Infine

In my second year at University I lived in a road with a name that conjured up dirty railway bridges and industrial revolutions. Viaduct Road was not the most glamorous street in sunny Brighton and indeed, at that time it was also known as the A27 - one of the main routes through the town before they built the shiny new by-pass. What it did have though, sitting quite regally at the bottom of the rows of terraced houses, was a fine old cinema.

The Duke of York's was, and still is, a great art-house cinema where you can find the uncommercial gems, old classics or subtitled beauties. It only had one screen, squidgy old seats that got seriously uncomfortable if you ever went to see a double-bill and a proper cafe that sold cakes and cups of tea - not a popped piece of corn in sight!

In 1989, one of the most talked about films, and winner of an Oscar for best foreign language film was Cinema Paradiso. This, naturally, was the kind of film that the Duke of York's was open for! The hopeless romantic in me called me down the road and one enchanted evening, housemate Rosie and I bought our tickets and settled ourselves in the red velvet plush.

Imagine our disappointment however when the film started... those subtitles surely weren't Italian, they looked trés français. Gerard Depardieu was not supposed to be in a small town cinema in Sicilly. Zut alors! We were in the wrong film. That's the trouble with only having one screen - it tends to suggest that you just request "two tickets" rather than adding a qualifying "for..." Well, the Cinema Paradiso run had ended the previous evening. Trop belle pour toi was a pleasant enough way to pass an evening I suppose but it wasn't Italy.

Fast forward life's projector 20 years (surely, some mistake here... was 1989 really TWENTY YEARS AGO??). Tonight I finally watched it. Beautiful, romantic, nostalgic, gentle... worth the wait.

PS: the music from the film is really beautiful - love theme by Ennio Morricone

Saving their bacon

I love this picture, it epitomises creative thinking. I stumbled across it completely by accident while I was googling and it caught my eye in one of those magical “what on earth….?” moments. In fact, tomorrow morning I am presenting creative thinking to a bunch of engineers and my closing slide leaves them with this exact picture to get them thinking a bit (probably that I'm a bit odd!).

Imagine the marketing team at the bandage company sitting around trying to figure out how they could apply a new take on sticking plasters:

"Just how can we make them more interesting and appealing?"
"Can we persuade consumers to wear one to make a statement or just have a laugh regardless of whether or not they are bleeding profusely down their arm?"
"What else is this shape and size?"
"What might look really out of place and stand out?"

Yay, a bacon rasher! Of course, why didn't I think of that! And, as if the picture on the box were not enough to entice you to place it into your shopping basket, then the free toy will definitely get you!

Priceless. Where can I buy them?

PS: Do you think the design team went out and got plastered after this?? hehe (English colloquialism)

When the muse strikes

I keep staring at this blank page. I am not normally at a loss for words when it comes to blogging, but yesterday I made a dreadful mistake. I told someone that 'there is a story in anything; you just need to find the right angle'. But where is my story tonight? Why is there so much white on this page? Instead, I shall share with you a little creation I was rather chuffed with. Experimenting once again with the plethora of materials I have so thoughtfully stored for art supply shops over the years, I had a bash at a technique new to me.

I've never been happy with my figure drawing, so imagine my joy when I learnt that creating a mermaid could be as easy as ripping a page out of a magazine. This lady started off in a silver sequined evening dress strutting her stuff on a page of high fashion. Now she resides in a watery palace, a siren of the sea. She seems quite enamoured of her new home and I think has her eye on a sexy merman, or maybe she just wants to nibble on a lobster or mollusk or two. She loves her flowing tresses and thinks I made her eyes up most prettily. Off she swims to find her muse again...

Mostly there

Today I am not here, in fact I am mostly there... Where? Well at the moment it's somewhere that's a cross between a sun-drenched Greek island, a Provençal vineyard and the soft sands of a Barbados beach. I'm drinking rose wine, nibbling on honey-sticky baklava, reading Conde Nast and watching Sir Trevor McDonut exploring the secret side of the Caribbean. I bought some out-of-date cheap magazines today with a view to rip them up and collage with them, but they are drawing me into their glossy pages and distracting me with images of a warm breeze rustling through the palm trees, sensually draped windows, oak-beamed farmhouses and evocative trelliswork. Maybe I shouldn't be reading the likes of The World of Interiors and Conde Nast when I can only justify buying them past their sell by date - and with the intention of turning a profit with my artistic creations! Or, maybe this is the stuff of dreams that can come true. Why not move to Barbados?

PS: And what another serendipitous moment to discover that the page of palm I tore out of from Conde Nast mysteriously matches the woodwork of the windowsill in a Wiltshire manor in (expensive) Interiors.

PPS: And then, even more serendippidussly, I browse some blogs and find this post...

PPPS: How much is the ticket?

Colour me beautiful

Jamie's question this week was really interesting. "Has the wrecking moved to other parts of our lives?" Well, I've already mentioned that my house has never been so messy and frankly it is getting worse by the week, but it's also interesting to see the enthusiasm with which I'm using up all my art products - especially the ones I've been sitting on for years. I'm no longer so precious about them. I've been having a creative old time this week collaging on little boxes - ripping, sticking, painting... if the paper dries a bit creased it doesn't matter, if the rip goes wrong then that's cool too - it's just opening up another creative possibility.

It's funny, but as I wreck I often find myself planning out my blog in my mind; but the other day I did it the other way around. I lay in bed unable to sleep and thought about a page I had to tackle (colour the entire page). In my mind I wrecked and journeyed through the wrecking. You see, my original plan had been to paint a pretty picture but as I lay there thinking about it (and then jumping up to capture these thoughts on paper), I realised that I should just save that for my sketch book or an art journal. This is for new and unleashed creativity! So, I planned to just get out some colour and slosh it about in a Jackson Pollock fashion. Splashing, smearing, dragging and generally getting mucky. I imagined that at some stages the result would look quite cool but that I'd resist the temptation to just stop there and preserve my 'art' and carry on until it felt well and truly wrecked!

So, that's what I planned to write about then go and wreck. However, this felt a bit like cheating. It was too staged and planned. So, a few days later I just sat at the table surrounded by artistic paraphenalia and stuck colour on the page - paint, paper, fibre... you name it I stuck it. I even sprinkled some salt onto the watercolour (a large quantity of which seems to still be falling out of the journal). So, what did this exercise tell me - err not sure? Don't cheat? Was I cheating? Ah, what does it matter? I had fun and the page got coloured! I like it, it's messy and fun.

The gold page reminds me of being a child again and being oh so careful not to colour over the lines (I think I did better when I was 6!). The addition of shoe and handbag was another example of me being a bit bored by the task and adding a little extra interest and challenge - plus finding a use for these free stencils I got with a magazine a couple of weeks ago!

You can just see some writing on the facing page. Guess what... it was me blogging as I created again! I love the fact that I just grabbed the first piece of paper to hand - my journal - and wrote. I got wet gold all over my knuckles too!

Last thing to show you this week... a bit of fun with my 'sunset strip'.

Youth of today (grumblings from a nearly 40 year old)

Yes, well it happens to all of us eventually... We turn into one of those "things were much better in my day" orators. We even find ourselves moaning that we can't hear the words on songs and asking what gender the lead singer is in that noisy band on the TV (mind you, let's face it, the first time we saw Boy George we all wondered didn't we now?). So, here we go...

Youth of today eh? They just don't know they're born. Take my boyfriend's 16 year old son, Tyler. He has ambitions to go to university, study media and become a journalist or work in TV. Not wishing to dash such fresh-faced hopes, I put my wise old(ish) woman hat on and advise him, using my many years experience of the real working world, how to ensure he gets himself noticed. The more observant among you will have noticed that I quite like blogging, so naturally I steered him in this direction as a virtually effortless method of seeing your work in 'print' instantaneously with a potential readership of millions (not bad for a free online tool). If he's willing to put in a bit of extra effort he could even start a school e-zine distributed via Facebook or at the other end of the spectrum if he wishes to communicate only in short sentences (he is a teenager remember... grunts are an integral part of his vocabulary), then twitter could be his channel of choice. Let's face it, the opportunity is endless. The effort fairly minimal.

What is essential of course is that he approaches his University applications with some tangible evidence of his passion for his chosen profession. Faced with a pile of identical applications and predicted grades, he will need to stand out by demonstrating determination, ambition and writing skill. Lecture over, it is now time for me to indulge in a spot of reminiscence... and when Tyler you read this (no doubt under extreme duress) at the weekend, I will be able to lament that you never had it so good.

Back when I were a wee gal the word blog didn't even exist let along the technology to power it. The closest thing to a net I had at home was one used for catching fishes in Cornish rock pools. If we wanted to keep a diary we bought one and wrote in it using a pen or pencil (often with real ink that came in a pot!).

My first magazine editorship - the imaginatively titled Pelargonium - consisted of one childish scrawled and illustrated copy that had to be passed around its expansive readership of the other kids in the street and my family! I was so dedicated that I wrote 6 of them!

When a group of us started a school magazine in the 6th form, it was mainly hand-written with a few 'special' pages typed on an old machine called a typewriter (powered by fingers pressing very hard on keys on stalks), then the whole thing was photocopied at great expense and drawing in a few favours at a local print shop (and let's not even mention Banda machines - remember them? The original wind up photocopier). Also, when we went on holiday we used to buy these little pictures, write on the back and post them back home to friends and family... postcards I think they were called...

I think there's still something very special about the physical presence of an old diary or notebook. My sister has some old diaries belonging to my Grandmother. Most of these date back to the 1940s during the war years in London. She describes a life seemingly full of wash days, dodging bombs and going to the movies. It seemed that, despite a lack of money, the threat of a doodle-bug landing on your head at any moment and being heavily pregnant, nothing would get in the way of a weekly trip to 'the pictures'. Communication with loved ones was not the instant gratification of the 21st century. I can just picture her waiting for cherished letters every day from my Grandad serving in the army.

It is wonderful to be able to treasure these records of the past. I wonder if my future grandchildren will ever read this blog, created on the ancient and clumsy Internet. A technological dinosaur where you actually had to sit down and type words into the computer rather than just 'think them' onto the mobile screen that transmits from the device embedded in your wrist...

Youth of the future eh?

Miss Writer

It's late, I haven't blogged for a few days and I'm getting kind of antsy. I want to write! I want to do lots of things but unfortunately there aren't enough hours in the day. I did do a spot of writing today, work stuff. I managed to get away with writing complete fiction though. Don't worry, no fairies or mystical worlds (which is rather a shame), I just mocked up some sample content for a newsletter I'm working on and crafted some interesting stories in a style which breaks from their usual tradition of 'bore the reader senseless'. I'm working on them, it's taking longer than I would have hoped but I will get there.

I have this real niggle at the back of my subconscious. It's my book. I still haven't done anything. However, what's interesting is the avoidance techniques I have been using. Rather than busy myself cleaning the house (I mean... come on...!), or watching TV; I have instead been doing the creative thing which is a hugely positive step. And I am loving it! Writing the blog is great practice, many of my 'creations' have a fantasy element to them. I guess you could scrape the barrel a little and call it 'research'. Having great fun with the new camera too - look what I spotted hiding behind the foliage and fairy dust in the garden...