amazing Mildmay Club where we went to see the annual Pre-Christmas cabaret put on by Oona Grines and Tony Grissoni. It is so rare to see beautiful old buildings that are still lovingly cared for like that. Full-on 1960's Northern, Pheonix Nights style interior- Classic.

Today

Today I have a cold. Serves me right for handing around that big ol'bottle of vodka to anyone going on NYE. Damn those germs. Anyway work continues, today we went to Catford found a weird shop with even weirder stuff in it! yep that's right it's called 'what!!!' and it's about the biggest pound shop I have ever been into!


Found our ice cream molds which is cool.
We also went to collect the staircases from the work shop. They look amazing, photos to come. This is a sneak preview of the shapes for Plastique magazine sets we are working on. I'm really excited.