Friday, June 27, 2008

Thursday, June 26, 2008

to the woods ! ... via the tapestry room


you look dapper from your napper to your feet ... to the national art library in the V&A to find out more about maurice lambert; he's wearing gloves




i'll go back next week to check some details before i give you the results of my short search ...
... and many thanks to everyone at the library for their courtesy and patience
one of the questions that i'll be "sniffing around" in search of an answer for is ...
was there such a thing as "cold war art" & was maurice's work for Associated Electrical Industries a prime example ?
curiously enough, fantastically curiously, quite creepily serendipitously ... having just formulated that question and typed the three words into google, i've found this link to a forthcoming exhibition on the V&A's very own website !
maybe the question needs reformulating ... was there such a thing as "corporate cold war art" ?

wotton church in surrey































i'd like to get inside this isolated church to see what remains of john evelyn's memorial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Evelyn

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

transport for london ... commodity fetishism ... weapons

whatever the grown ups living in london might be thinking about the attitude of the youth towards the possession of weapons, nothing stands between the cinema industry and the fetishization of arms


















Friday, June 20, 2008

driftwood from the magic beach



i lived in brighton for a while and i would cycle to the beach at dawn ... to swim if the weather permitted ... and to collect small pieces of driftwood that had some texture and/or animation

walking alone beside the waves in all weathers, and having some trivial purpose, was extremely therapeutic ... the sea has many rhythms and the mind slows down imperceptibly whilst you are near to it

i gave each piece of dry wood two or three coats of acrylic paint with a good sable brush ... watered-down liquitex is nice because it has a fine texture and when brushed on gently will flow and creep into most of the cracks and crevices ... i found i could mix and keep a colour for a long time in an airtight 35mm film canister

you have to be patient and must allow each coat to harden and set

when the colours seemed right, i would give them an extra coat of liquitex translucent gold ... the microscopic flakes of mica migrate and congregate while the paint is liquid

all you need is time and patience and good eyesight

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

the artesian well on wandsworth road


maurice lambert, sculptor of the barbaric edifice at 33 grosvenor place

born in france, lived in england, son of george, a rarther distinguished painter from australia, see first two paintings of maurice

... the question is, how did Maurice get from A to Z ?

to me, his work makes him seem like a character out of hitchcock
















































































































http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=basildon&w=13385968%40N00




















































Monday, June 16, 2008

reading challenge ... a little primer for the larger picture

a new series of reasonably accessible lectures to whet our appetites for attempting to read marx's capital


http://davidharvey.org/



... and an interesting update on commodities from today's paper, from which the AP/Monty Davis photo is borrowed



http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/16/food.biofuels




Sunday, June 15, 2008

iconography class ...































once upon a time in the cathedral at strasbourg, the figure on the left represented the church and the figure on the right, blindfolded and carrying a broken spear, represented the synagogue

... and when the moon is full, they slip silently from their plinth and steal away to give chase until dawn upon putney heath ...