Kumi Oguro

Whilst in Toulouse the other weekend, I was blown away by the work of photographer Kumi Oguro
Kumi was born in Japan, but now lives and works in Antwerp. Her work explores the relation between the still and the moving image, time and space and her photographs make you think of what is beyond. Often, a fragment of a body is shown - a lock of hair, hands that almost meet or feet dragging themselves across a floor. At the same time an event is suggested - a before and after that never is revealed.
Images that affect you for a long time after you have seen them, and really captured my imagination!

cleansing ritual

This morning I woke up with the best of intentions. My workspace (not even in the most enthusiastic moments could I call it a studio, it's a pokey bit at the bottom of the stairs that I share with the guinea pigs) needed a damn good clean, tidy and organise. Tasks which require skills I don't exactly have in spades. So in my usual procrastinatory(?) manner, I thought I best unblock my chakras first, and do a bit of yoga. Apparently if they are blocked you only use one third of your life force, did you know that? Unfortunately the dog had nicked the cat food this morning and his chakras kept unblocking too, and the cat kept coiling herself round me while I'm trying to fire breathe through my third eye........not good.
It did the job though, cos although it's taken me all day, I can now see my desk again and for the next week or so, I will know where everything is. I feel so clean!

wish you were here.....

here's a quick sneaky peak at something I've been messing around with lately. It's not really an artists book, not really a journal, or a sketchbook, or notebook. More like a mongrel version! Part use/part ornament (bit like me) The book was conceived during my trip to the Atlantic coast, when I sent a postcard everyday back to myself, but they were being sent to famous people who were kind of in my head while I was away. If that makes sense. Or not.

analog adventures

Ten years or so ago , give or take, I picked up a Praktica SLR at a boot sale. I needed to do a slide presentation at art school and bought it solely for that purpose. Since then it's been pretty much stuffed in the barn and forgotten about, until I started to get all over-enthusiastic about my Yashica (you know, the one I keep going on about, pay attention!)
Anyhoo, I dug it out, put in a film and let the kids muck about with it. Joe in particular was rather impressed as it came in a rather snazzy case with telephoto and wide-angle lenses, and a few other gizmos/boytoys.
So I had to have a playtime with it too, and it's astounded me that after all these years of neglect piled under a mountain of crap, how well it still works. So now I have yet another distraction. Yeah, like I needed it!

more on my flickr
Bon weekend!

Song of Joy

Do you like good music? I've been thinking alot about the effect music has on my life lately. It is a huge force, surrounding me constantly. I have, however realised that I am no longer ashamed to admit that 'I know what I like' and perhaps that actually, it doesn't make me a bad person! You see, it seems to me that it is a considered a mark of your intellect, openness and all round fabulousness if you can say 'oh, yes, I have really wide musical tastes'. But recently I decided I would never make this claim again. I do have certainly eclectic musical preferences, but actually there's a lot I can't stomach and I have quite valid criteria for loving the music I do, although it's not conscious.
The music that I love does tend to be linked to memory, often in quite an abstract way and as a result becomes so personal that it can easily bring me such bursts of joy but can also have me blubbing like an idiot! And melody and narrative are essential. But that doesn't mean it has to have a story with a beginning, middle and end. For example, Sigur Ros make no formal sense but their music is beautiful.

Recently I have been making work inspired by Bob Dylan's 'Tangled Up In Blue' and 'Sara', and right now something relating to a song called 'Passer Ma Route' all of which are so inextricably linked to my son and this summer that I fill up listening to them. No big grand events but just raw emotion, pit of the stomach stuff.
So from here on in, I shall take pride in saying that I have good reason for dismissing all those artists I feel bad about not liking, from Frank Sinatra and Joni Mitchell to Florence and the Machine or Muse, and indulge myself enjoying a bit of Captain Beefheart followed up by Emily Loizeau!
(And I cannot recommend White Chalk highly enough)