WE ARE RUBBISH!

Moving house x 2 and trouble with Internet/everything being boxed up= lack of Jiggery Pokery blogging. It's no excuse really but because I was left so long, I kinda got the blog fear. Our website is also being re-designed and a big Art Direction job for Vauxhall Skate this Wednesday has seen us spreading ourselves out accross various studios, warehouses and other spaces to make some seriously cosmic stuff for the event. Watch this space and all will be revealed soon. I can't even add photos to this blog from my dang iPhone. Ah well, only really wanted to let the world know that we're still alive... Just.

Blast

Yesterday and the day before we were working on a project with Fallon for the BBC. Blast is an exciting BBC project designed to inspire creativity in young people. Part of the project is the Blast interactive studio, where users can control machinery that fires paintball guns, activates glue guns, lights up coloured strip lights which make sounds and prints mini-messages onto till receipts, all across the internet, from your own computer! All the action takes place in one crazy, colourful studio in London, designed by Fallon. If you missed us on the live webcam yesterday, when we were based there for the day, you can see the remnants of what we were getting up to here: www.blastgetcreative.co.uk. Here are some snaps from the day too:

Nation of Shopkeepers

Anna and I got back from Leeds today after installing the opening window display for Nation of Shopkeepers. The eagerly awaited cool venue of the North already has a killer line-up and will host a whole load of events unusual to a pub such as jumble sales. The brainchild of the team behind the Lock Tavern in Camden and the Amersham Arms in New Cross amongst others are bringing their quirky vintage style and laid back vibes to the North and we reckon it is well worth a visit after it opens on 23rd May. You can keep up to date with their happenings on their Facebook group. Here are a few work in progress snaps of us making bits and pieces for the window display. Who needs Kirsty Allsop to tell you that skip-raiding is one of the best pastimes! We've been doing it since day dot (plus finding things in front garden throw-outs and even just on road-literally like the bed headboard) As for flea markets, Deptford Market smashes it every time! Photos of the actual window to follow shortly.

Funny Little Things

Last week, Jess Bonham came over to do a photo story, documenting me and my room before I move out and disperse my belongings throughout my house. It was the perfect opportunity to properly sort my room out. I threw heaps on stuff away but also found many little things I had misplaced and now it is an absolute pleasure spending time in my room. Even clutter can find its own little place somewhere:



I also bought this month's Elle Decoration and was pleased to read the editor's thoughts on collections. The subject of Michelle Ogundehin's May letter was Obsessions and she writes about how "...a golden age of collecting is apparently upon us as 'baby boomers' rediscover childhood hobbies." She then goes on to state that "Individual obsessions are vital: they are the backbone of greeat design, good for business and essential for living well at home. After all they express our personal points of view and remind us what's really important to us as people."

I remember when we were first told to start keeping archives when I was in the first year at Uni in Brighton and I suddenly found a validity for numerous archives I had already compiled over the years; sketchbooks, folders and files full of postcards, magazine adverts, random images, packaging etc. I still collect stuff today, although I am more careful about only holding onto things that I love and making sure they are filed somewhere that I will be able to find them and refer to them in the future. They are such a valuable resource and get more and more refined the more I collect. It is 3D objects I am having trouble with such as these funny little objects I found in a thrift store in Kona:



I don't want to open them beacuse the packaging is integral to their inspiration but I don't want to put them in a box and forget about them. Maybe a three dimensional box frame, to display on my wall, will be the beginning of a new archive.

Other than this, Anna and I did a window display to celebrate the opening of the YCN library/gallery space in their new HQ at 72 Rivington Street, in Shoreditch. We had to collect an awful lot of different coloured books but we did it and no cheating took place!







Oh and since we're on the subject of collections, here is a market stall on Shoreditch High Street full of things that I will not be adding to my collection. Seriously mate, who is your supplier?!

Cream Coloured Ponies and Crisp Apple Strudel, Door Bells and Sleigh Bells and Schnitzel with Noodles ...

When I was in Beyond Retro the other day, I looked up and saw a Ra-Ra ceiling:




It reminded me of the Fashion District in L.A:








I was so bowled over by the fullnness and juiciness of those shops that I didn't quite know what to do with myself. Being so overwhelmed, I hardly bought a thing. Now I am KICKING myself. I have so many ideas, projects I am delving into where the fruits of Downtown L.A would yield so much pleasure and inspiration for me. A couple of months out of England, not surrounded by the clutter of my possessions and I didn't know what to do with myself when faced with so much choice. We wandered away from the Fashion District, our aim to mooch about in some of the (so-called) upcoming galleries of the area (extremely disappointing) but instead found ourselves in a similarly cluttered but much more peaceful shop Califrnia Milinery which was a little hidden Aladdin's Cave of gems from past and present; a shrine to the art of hat-making. It was a little remnant of bygone eras, so beautiful and unspoilt and I was in love with all the fixtures and fittings as well as the feathers and ribbons, bows and brocade. The fullness but softness of the muted vintage colours blew me away:

After the Fashion District we stumbled upon the Mexican party shop strip which looked like this:




Colour and music and people and yummy Mexican corn in abundance, I had been thrown into the deep end that day and I was beginning to reacclimatise to a life of excess but I was tired. Really tired. Then Jasper took us to this party in the Warehouse district in Downtown L.A where the underage kids were dressed like this (Photographs by Jess Bonham):


















It was like some early nineties/ Japanese Harajuku inspired subculture that we had never seen before. They were fresh to the underage... I mean underground rave scene in L.A. I needed that last peaceful few days back in Hawaii just to get my head around the whole thing:



and don't even get me get started on Vegas...

HOLIDAY!!!!

I managed to have a little break this week! I did fun things, nails, got given presents, gave presents also, saw the girls, ate food.....
Well actually I ate at the Ritz with my Mum, Gran and Aunty and made meringues with Lauren, Leah and Tara. Girl time!

Leah gave me these hot tranfers and I gave Ruairi a ghetto blaster that plays records vertically!!!

And finally I got my my nails did! From this to this..... I finally have found a safe nail technician who is up for fun designs and they even make you a cup of tea while you have them done and triangle diamante!!! Brilliant.

The Vagina Monologues

Just got back from Hackney Empire after seeing the Vagina Monologues. Me and my sister took my Mum to see it as a Mother's Day present and it was f*****g hilarious. On for three nights at Hackney Empire (there were still seats tonight so maybe there will be some for tomorrow or Saturday too), Sharon D Clarke, Jesse Wallace and Jocelyn Jee make a great team on stage. Each have a slightly different but equally edgy and dry sense of humour that allows them to bounce off each other and make the crowd creeeeeeease. Even the low belly laughs from the few blokes there could be heard amongst the giggling gals. Check it.

Acquire Arts Launch Night

Come and join us tomorrow for an evening of music and punch. Welcoming all free-thinkers to become part of this interesting and accessible new space in Battersea. Acquire Arts has a diary of events which is filling up quickly and the space hopes to become an integral part of the local community.

The Launch Night offers artists, musicians, writers and local residents the chance to meet and get involved in future projects and who better to kick off the festivities than the award winning (Channel 4 Talent Awards)
Iain Woods. Be there or be square dude x

VOTE FOR ME!!!! This is actually life size although everyone thinks it's just a glove, but it nearly my height! I've worked my ass off the last three days to finish it!
I want to win! Please vote.
Click on this link
http://dazeddigital.com/Projects/Live-Unbuttoned/ViewSubmission.aspx?ChoiceId=5346&CompetitionId=12

Last night...

I had a dream that I was looking after a little kid and when I turned my head for one minute, he climbed out of the cot to go on a little adventure. Only problem was, he was the size of my nose stud and we were somewhere that resembled the Grand Canyon. After managing to find him on top of a wardrobe, in a bath bag, I was suddenly with my Mum and sneakily trying to change the present labels over on the three Betsey Bags pictured below in this blog. A friend of my Mum's had bought one each for me, my sister and my brother (?!) but my sister had got the one with the telephones all over it and I REALLY wanted it. I think it might be because I am heading over to Leah's for some jerk chicken and a game of Dreamphone later but I cannot explain the nose-stud-sized child.