Thoughts from the Bus Stop

Seduced by the prospect of being able to categorise five years' worth of blog posts, I have defected to Typepad and can now be found at the new, fancier Thoughts From The Bus Stop - do drop by!
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Sailor Feebee by Sherri Wood. Tattoo art by Kate Hellenbrand, 1999. Embroidery, found doll. 26" x 16" x 13".

Found while Googling for something else entirely...

"The Tattoo Baby Doll Project is a collaboration between Sherri Wood and female tattoo artists from across the country that combines embroidery and tattoo as a vehicle to explore the images and roles that define and empower women today."

The gallery is brilliant - I might try this myself. It's the coward's option - I'll leave the real tattoos to my sister. Ouch!

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Click on the pic for a larger version.

Finally - a use for the box frame I bought from a charity shop two years ago thinking, 'that'll come in handy for something...' and a home for the bags of Fisher Price figures and other refugees from the charity shop 10p basket which have languished in an old vanity case in my cupboard for years.
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Paper artist Rachel Hazell with a short section of 'Ice Cliff' (34cm)

Rachel Hazell, a book artist whose Antarctica-inspired work I've posted about before, has been nominated for a Scottish Arts Council Creative Scotland Award. Well done, lady!
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Loop System Quintet. Photograph by Jonathan Shaw © Copyright Conrad Shawcross

Magnificent machines! Conrad Shawcross: The Steady States, currently at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (till 26 Feb 2006).

The Entwistle Gallery: Works by Conrad Shawcross
The Walker Art Gallery: Interview with Conrad Shawcross
The Observer: How I Work: Conrad Shawcross (which mentions these BBC2 Christmas 2005 idents)
The Observer: Portrait of the artist as a young boffin
The Telegraph: In the studio: Conrad Shawcross
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The White Stripes (c) Cakeyvoice

How fab. Cakeyvoice has knitted The White Stripes (and a LOT of zombies, too...).
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Reason #453 why I love reading stuff by Christian Singles Today's Camerin Courtney:
Hello, I'm Camerin, and I'd Like to Get Married

It's nice to know someone else is in the same boat...


Amazon.co.uk: Table For One: The Savvy Girl's Guide to Singleness by Camerin Courtney
Amazon.co.uk: Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect by Connally Gilliam
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Really enjoyed seeing Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker! on BBC4 over Christmas. I'd seen a traditional version of The Nutcracker in the autumn (my first live ballet), which I really enjoyed, but this was much more my thing. After the initial scenes, in a dingy orphanage, Clara is transported first to a frozen lake and then to Sweetieland, where she tries to follow Liquorice Allsorts, Marshmallow Girls and a salacious Knickerbocker Glory into a party but is repeatedly barred by an Mint Humbug bouncer.

A lot of the reviews I've read - specifically from dance journalists - criticise the choreography, but as I know nothing about ballet and have no special affection for it I wasn't looking at it from the dance angle. The dance looked great to me and the whole thing was a fantastic spectacle - colourful, funny and sexy (I nearly swooned when the Nutcracker took his mask - and his shirt - off, and gave Clara a smouldering look...).

The costumes were amazing - there were even a few frocks I'd wear myself... I'd especially love the Sugar Plum Fairy's pink dress (for formal occasions) or Clara's blue polka dot one (for a summer wedding?). I've gone a bit mad posting pics as I love them all - and there are more good ones here and here.

Designing stage costumes was one of the gazillion things I considered pursuing when I was at art college. I don't have a sweet tooth, but the colours, patterns and textures I'm most drawn to are very 'sweet shop'. Come to think of it, I did make some shoes which would have fitted right in to this Nutcracker. Ooh, it'd be lovely to be given free rein with a theme. Darn it, I need to find some up-for-anything mates with a band they want styling! Wonder if Scissor Sisters need a wardrobe gal?...

New York Times: Frankencracker? A Hero Toy Turns Monster
Guardian Nutcracker!
danceviewtimes: Characters and Cartoons: A Disagreeable 'Nutcracker'
Los Angeles Times: Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker
Ballet-Dance Magazine: Earth To Planet Nutcracker
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This is a great picture of Roald Dahl's first wife, actress Patricia Neal, spotted in a selection of Dahl's photographs on the BBC website.

It wasn't till I watched a documentary about him which she took part in that I recognised her, purely by her distinctive voice, as George Peppard's mistress in Breakfast at Tiffany's (one of my favourite films, d'oh!).
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I can't remember how I came across these photos of Piccadilly in Manchester in 2001 (care of Eyewitness Manchester), but I was dead sad to hear that Lewis's department store is no more... and now a Primark - oh, the indignity! OK, it was never as chic as Kendals on Deansgate, but I used to be in and out of there all the time when I lived in Manchester and have affectionate memories of it.

And the place is part of my family's vocabulary too. Apparently the little arcade at the side of the store used be where ladies of the night would hang out after hours. If she found you standing around in a seemingly pointless fashion, my gran would say, 'What are you doing, hanging around like one of Lewis's?"...

Industrial Powerhouse: Fashion Manchester Trail
Manchester Evening News, 28th October 2005: Kendals name dropped forever
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(L-R) Kimono for a woman. Machine-spun pongee silk woven with stencil-printed warp thread (meisen) Japan, Taisho period, 1912-26; Kimono for a woman. Figured silk crêpe (omeshi chirimen) brocade-woven with lacquered threads (rama-ire)
Japan, Taisho period, 1920-30.

On at the V&A Museum in London until 1 May 2006, V&A - Fashioning Kimono: Dress in early 20th century Japan.

"These boldly patterned and brilliantly coloured kimono reveal the dynamism of Japanese textile design in the early twentieth century. This was a period of economic prosperity and cultural expansion. Although western-style clothes were gaining popularity among women, the kimono continued to be worn. The traditional cut of the garment remained the same, but the motifs were dramatically enlarged and new designs appeared, inspired by western styles such as Art Nouveau and Art Deco... These vibrant kimono styles remained popular until the 1950s."

I hope I can get up to London to see this - just browsing the photo gallery is making me drool...

Costume and textiles
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This Christmas I'll be digging out my tape of the first series of Love Soup, which I really enjoyed. Tamsin Greig never misses, does she? Black Books, Green Wing, and now this gorgeous, gentle, clever, witty stuff. Lovely.

It's difficult to describe why it works so well, but it's wonderful. It's not 'laugh out loud' stuff, but consistently funny, well-observed and engaging. It helps of course that I identify strongly with Greig's character, Alice - a single woman, not a stunner but OK looking, thinks too much about everything, prone to feeling faintly ridiculous, and often bewildered by how the world works. (And she lives in Brighton! In Furze Croft, where I once viewed a flat.)

The writer, David Renwick, wrote Jonathan Creek, which I was totally hooked on in the early days (before Caroline Quentin was replaced by Julia Sawalha and all the chemistry disappeared - textbook example of the Joey Tribbiani theory of on-screen sexual chemistry - Alan Davies and Ms Sawalha being an item off screen). Just as in Jonathan Creek, Renwick creates tantalising red herrings and sets up jokes whose subtle punchlines - verbal or visible - are always worth waiting for. I can't wait for series 2.

The Guardian: Five million take first spoonful of Love Soup
The Guardian: Tamsin Greig: Knowing me, knowing you
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There's a great article on the Fiberarts site about Jennifer Angus's wallpapers and rugs, with fascinating photos of the details of her work - big fat shiny beetles in glorious shades of green, turquoise and brown. It's beautiful and gross. And I love that when you go to her website it says, 'Click on weevil to enter'.
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Gary Hume has done the Tate Britain Christmas Tree this year - he's covered it in blackbirds.

The Victoria & Albert Museum's Christmas Tree has been designed by knitting and needlepoint maestro Kaffe Fassett. It's covered in pleated paper fans in shades of pink, red and orange, and crowned with a star made by Louise Lusby. Instructions for making the fans are available as pdfs here and here.

Kansas State Historical Society: Aluminium Christmas Tree
Florence Griswold Museum, Connecticut: Miss Florence's Artist Tree
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The Natural History Museum's Flowers and Fashion webcast features botanist Sandy Knapp and fashion photographer Nick Knight.

"Flowers are perhaps nature's most flamboyant display; but it's not only bees they attract. Humans have long been drawn to their colours, forms, and scents, and used them for our own decorations and advertisements... find out about cross-pollination between the worlds of fashion and nature."

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Via The Cartoon Church's Cartoon Blog: One million ideas for making your own Christmas cards, by Dave Walker.
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Photo: Kate Fellerath

Via Fiberarts Magazine:

"A floral mehndi pattern, derived from traditional blackwork embroidery, covers artist Andrea Vander Kooij from head to toe. In April, the artist sat for ten days embroidering the same pattern in cotton onto linen in shop windows throughout Montreal.

Gorgeous - I was only saying to my (tattooed) sister the other day that if I ever got a tattoo I'd like a white one in a traditional lace pattern - barely visible - inspired mainly by my love of the work of Michael Brennand-Wood.
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Excellent! Dara O' Briain's getting his own chat show (well, if the pilot goes well). Ever since I saw him do a fantastic guest slot on Jack Dee Live At The Apollo, I've wanted to see him live. Missed him at the Comedy Festival the other month cos it was a mate's birthday, but hopefully he'll be back in Brighton soon - maybe in May for the Fringe.
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Now, anyone who knows me knows I love buses... have spent years riding around on buses, fell for a band who wrote songs about buses, wrote a fanzine about them called Bus Stop (named after two favourite songs), have a Cardiff Buses bus stop sign propped up at home (rescued from a Cardiff pavement by a wellwisher)... so it made me smile to hear that a south Wales bus driver has spruced himself up for Christmas by having a mini fir tree woven into his hair.

And this Saturday (December 10th) is Bus Night on BBC Four:

"On Friday 9 December, the most famous bus in the world - the Routemaster - will take its final journey through the streets of London. BBC Four and Arena celebrate the transport icon.

On TV, Robert Elms, the son of a clippie, presents an evening of bus programmes including a new Arena film, while on the website we've unearthed Routemaster video clips from the BBC archive."

Preview clips include Jimmy Saville fixing it for a woman to drive a Routemaster on the skid pan and a boy gets to be a bus conductor, Blue Peter's Lesley Judd donning a London Transport uniform as she becomes a bus conductor for a day, and - my favourite - a clip from The Good Life, where Tom chases Lenin the chicken onto a Routemaster...'One and a cockerel for the next stop.'
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The first time I heard Gogol Bordello's Start Wearing Purple, on the Mark Radcliffe show the other week, I thought it was awful (and a little scary... a bit 'You're MY wife now!'). The second time he played it, it started to grow on me. By yesterday night, when they were in session on the show, I'd completely fallen for it.

"Start wearing purple wearing purple
Start wearing purple for me now
All your sanity and wits they will all vanish, I promise
It's just a matter of time

I met you when you were a twenty, and I was twenty
But thought that some years from now
A purple little little lady will be perfect
For dirty old and useless clown

I know it all from Diogenis to Foucault
From Lozgechkin to Paspartu
I ja kljanus obostzav dva paltza
Schto muziko poshla ot Zzukov Mu!

Party!

So Fio-Fio-Fioletta! Etta! Va-va-va-vaja dama ti moja!
Eh podayte nam karetu, votetu, i mi poedem k ebenjam!

So yeah, start wearing purple wearing purple
Start wearing purple for me now
All your sanity and wits they will all vanish, I promise
It's just a matter of time

To me it sounds like David Devant & His Spirit Wife (their lead singers do bear an uncanny resemblance to each other) - or the Pogues (if they were Ukrainian gypsy punks from New York). Singer Eugene Hutz explained the song's origins to Mark Radcliffe:

It's one of the very few songs I wrote for a girl. I just moved in with my girlfriend in New York. We had a neighbour: an old woman who was always dressed in purple head to toe. She was clearly bonkers. So whenever my girlfriend and I had an argument and she would start screaming at me, I would say: you might as well start wearing purple now."

I love it. It's funny, sinister, exuberant and gets the blood racing... "La-la la-la laaaaaaaaaaa!"

BBC News: Ukraine gypsy punk on world stage
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