Jump for Joy!

Old friend Matthew Bickley made the resurgence of our clubbing days even less likely with the birth of his gorgeous son, Cassius. Even when sending congratulations I kept one eye on business, making sure I took snaps of their card. Who knows, this kangaroo may just jump its way right into our range!

I stopped visiting Frieze Art Fair when my generation started doing dinner after an opening instead of going dancing. Still, there's always a glut of great shows in the capital. Kai Althoff at Michael Werner is simply something else; if you're near marble arch you could do worse than check it out.

Also made it to our old friend's show at Hanmi Gallery, Maple Street. There's something so romantic about Tom Gidley's palette right now, though I'm not sure he'd thank me for saying as much. Here's his recent painting of Edward (Mr Lisa Jones Studio). Behind the ceramics, it even looks a little like him... must be that dark-ringed eye area.

Thanks to Bernard Lodge for forwarding comps to The Brighton Art Fair. I’ve never been before but I wouldn’t pass-up the chance to see more of his splendid work so I headed down with our truculent and restlessly wriggly toddler.

Last year we bought an abstract map print and we’ve got a keen eye to a couple of others, only right now we’re pouring resources into a build and heaping stuff into storage for six months!

Like his wife (the equally talented and prolific children’s illustrator, Maureen Roffey), Bernard is characteristically dismissive of his skills, but there’s still time for you to decide for yourself; the fair runs all day Sunday.

Please leave something for me!

Trade fairs tend to ape the structure of little towns in their layout and, to date, we've been quite lucky with our neighbours. Though last week we were especially fortunate to spend a few days in the good company of Ligne Claire illustrator and Kenny Everette lookalike, Robbie Porter.

We also saw some lovely new bits'n'bobs from our competitors: Wrap's stand looked even better than last year, while Francesca Iannaccone's open window illustration is just plain gorgeous. And who could blame us for picking up a couple of things at cost, like these stripy Moroccan bowls from Skoura.

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Phew! We managed to mail all our A0 Xmas posters out to friends and associates in plenty time for last post, but, wait, what's this? A seriously beautiful poster from the kindly folk at Ryantown... now I have seasonal illustration anxiety! Still, it does look real pretty (even on the difficult walls of the roundhouse). Thanks guys.

P+P II

Is it really 5 years since 'Press + Pull', the first show of power-pattern prints from Kate Gibb (work pictured) and James Brown? It seems like only yesterday. In another 5 years I guess 'Press + Pull II' will feel like only yesterday... but really it starts tomorrow.

Press + Pull II, The Stour Space, 7 Roach Rd, Tower Hamlets, E3 2PA

Skål

A new daughter, Sol, AND a London Design Medal… it's been a busy month in the life of wunderkind, Daniel Rybakken. Daniel bagged the category of Emerging Talent, while the Lifetime Achievement went to the king of understatement, Dieter Rams.

The medal itself is seriously ugly. Luckily, the daughter is gorgeous.

Life

If you're not running too late you can glimpse the curious new Design Museum taking shape behind the hoardings on route to Kensington Olympia... not that Olympia didn't have enough curios of its own at Top Drawer trade fair earlier this week. It's been predictably good to catch up with old friends (now stockists), Black Bough and some of our oldest friends (also now stockists), Present London.

It wasn't all familiar faces though, we spent a few days in the spirited company of Joy, Anna and Rose of London Pooch and Anna Wright, even getting to meet Polly, one half of pattern-mad design duo, Wrap. While I admit the current copy (No.8) is my first, at least I can check out those back issues while I wait for more!

Too preoccupied to scour the charity shops proper, we did find a copy of Charlotte Salomon's (1917—1943) extraordinary document Life? or Theatre? in Oxfam, W8. This untimely 836 page tome dates from the early 1940s and forms a dream-like diary, or early graphic novel, where each gouache panel becomes a fevered or fluid artwork in its own right.

Late, Great

Some 1st birthday cards are worth waiting for… even nearly a month! And here's the proof. You can see more beautiful work from Kate Queen-of-Colour Gibb right here. It ain't all done with computers, you know.

No, kid, please don't put that in your big wet mouth. Oh, you insist? Okay. Er, oh…

Seven

Launching today 10am-6pm, Poundshop 7 will run Tues-Sat, 10am-5pm, until June 22nd! You can find them showcasing their fine roster of established and upcoming designers (including us) at Manchester's Chinese Arts Centre. The bespoke interior is created by agency, Music, but not to fret if you can't make it, they're online too.

Poundshop's promo patterns are usually taken from generic paper bags, this one's my fave to date.

Congratulations to our neighbours who, after yonks of cohabitation, sooo got hitched last weekend. I found this cute-but-kitsch bit of wedding ephemera in lieu of a card and got to wondering why chimney sweeps spelled such good luck for happy couples. I figured they might form some kind of symbolic repository for filth, a way of keeping the nuptials pure-as-driven-snow. Turns out it's some dreary tale about George III and a bolting horse.

Next time I'll just make it up.

Little Blue House

Sometimes it's difficult to recognise drawings as real, viable products until you see them in a shop or —very, very seldom— editorial. It was lovely to see our Little Blue House on the shelf recently while house-warming with friends.

In retrospect, I hope it took pride of place among the throng of well-wishes because it's cute and not just 'cos it's small!

 

I remember the first part of Steven Claydon's bacchanalian after-show party pretty well, though later events became noticeably less distinct in recollection... before receding from memory entirely. Luckily for me the exhibition itself lingers in the mind with crystalline, sober clarity. If you're in London's west end for some Christmas shopping you could do worse than flee the crowds for a five minute culture fix.

Rat. Pearl. London. Onion: 

Sadie Coles, 4 New Burlington Place, London W1

29 November 2012 – 26 January 2013

Perfect weather for penguins this week. While Robert Bright's Which is Willy? (1963, Windmill Press) is wonderfully wintery, this really gets our little wings flapping with anticipation.

1/2

The boy hits 6 months this weekend. I know people don't generally celebrate half birthdays but we're told it's a significant milestone on the journey of parenthood... it's also an excellent excuse to thank friends and family for some of their beautiful gifts. Keep 'em coming!

  

We Say Meow

So nice to be featured on the cat-tastic We Say Meow. Seems there's not just a correlation between Felis domesticus and eccentric spinsterhood but with illustrators too! You can paw over some of our stuff alongside some amazing artists and their furry feline friends. It's also great excuse for me to post this whiskered wonder from 1966 by Arnold Varga.

Hubbub

Spent last weekend staying with pals in London's bright autumnal sunlight. We felt like just-landed aliens from a US film, eyeing the human hubbub and sudden wealth of stuff with a too naked curiosity, putting away pastries like we'd never tasted your Earth food.

The baby went to his first private view too, Hannah Sawtell's crisply coherent Vendor at the Bloomberg Space but like good parents we swerved the after-show party for some more of your Earth food. And, though we'd missed the opening of Simon Martin's UR Feeling at The Camden Arts Centre, we caught up with him after the Sunday talk from Frieze's Dan Fox.

Simon's work may look like a dour museological re-presentation of the C20th anthropological artefact but plays-out like an ultra-hip cultural studies lecture. Neither entirely canonical nor wholly obscure, works selected here seem to operate on the boundaries of this-or-that discipline. This sharp curatorial collection forms the research for a forthcoming film and includes pieces from Sottsass, Burton and Shore, alongside his own open-edition poster, a knowing skit on the structural exposé of New Wave marketing. 

from top: Richard Artschwager, Chair, edition of 6, 1965-2000 // Storm Thorgerson/Hipgnosis, LP cover for XTC's Go2, 1978 // Ettore Sottsass/Memphis, Malabar room divider, 1982 // Stephen Shore, Twenty-First and Spruce Street, 1974

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I've been wanting to write something about my mum, who died without warning in June (a fortnight after the boy's arrival), but I figured a gift illustrator's blog wasn't the best forum for unchecked grief and the raw pain of loss. Profoundly felt emotions may seem vulgar when expressed and I worried that, once begun, I'd not want to to stop. Healthy for me perhaps, but awkward for everybody else.

So, more simply, I'd post a few photos of her antics and more outré outfits over the decades (especially the 1980s, my mum's middle age was an absolute renaissance) but I suspect —as an awe-struck son— I'd make a too subjective selection right now. Maybe next year.

Then, last week I noticed 'August Bank Holiday 1957' written on the back of a b/w snap of the folks. 55 years ago today. At the end of her eighteenth summer, believe me, this girl was just getting started.

• Rita Joyce Underwood, 1938-2012

No need to miss London last week as London came to us... well, for an evening at least. Rob Ryan has a show at the beautiful Charleston country house and was ferrying friends and family by the coach-load for the preview, so we headed down too. One of us drank milk, one of us drank juice, and the other had too much gin. As for the show, it's as you'd expect; brilliant.

Even if you feel you've seen a lot of of Rob's style recently (appropriated everywhere by big business), you'll reminded of his ceaseless creativity, innate decorative hand, touching aphorisms and disarming sincerity. If you're searching the area for inspiration this summer, then a visit to Charleston is essential... gin entirely optional.

• Maybe pick up your copy of SPQR (pictured) while you're there too

It's odd that Wedgwood celebrated space-age achievement (on this day, 1969) in the cameo/sprig style called Jasperware, I thought it was a knowing joke when I saw it on a friend's kitchen shelf.