Thinking about Sitting

This is a half–finished post(!), thrown up because nothing on here for too long. Will add commentary asap. This is embryonic visual thinking for a collaboration with the infectious Matt Olson of ro/lu, related to their family of chairs.

Anthropometrics, with grateful thanks to Michael Hurley.

David Gentleman's seminal, folded British Steel mark (via Graphic Journey).

Bruno Munari, via.

A Breton Lit Clos.

Not Quite is Where

Tea bowl named Mino-game ('Mossy tailed tortoise'), attributed to the polymath Hon'ami Kōetsu (1558-1637), via the Smithsonian Library.

Books (2003), cardboard, acrylic paint, adhesive tape by Michal Budny (via). A recent, excellent show next door to us at South London Gallery.

Soft Holes with Dried Fruit (2010), bronze, berries, by Des Hughes. Via Ancient & Modern. Hughes was a part of Strange Events Permit Themselves the Luxury of Occurring at Camden Arts Centre in 2008. The selection of work, by Steven Claydon; concerning itself "with certain exceptions, flaws, aberrations, yawning apertures and flowering discrepancies inherent in taxonomic, historical, and aesthetic groupings. In particular it considers the way in which the artifact, object and document behave within a shifting contextual climate with an emphasis on the ‘thingly’ character of the work of art and its constant attempts to struggle against definition, toward selfabnegation and self-cannibalization." This essay, in full here.

Untitled (2010), pâpier–maché, acrylic paint, by Vincent Fecteau. This orientation was shown at Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Gradens, Edinburgh. "When I decided that these pieces would be hung on the wall and be reversible, I knew that the mechanism of this movement and installation should be clear and simple: hang from one post, no extra support. The forms and the fact that they are reversible – that was complicated enough. It seemed important to me that the 'how' was as honest as possible".

The flipside was exhibited at Greengrassi earlier last year.

Data (2009) by Hayley Tompkins (clay with found object). As a part of Autobuilding, her exhibition also at RBGE. A film work, in the same space, was named Interstice; that is, "an intervening space, especially a very small one" (OUD).

Neither Growth nor Structure A (1979), hessian, plaster and acrylic paint, by Barry Flanagan. Via Waddington.

Werk in Progress

Long Live The King

Good luck, Kenny. You might need it.

Whatever happens, you can do no wrong in my eyes.

Even if you can facilitate a pass along the grass from one man in a deoxygenated blood red shirt to another, that will be something.

Season's Findings

Just returned from County Down, Northern Ireland. Retrobest wishes for the season and thankyou for reading. A miscellany here of seen, found and received in the time away.

This, given by Micheen, my mother–in–law. A wonderful potter, gardener, cook.

Seashore Life and Pattern by T.A. Stephenson, published by Penguin (1944), from the King Penguin series, edited by Nicholas Pevsner (he of the architectural guides).

A C18th tally stick, with a function similar to that of rosary beads, for Catholic observance of covert, outdoor prayer during the penal era, enforced by the Protestant ruling class.

Christmas Day snow, at -15˚C. We were lucky to dodge the pipe–burstings.

Starting Ceramics next week, at Morley College.

My son Syd slept throughout the time with this chap behind the door in his room. In a corner–of–the–eye way, I couldn't help but think of a half–recalled moment from The Shining.

Thought him a clown but turns out he was a bear.

Perhaps they were mixed by a memory of Barnaby the Bear, his nightmarish but somehow edible features postered on my bedroom wall in 1974.

Daughter Sadie was too busy making to wash.

A glove stretcher, as seen in the Ulster Museum, Belfast.

Recently re-opened, with fascinating (and balanced) sections on The Troubles.