Almost a year later...

...I attempt to start this half started thing. After spending the last year in a frenzy of work and cold I think it might be time to get back to the good stuff. The weather changes again this week and I think a daffodil typology project might be necessary on Saturday morning.

In the meantime, while I get my proper head on, here are some things I have enjoyed looking at in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy in Paris:

Woodcutting with cut wood

Josef Albers, Asiatic Image, 1944

I have always really enjoyed printmaking much more than painting or drawing. I like the flat colour and the random errors. During high-school I spent quite a bit of time in the art rooms doing crappy linocuts: my favourite being a particularly anatomically correct illustration of a womb complete with foetus that made a great t-shirt . . . oh to be fifteen again! I don't have a lot of experience in woodcutting but it is always one of my favourite things to see. Many moons ago I did a little bit of volunteering at the Melbourne Printing Museum with my lovely friend Emily. There we were introduced to the both the realities of lead poisoning and the beauty of wood type. Wood type and wood cut —together at last in a beautiful embrace.

Edvard Munch, Two People, The Lonely Ones, 1899

Then several years ago there was a big Munch show at the National Gallery of Victoria. I have never really been a big fan of his work but his woodcuts were an absolute revelation. He pioneered the idea of using a jigsaw to cut up a wood cut so that parts could be inked separately in different colours and then put back together to get a multi-coloured print in just one pass. Thus avoiding the troubles of registration and colours shifting.

Josef Albers, High Up, 1948

At the Mohly-Nagy and Albers show at the Tate last year there was a lot to enjoy. But Albers' woodcuts were a definite highlight. The contrast of the wood grain, white, and rich black was stunning.

At the moment I am working on a project where the whole front jacket of a book is being printed by letterpress printer Phil Abel at Hand & Eye using antique woodtype and a little woodcut that I 'cut'. . . more on that in a couple of weeks when I have some fun pictures to show.

You owe me...

A little bit of my namesake

Three years into my time in London and this whole ripping-shirts-off-at-the-first-sign-of-blue-sky thing that the natives do is slowly starting to make more sense (although I'll never understand the getting-into-bikini-in-the park-during-lunchtime-in-front-of-colleagues...just seems wrong and dirty). The best weather we had last year were the first two weeks of April. Rumors of a hot summers shot around town and, ultimately, dreams were dashed.

Cut to 12 months later and in recent mornings the sun-hungry and pasty lot packed in with me on the tube have amped up their hurumphing. Nerves are frayed all over the shop and you never feel far from a explicit shove or directed eye-roll.

So when I heard that Saturday was supposed to be a 'nice' day, expectations were low to say the least. But Saturday was the day of the year and I have to say, when London turns on a good day in Spring it surely turns it on good and proper. Wandering through De Beauvoir Town, a marvelous breakfast made for me, brain-storming over shandies in a beer garden and the world seemed a whole lot sweeter.

Sure I was a bit over confident with the no-socks thing this morning (rained on by 10.30...) but I think that one day gave me a tiny bit of hope that there might just be little bright light at the end of this great, grey tunnel. I have never felt like I deserved a summer so much in my life.

so much guilt (and the tale of how much I love colour)

Spring blitz in the park across the road from our flat

I was lucky enough to have a little break in New York over Easter. I'm not that good at this holiday in New York business. Maybe because while I am there I fall in love with the place and tell myself: 'I'll be working here soon . . . I don't need these obvious 'tourist' attractions . . . they'll soon be part of my lunchtime routine.' And so I put of aside all of the 'proper' big gallery visits for the minor delights of vietnamese pork rolls and shopping in Brooklyn. As soon as I am back in London for a few weeks, the idea seems less appealing: I like the amount of floor space I have here, there's more than one park, plus my pals and a strong drinking culture. So it seems I may have made a tactical error.

Jennifer Bartlett, Primary Combinations, 1971

The error I feel most guilty about is missing out on the show currently on at MOMA called: Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today. Now this is my lost dream—instead I have to settle for the website. I love colour. I believe flicking through 500 pages of swatches of CMYK breakdowns is a great way to lift one's mood.

A serigraph of a Jimmy Pike painting, not unlike my shorts at all

My first pair of Desert Designs (a western australian company started in the mid-1980s that used the work of indigenous artist Jimmy Pike for its textile designs) shorts was the turning point. An amazing swirling design of pattern and colour that made me feel giddy with love every time I wore them.

Yam Dreaming-Awelye, Emily Kngwarreye, 1995

The experience of standing in front of the vibratingly astounding work of Emily Kame Kngwarreye at her posthumous show at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1999 still rates as my greatest art experience ever. The confidence of her colour allows the work's meaning to swirl and dance in front of your eyes (kind of like listening to dirty three at their very, very, very best).

Out of all the different elements of design I use in my work—I still feel most strongly drawn to the use of colour as the primary consideration. And so I use this entry to begin a semi-irregular theme of thinking and talking about colour.

Mosaics and pixels and stories of the modern

Hanger Lane tube station...far west London...tiles the best thing about the place

In the last couple of years I have noticed that something funny is happening with the reputation of the humble mosaic. My brain has been busy making new connections—away from the dark ages of broken plates and sunflowers and towards a brave new world of modern shapes, patterns and colours. I guess this is because of the way one tile can represent one pixel—and fickle design brain equates pixel with 'now' and all manner of mosaic falls into line behind that one idea. Squares have been used throughout the ages in arts and crafts and so it is easy to apply the basic patterns from things like 19th century German cross-stitch to a lovely pixel-y 72dpi photoshop file. There are so many examples of this new tile aesthetic. There are blogs that just post video-game inspired cross-stitch patterns, online programs that will turn your digital images into stitching patterns and all manner of stitch/pixel/stitch cycles to keep you going for ever. But for me, at the moment, mosiac is where it is at.

photo by Dan Boud, Barcelona 2005

The ubiquitous space invader tiles are a good place to start—currently seen in many inner city towns across the world.

Photo by normko

On top of this, the ridiculously colourful mosaics by the likes of the late Eduardo Paolozzi at Tottenham Court Road are looking better everyday. I think it helps when you only let yourself look at a small pieces at a time. The pleasures in the detail...etc etc.

Saturnus Café, Stockholm

But all of this work reaches a fever pitch for me when I look at the work of Cilla Ramneck. This is the perfect fusion of old and new and the colour and pattern combinations are some of the most interesting I have seen. (I want that floor in my imaginary house) As well as this, Cilla also works with knitted stitches in a similar way...pixels to mosaic to stitches and back to pixels again. It is always inspiring to see an interesting use of materials and mediums with a constant aesthetic at its heart.

more of the delighfulness