This text is made out of some beautiful marbled paper remnants from my dear friend Lucy, the clever hands and brain behind Marmor Paperie!
I went into Manchester for the evening to catch my first ever Flim Nite — ‘a distorted adaptation of a popular film, retold through theatre, comedy, poetry and/or music’. I’ve been aware of these nights for a long time, having been following one of the creators in Twitter for years, but this was the first time since moving closer to Manchester that I’d managed to make it along. (Thanks to Kim for coaxing me…) This month was Men In Black, an old favourite of mine, and I have a whole new way of thinking about it thanks to some of the… unusual interpretations on offer
Some days are very mundane but also very good, and this was one. (Side note, I've had these gross skin tags on my neck for years — you've probably never seen them because I ALWAYS WEAR SCARVES no matter what the weather — and I got them burnt off with a hot wire at minor surgery, and let me tell you it was up there with getting ears syringed as one of the most grotesquely satisfying medical procedures out there)
Every Wednesday I go to the local creative co-working space the Egg Factory for a shared lunch. Most weeks the food's lovely, some weeks it's just three of us with some stale bread and a jar of mystery pickles, and some weeks it's EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD — this was one of the latter weeks.
Sometimes I walk one of our neighbours dog Nancy. She's great.
Exciting things: 1) Hannah came to visit for the first time in years, and she always has the best goss (this time was no exception) 2) I did an open studios event for the first time, so I guess I've 'made it' now? 3) We got a rice cooker and it's VERY GOOD
The Hebden Bridge Open Studios were on for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For a small town Hebden Bridge has a LOT of artists. Unlike in Brighton where these events tend towards open houses, (although there was always New England House studios too), in Hebden Bridge it's mostly artists working out of large collective studios in old mills. I was hosted by the aforementioned Egg Factory where I'm a member, along with Rachel (with her amazing stick and ink drawings), Amy (screenprinting maestro and signmaker extroadinaire) Hannah (who makes amazing weird sculptures out of chairs) and Pippa (who makes paper cuts more detailed than you can even imagine), lovelier folks you could not wish to meet.
After the Saturday day, we had a lovely barbecue in the sun outside the Egg Factory with all of us and our friends, and we sat outside until like NINE and didn't even get cold, the DREAM
Our friends Chris and Mel invited us over for dinner and fed us the most delicious vegan paella EVER (I mean, it happened to be vegan, it was the most delicious paella I've ever had full stop). I also got lots of interior design ideas/aspirations from their very lovely place.
I feel like when I was younger it was a lot easier to shift between different 'looks'. Now, when I wear clothes that don't fit with the aesthetic I've formed for myself, I feel weird and sad and uncomfortable, even if I really like the clothes in principle.
As part of our ongoing rice adventures, we made sushi for the first time ever. It was very badly made because none of us had any idea what we were doing, but also DELICIOUS which is what matters.
I had a craving to go on an outing, so I went on a day trip to nearby Saltaire...
"Saltaire was built in 1851 by Sir Titus Salt, a leading industrialist in the Yorkshire woollen industry. Salt built neat stone houses for his workers (much better than the slums of Bradford), wash-houses with tap water, bath-houses, a hospital and an institute for recreation and education, with a library, a reading room, a concert hall, billiard room, science laboratory and a gymnasium. With the combination of quality housing, employment, recreation, educational facilities and social services the model town represented a landmark example of enlightened 19th century urban planning."
Basically, it's a super cute weird little town with loads of unusually giant/regal public buildings, and in the height of summer, it's absolutely beautiful. The old Salts Mill is also now home to a very large collection of David Hockney's art, including his recent ipad drawings of spring which have been printed off at huge scale and look incredible.
As you all know, nearly this whole month has just been glorious weather wise, and I just strolled round this place in the sun feeling thoroughly contented for an afternoon. Treats!
One of my favourite things about summer is how all the cats hang around outside. You don't see cats out and about in winter and that makes me sad.
'The boys'
I mean, google this if you're interested I guess. It's certainly helped me, I am VERY easily distracted and quite bad at staying on task for long. I'm far from perfect at this, but just trying has made a huge difference.
The windows have finally gone into the roof of our new house. I tried to paint the bright sun shining in onto the plaster and plasterboard (but my painting skills still have a long way to go)
I travelled up to Edinburgh to visit our friend Jess, who I hadn't seen since she moved away from Brighton a few months before we moved up north, so probably a couple of years now. Her and Ryan also live with two of my favourite doggos out there, Stompy and May, who I used to hang out with a lot when we all lived in Brighton. It was lovely to see them again. Stompy is old now though. Which is disconcerting.
Jess was part of the team organising the first Edinburgh Anarchist Feminist bookfair, and she asked if I'd oversee the zine table and sell some of my zines. I'm probably feminist enough but definitely not anarchist enough, so felt like a bit of an imposter, but everyone was very nice and lots of people bought my silly things, so it was a worthwhile outing.
RIDICULOUSLY, given that I now live right in the middle of the country, so travelling from end to end shouldn't be something I do any more, I then got the train from Edinburgh all the way down to Brighton, via London. Luckily I like trains. I stopped in briefly to Somerset House en route, who were hosting Process, a weekend of zine related exhibits and talks and workshops and stalls. It was pretty good although I wish I'd had a bit more time to actually go to some of the specific things that were part of it.
And then, Brighton. My love!
I stayed with my friends Kris and Jonny who live out near Patcham. That meant a 30 – 45 min bus journey into work each morning, which is fine, fun even, but damn... 8am and already 23+ degrees, those buses got SWEATY
I LOVE HEATWAVE. Kept getting really annoyed with everyone being all 'oh, wish it would rain' — NEVER
Look, I know it's all global warming, I know everything's fucked, I know this is the beginning of a long, slow, painful end, and it's only going to get worse, but I am going to bloody well enjoy it while it's still tolerable.
Oh yeah, I'm getting a tattoo soon. Mentioned to my senior designer that I might be having a 1/3 life crisis and he was like '1/3? You'll be lucky!' which was HELPFUL. I fully intend to live until 90.
I am not ready for it to rain again, but obviously Hebden Bridge has other ideas.
I mean I'm pretty certain Charlie ALWAYS wants a walk, but what if I'm wrong?!
For Justin's birthday I made him a gift that was a zine containing all the visual diaries he's ever appeared in since I started doing this 5.5 years ago. It nearly caused him to have a full nostalgia breakdown. I guess this drawing can be the first in the updated volume I'll make for him in a few more years... (I still can't draw him to look like he actually looks though)
Mum and Dad came to visit, and me and Alex went to see Chk Chk Chk (!!!) at the Trades Club in the evening. It was one of the sweatiest shows I've ever been to. There's been a lot of that this month though. And I am A-OKAY with it.
Now, August! HIGH SUMMER! MORE HOTNESS PLEASE!
1 comment:
Hooray! It's the first of the month!
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