Ailyex vs. Dogboyo

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve been left a little depleted by all the end of uni/degree show nonsense, but . . . within the last VERY up-and-down week, there have been some lovely things. A few of which I wanted to share -

First is this ridiculous picture I found on Bass Face’s camera, of me playing Guitar Hero II after a night in Harrow with the boys:

I look so worried! And why did no one ever point out that my head is MASSIVE? Maybe they were sparing my feelings but yeesh, that can’t be normal. And the roses that a very insistent lady managed to sell Tommy in a dodgy Harrow public house named after a bossy Thomas the Tank Engine character:

this is what happens when you venture amongst the chavs . . . but roses in the kitchen are never a bad thing, so it’s all good.

And second is the wonderful Fathers’ Day that Lizzi, Dad and I spent wandering along the South Bank to the Dali and Film exhibition at Tate Modern. Here’s Lizzi by the river:

Isn’t she lovely? I still think of her as The Baby, and seeing her all pretty, grown-up and tattooed makes me so proud to be a big sister.

Don’t you think this shot makes the Millenium Bridge look like a dinosaur’s neck - or more specifically, ‘Dippie’ the lovely diplodocus cast who lives in the Natural History Museum lobby - reaching across the Thames and nosing around the Salvation Army building for a really tasty looking tree:

Edit/update: two more pics, courtesy of Dad and Liz - spot the resemblance, I can’t ever see it, but I like to think that it’s there!

It was such a neat, relaxed way to spend Fathers’ Day: it was delightfully sunny; I hadn’t seen Dad in a while; the exhibition was simultaneously beautiful, unnerving and awe-inspiring- the chance to see Destino [Dali's long awaited collaboration with Disney] was not lost on Liz and I, nor to be in the same room as some of my favourite works - and the day was rounded off with the trad Cafe Rouge dessert, which was of course eaten in the proper Thomasson fashion.

I couldn’t tell you why, but somehow Dad, Lizzi and I have developed a habit of eating all desserts with forks - much to the amusement of Mother and the annoyance of waitresses the world over. It’s long been an odd family in-joke, but restaurants’ insistence on spoon-use has turned a mere utensil preference into some sort of mildly-obsessive cultery challenge, in which the three of us roll our eyes at restaurant staff as if they are part of an International Spoon Association conspiracy designed to denigrate and oust the honest fork. To say it makes Mum feel like The Normal One is probably an understament. I also treated myself to full-on art book and a million postcards, which will be finding homes all over our walls.

Ooh, and, just to prove that good design makes everything better, I couldn’t resist snapping this cute retro street-bollardy thing in Blackfriars:

Next came the set-up of Pixel Shake and the private view - a night that both depressed me awfully and moved me to happy tears. The former was mostly due the feeling of anti-climax, but compounded by the obvious disdain for my work shown by certain tutors - although a massive thank you to the tutors and staff that did believe in me, TVU really does have some Good Eggs amongst the snakes.

But the latter made it all worth it - to have Bass Face and my family come all the way across London to see my work, for Mum to tear up and Dad to hug me and tell me that he was proud of me. I’ve had a couple of false starts at university and to be able to finally finish, show my parents and validate their unwavering love and support just meant the world. I am so grateful to be their daughter. Here’s Possible Illustrated Self all hung like proper art:

Most of the work there was amazing, including Russell’s meticulously aligned projection of his animation Alice Jones:

The photo doesn’t do it justice, but essentially each scene was projected onto the appropriate location on the 3D model set - so here, the action is taking place in the top left doctor’s surgery. The wonderful part was that whilst any given location was being animated the other locations continued quietly in the back ground, with cars driving down the street in the middle and customers fidgeting in the doctor’s surgery and the cafe [top right I think]. Definitely one of those to watch.

I also snapped Natalja’s pixelated sculpture:

It’s a pixelated black and white self-portrait constructed entirely out of matches - with the heads being the black pixels and the wooden ends being white pixels. The concentration of putting it together is mind-boggling . . .

Also snapped was Lukas’s CCTV-style installation Learn to Breathe. It is an interactive dance film set-up as if one were watching it live over closed-circuit television:

Again, the picture doesn’t do it justice, but I’m sure that there are better images on his own site. Lukas then hopped off to meet with a potential publisher for his Kafkanistan photography project . . . another one to watch . . .

In between this I constructed the subject of the previous post - whilst invigiliating and Very Hungover from an awful lot of birthday intoxication in honor of Drummerboy - which has been gratefully received, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know.

It’s also been raining like a motherbitch. And I mean RAINING, as in “I think I’ll stay in today”, drain-bursting, “Look how green everything is!” torrential. The garden is very happy about this:

but I was dissapointed to discover that unless you’ve got a double-bubble SLR fantastico Hasselblad extraordinaire, rain looks a bit pants in photos. Regard:

As I said, a bit pants - considering that mere inches away, a small lake was making itself comfortable and practically picking out curtains in our back garden.

All the dreary weather made me quite envious of those inhabiting the same land mass as the Renegade Craft Fairs, but then I saw these gems peeking out at me in Watford, making me think of the Black Apple and all goodies I’d love to get my mitts on.

Cute, non? The red is from New Look, the green from Toppenshoppen. I also made a significantly larger purchase . . . here’s a clue:

Can you guess? Oh, it can’t be an actual machine that sews, can it?

Oh yes it can. I can’t describe how happy it makes me to finally have one of these babies. I can make things without being restricted by my shoddy hand-sewing, all my clothes will fit again, we can have proper curtains at last . . .

The old girl is a Janome Model 7025, a step up from the basic one, with a whole bunch of neat features that definitely weren’t on the ancient machines housed in my school’s textile room. It looks really user-friendly, plus the lovely lady in John Lewis sat with me for a whole twenty minutes showing me how it all worked and assuring me that she would be there every other weekend if I need any advice or get stuck - talk about service!

What with My New Purchase, the prospect of long awaited tattooing - more on that later me hearties - and much movie-watching and wonderfulness with Bass Face, I have to say that I’m really quite looking forward to this week . . .

Take one drummer who drops his sticks mid-song and yet brings just one set to rehearsal despite owning more than two measely drumsticks, the prospect of invigilating two six hour slots at Pixel Shake and the fact that I still haven’t used this tutorial and what have I ended up with? May I present - with sore fingers and fake fur all over the carpet - the Your Mum drumstick caddy:

This is a 23rd birthday present for Aaron - who drums for Bass Face’s band Ten Ton Tabby as well as the fabulous Stubb go check them out - the idea being that Drummerboy can hang this from a floor tom or cymbal stand [it almost sounded like I knew what I was talking about there] with a bunch of spare sticks within easy reach. And that the Ten Ton boys can get through a whole song.

The body is plastic canvas stitched with bargain wool, lined with leopard print fake fur and emblazoned with ‘your mum’ - as in officially THE all purpose comeback of the moment. Plus the strap has press-studs and is adjustable - because measuring the height of a dude’s drumkit without him noticing would be quite hard. How very.

I’m really pleased with how this turned out - it should stand up to being chucked in the back of the tourbus - otherwise known as BF’s Clio - and being generally yanked about. Here’s a better shot of the lining: I planned to use a disc of plastic canvas for the bottom too, but that didn’t work AT ALL, so I stuck with the fake fur, double layered and double stitched:

This was most fun to make and has re-inforced the following for me:

1. in the abscence of a proper thimble, a bottlecap does not suffice

2. get that sewing machine so that I can do this sort of thing in a second in fabric

3. use more leopard print

On a non-crafty note, I’ve been run ragged with Pixel Shake and the emotion of finishing my course and taking all kinds of shit from certain TVU people that I don’t want to go into right now. But, rest assured, I’ll be back on form soon x

Today we set up for Pixel Shake, which included:

being two hours early in the most rain I’ve seen in months

discovering Green and Blacks Maya Gold - oh yes

industrial winching

more double-sided foam adhesive pads than I ever care to see again

Mr Birk being mostly concerned with how little beer there was for the private view

particpants turning their noses up at such a ‘ghetto’ location - come on, it’s Bethnal Green, not St. Raph’s!

Lukas and Russ snickering for two hours before alerting me to the aforementioned Green and Blacks on my fass

getting my own back by hogging the electric screwdriver

finding this all over Harrow

Dad and I in 1984

Now we all know that I like buying pretty things, but feel oh so guilty about shelling out from my ever-dwindling student loan . . .

But, today I had the pleasure of guilt-free prettyness with birthday H&M vouchers, courtesy of my lovely, forward-thinking aunt. This cutey refused to be photographed nicely, but does redeem itself in the Really Neat Prints And Covered Buttons Dept.:

While I got this jersey dress because it looks a bit like it might be a souvenir from a fun but horribley tacky ’80s package holiday to ‘Flamingo Island’. Of course this is only appreciable because I haven’t actually been forced to endure such a resort, but hey.

This week I’ve been beavering away to be ready for my degree show: Pixel Shake. There has been much printing, catalogue compliling and inviting, but the piece de resistance has to be lugging home a piece of foamboard that was bigger than me. All the way from Ealing. In the rush hour. On public transport. I am sorely tempted to launch into a rant about People Who Shut Doors On You and Mean Bus Drivers, but instead I shall merely wish syphilis upon them and gaze upon the fruit of my labours:

a complete set of mounted images from my Single Project: Possible Distributed Self, all ready to hang. Ahhh . . . . . . It’s a self-reflective series of four images and an article - all viewable here - and it’s what I’ll be exhibiting next week. The image at the start of this post is one of the four, entitled Drawing. The other three are Maiden:

Mother:

and Grandmother:

And the article, My Self Portraits and I is here.

I also distributed it around my corner of London by handing out little prints as flyers and postering it up, with the ‘real world’ distribution concluding with its showing at Pixel Shake. Here are some of the mini-posters hanging out:

Okay, so I have a confession to make: I’m a massive whimp. Bass Face and I have lived here for six months and I have not once used the garden. The reason: the upstairs neighbours’ spitting on delivery-men, squalling, lets use our twelve-stone-at-age-eleven bulk to barge past you in the hall, obnoxious kids. Now, bearing in mind that once May comes around Hbert, The Alien and I can generally be found sitting somewhere grassy with a shisha, vodka, smokage and boyswithguitars in tow; it’s ludicrous that I’m sitting inside. So . . . yesterday I set up shop with laundry to hang, Orlando and orange juice, and you know what? Nothing happened. I read and lay in the mini amount of sun out. ‘Twas bliss. And who knew our garden contained so many actual not-dead plants:

AND, continuing Show and Tell Saturday, here’s the booty from thursday’s Camden trip mit la petite soeur:

This cute pocket belongs to a £10 turquoise skirt that reminds me of my Grandpa’s old cinefilms of family holidays. Doesn’t it look like it should really be worn on a sixties holiday to Spain? The Munchkin snapped up an american boyscout shirt and a quilted handbag, Chanel stylee. Not bad at all.

Oh, and speaking of the degree show . . .

It’s on real soon, do come.

Oh, this makes me so happy . . . The London Book Project is turning the Tube into a huge book swap. They will be leaving second-hand books all over the Tube network, encouraging people to pick them up, read them and replace them for others to enjoy. As a free community culture movement this ticks all my boxes - especially this quote from their site:

‘we aim to bring real literature to London’s commuters’

That’s exactly what I’ve always said people need more of - accessible, real literature! You can also add your own books to the exchange by registering them here Seeing as I’ve got a stack of tomes in our hall to be sold/given to Oxfam, I should really register a few and leave them on the Tube.

Forgive the nerdiness, but I get genuinely excited over books. Going book shopping - in real bookshops [and you know that's going to include Waterstones Picadilly: five whole massive floors of wonder] for new, beautiful, wishlist books - is in fact going to be part of my self-rewarding for my other big news:

!MY FINAL TVU DEADLINE IS OVER!

and yes, I did get it all in on time, thankyou very much . . . I cannot describe the relief . . . anyone who has experienced The Guilt of higher education will know the joy of knowing that one will never have to do homework again. Of course there is still the degree show to go, but deadline passing means a whole weight off my mind. I have of course been warned of the boredom/job hunt that will soon set in [Guild Wars, anyone?], but for now, ’tis nice to have nothing pressing to do. Ah . . .