Swedish House Mafia

In a valient to stay au courant Miss Em, photo featured, emails through music recommendations each week from Ibiza.

This week Megan's top pick Swedish House Mafia - the combo of Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angello, Mafia.

I am over there in two weeks time and Em and I are catching them on Monday night specials at Pasha.

Meanwhile this link should get you there http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=UxuEl8qkErs&gl=US

Amazing Grace

OK the headline is obvious the collection of Grace Kelly's wardrobe currently on display at the V&A in London is far from obvious.

A breathtaking collection of frocks

AND they have accessories on display wonderful sunglasses and of course the Hermes 'Kelly Bag' her favourites Dior, Balenciaga, Givenchy, and Yves St Laurent were all there and it was easy to see the influence her style had on designers like Donna Karan. Dear dear Grace.

Moleskinerie

Moleskines = the best notebooks on the planet

Moleskinerie = the best blog in the world = http://www.moleskinerie.com/

Me = I am occassionally and gratefully featured on the site. This time in connection with my foray into mono print www.moleskinerie.com/2010/07/tim-baynes-moleskine-to-monoprint.html

THANK YOU SO MUCH

Despair

Sorry, this is the last of the two part series of things I found un-nerving in wonderful Northern Cyprus.

On my way to the village I would cut through the olive grove, at the back of our house, to gain the main road and there was a tiny church in ruins. Grave stones broken and twisted. I returned several times to make drawings of this 'dissolution', wondering what drove people to do this. So very sad, and respectfully, I really have not right to comment. I was so moved by this place regardless of who build it and who brought it down.

Deus Misereatur.

Debt Row

Northern Cyprus call-back #2

Along the coast of northern Cyprus, a beautiful coastline, who's colours with the time of day, there are so many holiday developments. They take the form of basic concrete shells, half finished or ready to move in, their pools and lawns attended for owners who are yet to arrive.

Forty, sixty, eighty km from Kyrenia (Girne) we drove along the coast road, admiring beautiful design of some of these developments and the unoccupied sadness as they look out at the blue blue sea.

Sleepy Hollow

Northern Cyprus, reflections from the time there.

Ozankoy the village nestles above where we were staying. I would visit frequently, a ten minute walk in 37 glorious degrees of late afternoon heat. The place would be asleep and I too almost seem to sleep walk down the side streets. The old men are dozing at tables in the main square.

Then activity! two teenage girls prance down the street and as I walk back to the house they appear as if fairies from another world on every street corner in a moment. Reverie is broken by the Imman's stern call to prayer.

Delightful drawing

Last evening I was desperate for a scrap of paper to write a number down. Bron handed me this!

"What is this? I asked

"Oh its was what my friend Gemma did to describe her caravan holiday! replied B

I thought this drawing was quite wonderful; lightly executed with great confidence. I delicately set it to one side, to share here. x

It's back, He's back

Nearly three weeks without a 'post' and the other evening a long conversation with a supremely intelligent being about to blog or not to blog.

Anyway I am going forward - so before launching into a series of creative ideas around two weeks in Northern Cyprus here is the spring board, a quote from the biography

Robert Graves His life and works by Martin Seymour-Smith (Graves author of I,Claudius and some of the finest love poetry in the English language):

"He worked not in sporandic bursts, but relentlessly, persistently and regularly" .

This is about the long and short of creativity - a massive volume of effort applied to talent.

A finer form of art

The other day I was lucky enough to catch up with Juliet Johnson, long-time chum and Director of Frost & Reed, a fine art dealer whose gallery stands proud at the end of King Street in St James.

Its always a thrill to step into the finer side of painting: Juliet walked me round two exciting shows there at the moment Marcel Dyf and Kate Giles. Exciting for very different reasons.

Marcel Dyf is a 20th century Impressionist, a Frenchman who was a genuine inheritor of the tradition of Renoir and Monet, who was painting in some of the same places. It was wonderful to be intimate with work that transport you directly to the french countryside and the water's edge.
And on to Ms Giles: Standing in front of her work the vigour of St Petersburg and mysticism of the woods around the Pushkin Museum almost overwhelms; as Juliet talks intimately of Kate’s energy, enthusiasm and excitement as a painter. This is an artist who was quoted recently

“I sometimes want to turn the machine off but as an artist you can’t,” . . .

I’ll leave it there, except to share the link http://www.frostandreed.com/