opportunitylostandfound

last night’s poetry prom at Snape with John Hegley and Ian McMillan was a nice evening of light entertainment – sounds like a negative but nice is ok. It was all very cosy and maybe asking for a little grit would be calling for the wrong thing in the wrong place but I can’t help thinking that with 800 people in the audience for poetry you couldn’t have introduced them to more voices – Byron Vincent http://www.byronvincent.com/  is the lost child of Hegley and Richard Dedomenici http://dedomenici.com/ would connect with McMillan’s acquired/stolen signage. Now that would be an interesting evening.

Anyway – I’ve started to look through the folded paper archives in my studio with a view to starting work on Squeeze Fold Bend and Expand - Structural Memory in Deformable Objects along with some light reading about rat skeletons.

meanwhile on the watching front the beautifully shot, colour saturated Utopia – the first series, although fractured with no explanation of anything story wise was quite startling with utterly arresting imagery. The original version of House of Cards is fascinating – cluttered with class war and leaden 80s-ness! 

bookcull

bank holiday - rain - time to cull the books -  bought for type face choice, odd illustrations or cover design, some of them haven't been touched since they were placed on their shelf 20 years ago - above - some of the 'gems' that are now in second hand shops in the N Suffolk area!!. 

creativecaringreportmovingforward

A copy of the report – make my day: the impact of creative caring in older people’s care homes has arrived at my house. It covers the work I did with the carers in care homes for Artlink – you can get a copy here http://suffolkartlink.org.uk/creative-carers.htm - it looks good and as ever it’s heart-warming to see one’s own presence within the overall argument for more interesting care for the elderly – we will all be there at some point....

squeezefoldbendandexpand

success - I’ve got through the initial application, a day of meetings/presentation, ‘interview’, the short-listing and the joint application to have the opportunity to work with the Crafts Council on a project titled - PARALLEL PRACTICES - http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/parallel-practices/

It’s a really interesting collaboration I am about to work with Thrishantha Nanayakkara http://www.kcl.ac.uk/nms/depts/informatics/people/atoz/nanayakkarat.aspx who works at The Centre for Robotics Research, School of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at Kings in London and Naomi Mcintosh who creates body related Jewellery and Jewellery related objects - http://www.naomimcintosh.com/. It’s going to be a great journey of discovery for us all. The project we have created is called Squeeze Fold Bend and Expand - Structural Memory in Deformable Objects. We want to extend current soft robotics through model making, challenging and expanding our practices by exploring ways of controlling movement and articulation of objects in order to build new structures whose functionality and manipulation will be framed and enriched by knowledge of soft robotics – phew!!!

shouldversuscould

10 days in the mountains around Crest has given me my annual bookfest – some recommendations from a long list....

Morrisey – an autobiography – a tour de force of layered gorgeous language for about 150 pages – until the bitterness over the trail takes over – I love his description of Sparks – “brother Russell sang in French italics with the mad urgency of someone tied to a tree”

The Cook – Wayne Macauley – detailed list of food preparation and cooking underpinned by a darkness which is allowed to seep out in the last pages.

How to get filthy rich in rising Asia - Mohsid Hamid – a deeply moving tale of change, loss and learning that touches the heart – if you liked his earlier book the reluctant fundamentalist you will really love this.

The secret History – Donna Tart – a real crossing-the-line-page-turner, deeply oppressive and claustrophobic.

The Circle – Dave Eggers – everybody is talking about this for a reason – his clarity of vision of where some of us we fear we are heading is initially charming or maybe fearful yet ultimately inevitable.

The testament of Mary – Colm Toibin – a beautiful and tender book that made me re-think my relationship to the role of the Jesus story – maybe it’s all about leaving home!

Meanwhile some images taken from my last stay at Piégros la Clastre.

foldspacelightstone

The exhibition in France looks really good – the private view dinner (very French) was beautiful – outdoors overlooking the mountains watching a ‘supermoon’ rise - lots of excellent food and wine. There are some sales already but the main thing was to show the experimental work on white walls rather than the studio. The body of work I chose to show is an interesting transitional collection from the unpicking and rebinding work around smocking and hopefully the work with the Crafts Council.