Degree show delight

Beautiful ceramics I saw last night at Kingston illustration degree show by Louise Madzia.

Take stuff and leave money

A few years ago in the summer holidays me and Lorna went on holiday driving around the Isle of Wight, all over the island we found little boxes of fruit and veg outside peoples front gardens, sometimes with a little box to leave money in and sometimes with a handwritten note saying 'help yourself'.
It's a good, simple trusting thing.
Lorna made a cool collection of photographs of them.
So it was pretty damn excellent to stumble across this box of plates last week in Rye.

Flowers from the garden

We've never had a garden until now. With our flat we have a small yard attached that I do nothing but Lorna does everything to keep it looking beautiful. This year there has been a great crop of roses and I cut a few to put on our bedroom window, a simple act that I'm shocked at how much it made me happy !

Pig foot scraper

When my two daughters were little girls I used to walk them to school the same way every day, one of the daily excitements was when we walked past one house that had a pig shaped boot scraper in the door step, we used to point and shout "pig! Pig!" as we passed it. A simple pleasure that I had forgotten about long ago until last week I rode past that house on my bike and there he was still, ten years later, hopefully delighting some other young children every day.

"PIG ! PIG!!"

I bought these little lucky cats in Kobe in Japan. Now they live in Rye in Sussex in England where they nap and stretch and wave to people through the window.

Yellow's dead!

My favourite cycling jacket has passed, the zip has finally broken beyond repair. We had some great rides together my old friend, I took you on and off thousands of times and each time was as sweet as the first time. You kept me warm and dry year after year, I am bereft.

David Shrigley at the Haywood

I have been to see this great show twice in a week now. On the second visit I noticed half a dozen things I'd never noticed the first time.
The thing that always shocked me when I went to art school was that the people who were taken seriously by the tutors were the people that acted seriously. The people who were funny and modestly were depreciating about their work weren't. Work with humour always came second to serious work, I thought it all was a crock of shite then and I still do now.


This brilliant and hilarious show is equally as serious as any I have ever scene, it deals with life and death and everything in between in such a fantastically thoughtful and inspiring way that you can't help but leave the show thinking 'I must make my work better' I can't think of a better thing to say about it.