Dark times make us stronger in the long-run. The kitchen of 38 Bove Town is heavy with history and packed with paternal presence but slowly it is starting to shine...... i'm making it mine :)
The Whole world is a village
Because the whole world is like a village and you meet the same people again and again when you least expect it.. i'm not sad to empty my room and leave my cosy cottage corner of London in Italian and Irish hands. We had a great WestEnd year and i've a feeling ill see some of these faces along the global camino at some point.
Well i don't know exactly how many hours i've spent on the number 36 bus this week, but thanks to rubbish weather and last minute staff meetings at the pool, a 2 day mural turned into a week long one. I bused back and forth from west to south London alot, but i got to see my favourite 3 year old a whole lot more than planned :)
Interior AND Exterior japanese flower pattern for my london family
Particularly happy with the warming, colours and the way it winds through the house
Rufus did his best to explain to me that we wern't allowed to draw on the walls but i did it anyway. when he gets bigger me and R are going to have so much fun!
A flock of birds flying across the room is a very nice idea. My approach to expressing this artistic vision, over the last 10 months, has gone from this:......IN LONDON E3 LAST WINTER....
To this..... In the Brixton Bovril building in May........
To this .........IN THE STAIRCASE OF MY VERY OWN SQUATTERS COTTAGE W10
Wallpapering photocopies and mixing turquoise paints in empty honey jars,are my favourite things to do at the moment. So i stayed in all weekend and did just that..
From the centre of my silly shared squat house i could hear the following.... Hot97 fm on permanently in the kitchen. keyboard practice from mr JC downstairs. Bikeracing on tv from the room of mr DH , French cinema on high volume in the front room from CB, and mixes from these boys from back home from my own speakers just behind. Somehow though i don't think any amount of noise will prepare us for the NottingHillCarnival next weekend!
Blue Note 14/8/2010
Those of you who think Glastonbury is just a festival are missing out. It is in fact the best home town any girl could wish for. After having copied, cut out, pasted, drawn and of course painted my way through a weeks worth of jazz records and mexican mosiac triangles whilst being surrounded by almost ALL of my favourite people ..I now feel more in love with Mid Somerset than ever before...
After the very vague briefing of "mexican music diner" (thanks Caelie)........ i think we pulled it off with tortilla chips growing on trees and a photocopied record library. ...
Sadly there is not live Blues music played in this cafe but there is great coffee and foods fit for hippies. oh,... and nachos. :)
All the sun i've been catching between British festival fields, Portugese islands and london gardens. . . . .
has inspired me to use these girasol coloured paints to make something stunning. a True celebration of my latest return to London W10...
“
Thanks for bringing so much energy to our garden.!”
One magnificent days work in the sleepy village of Frome, Somerset
That's murals to fit ANY space.. yes even under the stairs
Nuno Marques is a Portugese biologist. Also known as king Chameleon. If you ask him nicely he will take you on an ecological tour of the Olhao islands of the Algarve in his boat.... or take you on long walks with his 4 dogs on the Armona sand dunes. But if your really lucky....he will invite you to paint his garden wall in the sun and eat grillled fish everyday with his beautiful girlfriend, wonderful family and hilarious friends.
Here is me thinking, yeah life is good.,
Vera and Chester helping out inbetween laughs and awesome meals
And the before shot of Nunos yard.
Grand Union. 123 Acre lane Brixton
When i was 18 and i took my first trip across the equator, i had no idea that hanging out on Thai islands, drinking thai whiskey and scuba diving would lead to this.
An 8year old sketchbook full of drawings like these, taught me a new and beautiful lesson in why small pocket sized records of visual experiances are important for more than your memories .
Forget the dover bookshop , i'm planning on traveling more of the world with glue, scissors and a pencil and creating my own image bank.
4 huts, 4 themes 4 days and one fantastic assistant. Helen you rule.!
HELEN RULES......>check out her blog
Why i am spending so much time up ladders??? why?? because i love it and i love you!!!
this weeks hard work payed off amazingly in smiles and laughter.. and even some tears.
This bird wall was whipped up whilst i was still incredibly wobbly from the night before.
I started at lunchtime and was done by the time the other birthday girl got home form work. The best way to spend my birthday .Dove suprise for Jeanne
And also this week i decorated this warehouse wall in time for a wedding anniversary !
Funtimes all round!
This week i left my brush marks on a wall i've had my eye on for years.... 3 day+night shifts in the heart of Portobello at the MauMau Bar was a Westlondon dream come true. Shame about the photo quality!
So many walls not enough time..... x
The sun shone all of last week on Inverness St, London N1
PLUS i got to listen to latin music and eat feijoadas whilst i worked.
Camden is full of characters it's a joy to get to know it.
n Camden town last week me and Alpha collaborated on this last minute mural in Bar Vinyl. The wall was long, the construction site dusty and painting on the ceiling was a neck breaker... But the colour scheme was sexy and watching super quick spray-can sketches appear next to my painty shapes was a wonder... another type of leberkunstler altogether..
Nummer eins on my top 5 list of art holidays, has to be Linz, Austria.
I was commissioned to create a "bookcase" on the bedroom wall of a dear friend Sibylle whom i have known since my exchange student days in Bilbao. We were already mixing up the languages and sharing ideas in the halls of the University of the Basque Country back in 2006, and so i'm more than happy to have spent these days with her, learning new Deutsch words and revisiting old memories during the cutting, sticking, and painting of her golden new library......
I began by collaging phrases from old Spanish revistas, British gossip mags and general Germanic publications onto photos of books whilst humming along to FM Vier . Bi-lingual radio seemed very fitting at the time . Then after some button pressing fun on a photocopier and a bit of cutting out, i organised and pasted up the books in their shelf formation. The shiny and happy Faye Suzannah style pattern in the background was inspired by a brief trip to see the work of Klimt (and Hundertwasser) in Vienna.The latter is such an old hippy i wish he was my uncle.
Cafe con leche and stollen to celebrate. good friends and fun art times.. Wie sind internazionale kinder.
The rest of the list, incase you care is
2- Salvador brazil
3-Armona portugal
4- Zarate Argentina
5-South London Brixton + Brockley
Did i mention that EVERYTHING on Ilha Armona is small? The dogs, the roads, the boats, the houses the rooms.. Henry's room.. yeah pretty tiny. But Henry's smile after i painted him this picture was massive! The last few days of 2009 were spent in perfect company despite the rain outside.
Armona fam winter 2009 L-R. Boli, Nuno, Vera, Spot, Pringle, Kim, Henry, Peko, Me, Lito. yes it was boas festas
