pet portraits...

spot the odd one out...



trick question? well maybe, but i reckon you guessed right anyway. yes, 3 are long sticks made of wood used for various artistic endeavours. they are also all most happy to be placed in the talented hands of Richard Phoenix. if it isn't enough that Richard is in involved in about a gazillion musical projects (and good ones too), and works hard at his job, he has also proved himself to be a more than proficient Artist (note the capital A). Richard is also good at apologising. he likes to say sorry for always being busy and not getting things done. but here's the truth... this guy can't stop. nothing can stop him. he's one of the most amazing and talented people i know and NOTHING will stop him. especially now he has an AWESOME NEW WEBSITE (made by my skinny fingers... ahem...) he should also be your first port of call for a portrait of your favourite furry friend...


richardphoenix.co.uk
huxleyboon.wordpress.com

and oh yeah... the mug. that's my new mug. it's really big and good and hungry caterpillar? little smiley sun? ace!

there was this one time...

when i went to Edinburgh. in fact it was last week... too many great things happened for me to write a very coherent blog today, instead i'll let it trickle into some entries over the next few days... but here's SOME stuff that went on... Jez and Lizzy (are awesome), walking up hills, walking down hills (and not walking up a windy hill in Holyrood Park). sun and rain, then a bit more sun... rain... sun...rain... (etc)... meeting new friends, and the occasional old one. ghost tour. trees. art. and buckets of inspiration... i just realised this was my first trip away since Stockholm last year, which is perhaps why i treated it like a proper holiday and drank too much, slept too much, spent too much. totally worth it.

but let's remember why i was even there in the first place. i owe it all to the brainchild of Jez and Lizzie... 'We Are the Friction'. i'm not going into what it's all about again, but here's an update...



the book was launched at Analogue Books last thursday. it was pretty great. it still is pretty great and is on until the end of August... numerous images can be seen on Analogue's flickr. i already wrote all about this on my website and feel like i'm repeating myself, but here's some more shameless self-promotion... both my images (in full on my website now) and many of the other illustrations from 'We Are the Friction' can be purchased as a limited edition digital print from Sing Statistics. mine are £20 each. WOW! you know it. and that's not all folks, the original Tigress is for sale, she's £290... holler if you need a tiger made of leaves in your life.

another massive thanks to Jez and Lizzy (best tour guides ever) for putting up with me all week. shout out to my homeboy Charlie (best travel companion) and thanks also to Russell, Julie and Rudi (best family ever? quite possibly) at Analogue (best bookshop ever? for sure)

best present ever... when i was small (smaller than i am now i mean) i was pretty fond of curly wurlies, chocolate buttons and comics featuring the cast of Rainbow... curly wurlies i'm not so fussed about these days and my nostalgia for Rainbow has been marred by that infamous 'plucking' video... but clever Cadbury made GIANT chocolate buttons, which has meant that the ratio of chocolate button : my mouth is the same today as 20 years ago and thus i suppose, i am trapped in the grips of a marketing ploy of pure genius

let battle commence...




















friction vs. friction... i know what would win my £12

I am the friction...
























singstatistics.co.uk
analoguebooks.co.uk

so, what do you DO?...

ketchup #2...

last Sunday Arild and I saw the Radical Nature exhibition at the Barbican. maybe another £8 poorly spent, but there was a couple of nice parts... one being the wooden hut in the courtyard with free pink tea, another being the projects by Agnes Denes...



read more about her here

Arild brought Tinariwen to my attention, and as it turned out i had already downloaded the new album 'Aman Iman' (the result of last.fm spying) and their first is on spotify. it's what i am mostly listening to this week... Tinariwen's website tagline is this...'Legendary poet guitarists and soul rebels from the southern Sahara desert.' ...yeah! i managed to bypass the youtube photographic montage videos for this...



Arild is one of my oldest and most loved friends. though we rarely get to meet these days, i can confidently say he is the most constant and influential person in my life. i'm happy that the sunshine held out until he left for Morrocco...

on Monday the storm clouds descended. i nearly missed seing Why? because of the river flowing down my road. in the end i did make it, albeit late (headline band on before 9? what?) i just about managed to force my way into the crowd enough to be able to see all components of Why?'s heads (standing on tiptoes and utilising my contortionist skills)... naturally i ended up with the speakers at my left and a group of rude, obnoxious teenage boys to my right (including the spawn of Zeegen)... i'm not usually a violent person but... anyway... it WAS a good show. and I got to hang out with Ridda (a.k.a. clarelevitt.com) after too. she's pretty good...



*BONUS* Yoni Wolf interview by the awesome Dan Hancox

ketchup...

the thunder and rain outside is an underline to the fact our heatwave is officially gone. i'm happy i worked hard on my tan whilst i had the chance. plus i can always top it up in L.A... this is still currently the plan. i'll maybe even book flights this week...!

i have done it again. too much to catch up on but i'll do my best. the past week i have been busy with Arild, art and architecture. and whilst we are on the subject of A, i have also entertained my love of vegetables beginning with A - asparagus, avocado (yes, probably a fruit)... unfortunately the artichoke search was a failure...

last thursday i met up with Robert for a day of art/free beer... in my not so expert opinion, Per Kirkeby at the Tate Modern was not quite worth the exhibition space, or the £9 it cost me. i feel i was tricked into imagining a entirely different experience - the few paintings of his i'd seen previously were really the only ones i liked there. the aesthetic of most of the rest of his work did not appeal to me and all in all his work seemed to lack direction and progression... more like studies towards something greater never reached. still here are some i did enjoy...





and here are two contrasting reviews from The Guardian... here and here

after the Tate we headed to the NPG to see Francis Alÿs's Fabiola exhibition. this time i'll keep it short. it was BRILLIANT. on until the 20th September, so plenty of time still

highlights of the rest of the night included free Asahi provided by 12 yr boys, the awe-inspiring collage art of Brian Adam Douglas (see image below), and meeting Emily and Matt (aka Emily Forgot and Hellovon) not realising who they were at first. duh! i am a huge fan of Hellovon and though i was aware of Emily's work , i hadn't looked at her website for a long time... there's some amazing work there. an inspiring pair, and very nice people (thanks Matt for the beer!)
hellovon.com
emilyforgot.co.uk

(the herringbone is collage too!)

i finished the night at the Brighton GDI09 graduate show at The Rag Factory off Brick Lane. a very good show in a very nice space. i really should have posted about it earlier as they are probably taking down the show as i type. but you can still explore the talent here... GDI09.co.uk

ok. having already spent more than an hour wirting this post, i'm going to leave the rest until tomorrow... but before I go let me return to Robert.

Robert Phoenix is the kind of person that makes you wonder what you would do if you didn't know people like him... he is a talented artist and yeasayer and good friend. i admire him for the brave choices he recently made to progress his painting, and they seem to be working out. and if this wasn't enough, he also runs failedrockstar.org, an online collection of his own interviews with artists

check Robert out...
his painting, his blog, failedrockstar.org