Fingers & Thumbs

Our crappy studio sprang a leak during the UK's last soggy fortnight. While shifting stuff out of harm's way we rediscovered a nice poster and a naïve etching. Edward spent a sweary day framing them up (don't mention the huge gap at the foot of the black one). The poster's not just gobbledegook (or double-dutch) though, if you've not heard her, Yma Sumac was a loopy sounding Peruvian soprano associated with the exotica movement.

Chances are you'll have already read an obituary or two on the wonderful painter Mary Fedden (1915-2012) this week, but it's always nice to post a few pictures... even though I've inadvertently made the gloomiest selection!

Though I love the name Ira, we'd pretty much settled on Eli for the kid... a pity then that Chris Evans nabbed it so publicly last week. He gets called Meatloaf or Frazzle-Face right now, but I think we're pitching for Orson; it sounds a bit like 'Our Son', teams well with Underwood, and —even better— means bear-like. Trouble is, everybody says 'Like Orson Welles?'... whose real name was George.

 

There's a few other Orsons though; the feral original from a 14th century tale Valentine & Orson (pictured here in a 1566 street theatre study from Bruegel), or the intense looking phrenologist, Orson Squire Fowler, advocator of social reform and octagonal houses. With all this quick Wikipedia knowledge, I should apply for a job as a research assistant!

• model-maker's pic from the amazing smallhousepress

• Incendiary still from Jordan's Dance, 1977, which forms part of Derek Jarman's Jubilee and is reprised this week for a timely screening on The Mall at the ICA.

From the Corner...

What with last week's dual role as hospital patient/jittery new parents, we completely missed the preview of From the Corner of Your Eye to the Corner of the Room and Back Again, the new show from an old friend, Tom Gidley. There's another of Paradise Row's artisits, Barry Reigate, who Edward's known since they were 11... you can take it from me, that's a very long time!

25.5.12 - 30.6.12, Paradise Row Gallery, 74a Newman Street, London W1T 3DB