Girlfriends

Two sick days this week meant that production was down. Sad face. On the upside we were sedentary long enough to watch Claudia Weill’s 1978 debut, Girlfriends. Yay!

It was difficult to miss Elisabeth Frink's book of etchings (Tales from Chaucer, 1972, Waddingtons) in the window of my local high street bookseller this week, it's the size, shape and heft of a tombstone.

More familiar with her sculptures (fascistic figures in atomic shades), these overtly raunchy etchings made me curious enough to ask after the price. Four-Thousand-Five-Hundred-Pounds!

I come home and look at some more on the internet, it's almost free. Turns out she illustrated Rilke, Aesop, Homer and a great selection of ornithological studies too.

Well Prepared

I knew Busy Signal through listening to Major Lazer's LP last summer (Feel Free was on quite heavy rotation), but nothing could prepare us for hearing Green Gartside play this on the radio last night.

Sorry neighbours.

3 of 5

I thought of the Tom the cartoon cat, drinking coffee by the barrel and propping up sleep-heavy eyelids with buckling matchsticks, as I rushed to complete a short-notice commission this week.

Loosely billed as valentines from abandoned pets to prospective owners, I'm not really 100% sure who the final client is… but I'm hoping the US agency don't mind me reproducing these here (their copy, clearly).

Hope everyone gets good lovin' today. And if you're single... cherish it.

etc.

Yay, we got some press! Pocket, the press officer, keeps taking a pause from work to paw over page 137 of this month's Living Etc.

1000

A friend got Julia Schonlau's 1000 Illustrations for Children (Quarry Books, 2013) as a gift this Christmas and complemented us on our contribution. I didn't know how we'd ended up in any book until I checked the emails and found all the correspondence from Sept 2012.

While I admit my memory does give me cause for concern, it makes our inclusion an especially nice surprise. To be featured among so many fantastic real illustrators is properly humbling… thanks Julia!

Geodesic Doom

Unless they're world famous, say, The Golden Gate or, more latterly, Øresund, bridges tend to connect destinations rather than form destinations in themselves. This being said, I was curious to see the new Adur Ferry Bridge on a recent visit to the Shoreham. Replacing the charming-but-reedy walkway, cast from concrete in the 1920s, this glass and steel hybrid for pedestrians and cyclists has transformed the way people use the town.

 

On the way home we take the coastal road, flanked with warehouses and processing plants, more like massive machines than buildings proper. Kingston Baci lighthouse is still there, topped inexplicably with a bronze sphere, but something else is missing; the dark geodesic dome that glowered like an HQ for sci-fi baddies.

One day planning and conservation officers will get their knickers all twisted over odd, outmoded structures like these but, for now at least, they're preserved for posterity on Google Street View.

Tasche & Tapete

Google translates this as 'Bags & Wallpaper', it's the title of a 2014 calendar that utilises some of the old geometric patterns we made for gift wrap way back in 2006. I didn't even need to search through old artwork, Dumont grabbed the files from a CD accompanying the book, Cutting Edge Patterns and Textures, Estel Vilaseca, 2008.

Each of the initial three designs were named after some of the heraldic bears that lived in Ludwig Hoffmann's Bärenzwinger at Köllnischen Park, Berlin: Tilo, Maxi and Shnute. We caught sight of them once in the depth of winter when the sensible bears are catching serious shut-eye.

• b/w bear pics, 1950 and 1983, via the German Federal Archives

• Yusef Lateef, 1920-2013

Last week we took full advantage of a lull in stormy weather and caught the tail-end of Philip Guston and Basil Beatie at the Jerwood in Hastings. Here's my son talking me through the finer points of British abstraction... before making his own composition in macaroni cheese from the café upstairs.

The work of HAT Projects, the building itself is a worthy addition to the coastline; the ceramic cladding appears black like surrounding fishing huts, but has an added oily pearlescence. I'm baffled to learn of local pressure to resist gallery plans, after all, if this town has another attraction they keep it very well hidden.

Happy New Year!

Pssst! Rumour is there's 20% off everything in the Lisa Jones Studio Shop this month. Simply enter the code HOORAY at the checkout and begin 2014 with bargains.

After a marathon wrapping session last night, I let myself imagine all the other gifts wrapped in our paper this season (the people opening our cards, or even receiving some of our goods) and felt strangely warmer. Whatever this feeling is, I'm sure it'll pass. Until then… Merry Christmas!

N.B. I know this hand-coloured glass slide of the Holy Lands makes a very tenuous Christmas decoration, but it looks so pretty here every year, back lit by fairy lights.

↑↓

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.

Star Shape

Just how Christmassy does Marina Abramović's star-shaped house look with a light sprinkling of snow? I'm surprised it hasn't all melted with her super intense art energy.

Some Stripes

So far, my Christmas list seems to be shaping-up pretty stripy. I think I'll mismatch the boy's socks like those in the picture, it's not like you don't still get two pairs. Then there's a lovely pen for his papa and a big ol' brooch for me.

• Images: COS / A Platform / Darkroom

• Junior Murvin (standing, right), 1946-2013

Built Black

This week, we paid a visit to the brand-spanking wing of Ditchling Museum; its black zinc bulk looked as impressive in the thin winter sun as it does in this austere artist's impression. I have a thing for black buildings right now; whether they're charred like the gorgeous Hunsett Mill in Norfolk or tarred-sticky like Norway's Knut Hamsun Centre and Shingle House (not too far from Derek Jarman's garden at Prospect Cottage). Oddly, my favourite (Sottsass Associates’ Bischofberger House, Zurich) doesn't really feature online anywhere… yet.

90g

If we have anything like a patron, it'll be Melt Chocolates in west London. It's a pretty straight forward working relationship, with mutual satisfaction assured. Right now we're hatching plans for Easter, but here's a promo shot for their current kids' bars featuring our characters. I wish I looked this cute with chocolate on my face… smeared sleepily round my chin of an evening, with a few errant flakes on my chest.

• Anthony Caro (1924-2013), Month of May, 1963

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