FAME IN KENTISH TOWN

Have a look at this ! 

Kentish Town is my neighbourhood and The Kentishtowner, a very useful local online daily newspaper, sent me a questionnaire, which I answered. They also asked for my photo, which I sent, but I didn't know they would also choose some images from my site. I'm really chuffed to be featured in their series, Ich Bin Kentishtowner. 

This all came about through the auspices of my neighbour and new friend, the very good writer Alison Chandler , who organised the editing and publishing of a little printed magazine for the day of our street party last month. She sent two budding journalists: Ellie, thirteen, and Alice, eleven, to interview me for that publication and they did a fine job. The editors of The Kentishtowner (a completely different publication) came to the street party and later contacted Alison to ask if I'd answer their quiz. Of course I did! Many thanks to all concerned.

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REWORKED SKETCHES

 Some of my Welsh sketches needed more work. Here are a couple of revised ones.

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THE SHOW IS OVER, THE SHOW GOES ON

At the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth the exhibition of accordion books is over but it will move on next year to a few other venues, dates not yet finalised. 

I had a surprise gift from a close relative, who does not wish to be named or praised, but at least I can share with you a photo of this delightful creation which will forever remind me of the event.

If you haven't yet seen My Life Unfolds all its pages are here . And at the same link, you can go to BLURB to see (and even buy!) another version of this unique book.

I managed to install the Disqus comments thingy at my main Blaugustine blog but took it out again because it doesn't allow you to have more than one comment box per page. So I'm looking for another service which will permit this. Meanwhile please comment here, if you wish!

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FURTHER WELSHNESS

I've been wholly taken up with finishing something which has to be delivered early next week (more on this when I've heard results) so the Blaug has been neglected, again. And comments have vanished since the commenting service Haloscan/JSKit ceased to operate from 1st October. 

Now I have to figure out how to set up the Disqus comments service but until I do, please leave some words here just so I know I still have a few cyber-friends!

Herewith a few more sketches of Wales on cloudier days. 

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MORE WELSH WONDERS

I stayed near Crickhowell, a beautiful part of the Brecon Beacons, in a tiny, cozy two-room cottage, which was fine since I'm only four feet eleven inches high and not very wide but even so, the steep and narrow spiral staircase to the bedroom required some careful contortions. When I wasn't walking and sketching in the countryside or visiting nearby towns, I'd sit indoors and draw. 

 

The found-object frame around the mirror is one of the thoughtful touches around the cottage.

Even when - especially when - the sky is cloudy, at this time of year the greens are of almost neon brightness while the blackness of the hills is streaked with purples, browns, reds and patches of emerald. I was particularly spellbound by reflections in the river Usk and by the copper-coloured water of the Brecon canal. Narrow boats silently glide by as you walk along the tree-lined banks. Some of the boats are manned by amateur skippers, worriedly looking straight ahead, expecting trouble. 

And there were sheep of course. Plump and peaceful, eating and resting, resting and eating, dutifully taking care of their woolliness.

I spent a few hours in Abergavenny on a day packed with crowds for the Food Festival, which was fun. But what I liked best were the side-streets and the people at the bus queue going home.

Some teddies in this shop are very old, very rare and very expensive.

On my next to last day, I was privileged to be invited to tea at the home of friends of Clive Hicks-Jenkins: William Gibbs and his civil partner Sonthaya. By happy coincidence they live very near the village where I was staying and Clive suggested I look them up. Due to a stupid (my stupidity) dental mishap, I nearly cancelled the appointment but fortunately I was persuaded to ignore vanity and come anyway. It was a memorable afternoon with this most interesting and hospitable couple, a marvellous house and garden, and an art collection that so stunned and inspired me that I quite forgot to take photos. Besides the achievements mentioned at the above link, William is a patron of the arts, collector, critic, lecturer and chairman of various Arts Trusts. With all this activity he still manages to appear relaxed and at ease. Enthusiasm for life and art and a discerning sensibility is evident in every corner of the home that William and Sonthaya share and I'm so grateful that I didn't miss this opportunity to meet them. 

Still seeing the week in Wales in my mind's eye and long may it linger. I took a lot more photos and might post them on Flickr later on. A few more drawings also to come.

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WONDERFUL WALES

Back from a beautiful week in the greenest of green places on this planet. Will just post some of my sketches tonight and add words and more pictures tomorow.

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UNEXPLAINED ANGELIC ACTIVITY

Time for blogging seems harder to find these days but that's just a lame excuse: truth is I've been reluctant to sit at the computer, don't know why. Anyway I have been busy working on a new project, of which more when the deadline is met, and I've also been playing around with more recycling of some of the stencils from the accordion book. 

As I'm off for a week in the countryside (computer-free) later today, here are some examples to try and keep you from giving up on me  altogether. Will post pictures of my away-days when I return.

First, here's the collagraph block made from left-over stencils. They are pasted over paper which is mounted on canvas. The metallic look is not metal but gold paint I applied over the pasted stencils.

The title of this collagraph is Unexplained Angelic Activity. Of course!

Here is a first intaglio print taken from the above. I inked up the block in the normal way you ink any intaglio plate, wiped it and printed it on damp paper in my etching press. Later I'll work on this print with hand colouring.

Below is a colour version of a second print of the above. I used soft pastels and other media for colouring.

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NOT SAILING BUT SIGNING

A boat that does not touch water but looks down on the Thames from a great height. A boat designed to remain forever anchored in a famous work of literature. A boat temporarily moored on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Concert Hall. What is it? 

It's Le Roi des Belges, from Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, AKA A Room for London. I was among a few of Teju Cole's friends privileged to visit the Boat last week during his short residency in this eccentric and beautifully crafted fantasy vessel with a panoramic view of London at its most dazzling. At the above link you can listen to Teju's illuminating podcast recorded on the boat. 

A wonderful time-lapse video of how the Room/Boat was built is here .

The London Review of Books bookshop near the British Museum was host to Teju Cole's reading from Open City, his acclaimed prizewinning novel, and the queue for his signature was long and animated.

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HOMAGE TO BLANCHE

Today it is exactly eleven years since my mother Blanche died. I've written about her before and some of you may also remember a slideshow I posted of a few of her paintings. 

It seems that the universe too wants her to be remembered since I recently heard from Henry Boxer, a dealer in naive and outsider art, who had shown interest in her work about three years ago. He has finally included her on his website - you can see the page on her here (he says extra images, titles and dimensions will be added later). Of course I'm delighted that her presence on the internet now extends beyond my site and I'm hoping it might lead to recognition of her late-life blossoming as a painter. 

It was only in the last four or five years of her life (she was 97 when she died) that she took up painting with a verve and talent I'm still in awe of. But in the mid-eighties she came for a short time to the etching classes I was teaching at the City Lit Institute and produced a few images that, objectively, I consider to be as good as some created by modern masters. I could never convince her that what she saw as her 'failings' were qualities which many highly-schooled and sophisticated artists struggle to achieve. Here are two examples of her first etchings/aquatints.

For Denise  Etching/aquatint by Blanche d'Arbeloff 1984 . Image size: 29cm x 29cm 

Napoleon   Etching/aquatint by Blanche d'Arbeloff 1984. Image size: 30cm x 23cm 

 And here's a sketch I drew of her a long time ago, when my parents were living in Putney, Vermont. 

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NEARLY BORN AGAIN

It's today, midnight, the seventh of August, as it is every year, and I'm glad I'm still here. But sometimes I wish that all records of my birth date had somehow been lost and nobody would know when or where the event actually took place. That way I could make up a new birthday every year, in whatever month or country I chose, and decide what age I wanted to be each time. Obviously there would be a limit to how inventive I could be but give or take ten or fifteen years and continents either way, I could probably manage it. 

Anyway something must be done to mark the unavoidable so I've chosen a snapshot taken in New York, in Central Park. I'm about ten and ecstatically playing. The two boys are my cousins, Alex and Dimitri. This is how I still feel, at least on the inside. In the second photo the eye of my Mac caught me trying to replicate the childhood pose.

 

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