TEXTUS EXHIBITION OPENS

Because legendarily wonderful Torriano Meeting House space is so small, they had to restrict the opening to the exhibitors only. Therefore we couldn’t invite friends, families, admirers or otherwise on Saturday but the show is now open from 9th July to 3rd September, as previously announced.

Address: Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Ave, London, NW5 2RX< TEXTUS EXHIBITION: Weekends, 11am-6pm and by appointment in the week.

Every Saturday afternoon there will be a workshop led by an artist or poet (one of which I’ll be doing with Kezzie Florin-Sefton. Date to be confirmed.

Sundays in August : Readings associated with the exhibition:

Sunday 6th August TEXTUS reading: between text and textile Sunday 13th August TEXTUS reading: between text and textile Sunday 20th August TEXTUS reading: between text and textile Sunday 27th August TEXTUS reading: between text and textile

I took a few photos at the private view but most of them vanished from my old camera, I don't know why or where. Here are those I still have.

APPARITION

Yesterday while washing my hands over the bathroom sink I noticed that the nail brush I always hang over a metallic (no longer magnetic) soap-holder looks just like a mouth with teeth bared. Of course I had to draw a face around it to accentuate this discovery. Unbelievably, I had never noticed it before. Here he is, made even more believable by the cast shadow which gives him a beard. You can't see it properly in this flat photo but in three-dimensional reality he is sticking his silver tongue out at me, probably for revealing him.

ASHES TO OCEAN

This morning my niece Selene Guerrieri with her husband GianLuca Martinelli and their two children, Mariam and Emanuel, will be sprinkling my sister Annie's ashes over a small part of the Atlantic ocean. This was Annie's wish, expressed many times to Selene, who has gone to infinite trouble to find the perfect spot for this ceremony in honour of her mother. It is on the coast of Brittany, in the Morbihan area near Nantes.
I cannot be there in the flesh but my spirit is with them. It's still difficult for me to believe that my sister really left this world on the 15th of October last year. I am convinced that her indomitable spirit is capable of persuading any cosmic Authority that her aller-retour ticket to earth is valid for all eternity. But perhaps she has chosen to stay wherever her restless non-material self now resides.

TEXTUS EXHIBITION NOTICE

Take note of the TEXTUS invitation and if you're in London be sure to come and see how textiles and text, poetry and patterns can play together and enhance each other. I've become good friends with the two curators/creators of this project, Lottie Marie Mc Crindell and Kezzie Florin Sefton and it was their inspiration which prompted me to make 'Patterns in the Mind Endlessly Repeated' for the exhibition.

NEW COMEDY TEAM?

I have a suggestion for Boris and Donald on how to spend the rest of their lives: Get together as a comedy team. Tour the world making stuff up and repeating lines you've been using for decades. You'll be a huge success or a tragic failure.

HARRY TAKES THE STAND

Bravo to Harry for having the guts to take on the scandalously intrusive media and for demonstrating that it's possible for a Royal to go public with actual human feelings expressed in non-royal normal human language without the sky falling down. He will be hated by many for doing this but count me among those who are giving him a standing ovation.

BUSY ALTERED EGO

My altered ego Eilatan (formerly known as Augustine) is editing my graphic novel as well as appearing in it. She walks around as if she owns the place.

CORONATION COMMENT

No I am NOT going to draw a cartoon of Jesus dressed like a tramp but invisible, trying on the billion £££ crown at the coronation with an invisible speech bubble above his head saying:

"Didn't I say something about giving away all your possessions? Or maybe I said: When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you? But maybe my memory's failing or maybe the translators got it wrong."

That's much too long for a speech bubble and not funny enough for a cartoon. Don't worry, I'm definitely not going to draw it.

FOR BLANCHE

Yesterday would have been my mother's 119th birthday if she was still here. To honour Blanche and celebrate her I made this sort of manifesto.

PATTERNS

I'm participating in TEXTUS, an exhibition and project which will unfold over the summer at Torriano Meeting House.

TEXTUS is curated by Lottie Marie Mc Crindell and Kezzie Florin Sefton, two wonderfully creative young women I recently met and instantly became firm friends with. Although textiles haven't appeared in my work before, I was inspired by this project and decided a few weeks ago to play with remnants of fabrics I'd saved, adding cut-out words. Here's the result:

Patterns Endlessly Repeated In The Mind NdA 2023 Textiles, paper, cardboard, gouache, acrylic, wood. 51 x 79 cms(20 x 31 inches)