Saturday

Flags at Manchester cathedral, antibiotics, nic-nacs.

excrutiating

So two attempts at drawing.. the last model that was at the life drawing class (which is at the top of the student union, in one of the bars, with a massive stage and red walls, and a constant odour of spilt beer) had never been a life model before. It was VERY awkward, mostly because he was young, and very toned, and when he took his robe off, most of us gasped.
The fat man was just a fat man, a couple of months ago. He had a very large belly, and a very small bottom.
Its so interesting doing life drawing, I can actually feel different cogs in my brain working. And it takes such physical attention to pen, paper and model that is close to being painful.

yellow smoke

The Yellow Fog that rubs its back uopn the window panes,
The yellow smog that rubs its muzzle on the window panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let Fall upon its back the soot that falls from the chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft october night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
- T S Eliot, Love song of J Alfred Prufrock -

electric courtney

baby panda furies

Francis Bacon was quite keen on Greek mythology, and apparently his 'Three Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion' (1944)are loosely based upon the Greek furies Tisiphone, Megeara and Alecto. Also known as the Daughters of the Night, their main business was vengeance and were especially aggressive with regards to patricide and matricide. The etymology of furious and infuriated leads back to these hideous three who had Medusa hair and blood dripping from their eyes.
They're great to try and draw

great pairs

It was a tradition between them that they should never be too tired for anything, and they found it made the days better on the whole and put the evenings more in order. When, inevitably, their spirits flagged they shifted the blame to the weariness and fatigue of others.(Tender is the Night)

Acknowledging Valentines

(excuse the 'Jo')

chanel samurai

lucky streak

Seemingly the streets of Bristol are paved with gold. Found these in a mushy trodden on christmas card in the road (less grubby this time)

Not only paved with gold but huge dead seagulls like this one I saw drop dead out of the sky. Not sure if that is lucky or a terrifying omen, there must be a way of working out the odds of seeing that happen.

fly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hLUXzbrbJE

new project

soundtrack..

CA$HMONIE$

Last weeks finds, people are pretty careless and tend to drop things at bars when they're crunk

NAKED

Two Nudes, Picasso. 1906

Bathers with a Turtle, Matisse. 1908

victim of the snow

tea time

A lot of tea cups at the Ashmolean Gallery and Museum in Oxford.

natural phenonemon (new camera)

woah man

'Woman is the being who casts the greatest shadow or the greatest light in our dreams' Baudelaire, 1924
Revising Gender and Surrealism. Interesting but nothing new, poor old females being both erotic and dangerous. Women in Surrealism were not so much artists but muses - erotic objects in which the sub conscious could be accessed. Still, it also opened up a new realm in art in which women could explore how they are perceived and how to portray themselves.. Loads of other fun stuff - like violence and the sacred - good old Bataille. Loved the slaughterhouses,etc. Thought shit and god were equated, both could be sacred.

Eli Lotar, 'La Villette Slaughterhouse' 1929
'The curse (terrifying to those who utter it) leads them to vegetate as far as possible from the slaughterhouse, to excile themselves, out of propriety, to a flabby world in which nothing fearful remains and in which, subject to the eradicable obsession of shame, they are reduced to eating cheese.' Bataille, Slaughterhouse. http://www.jstor.org/stable/info/778539?seq=1 (images and article, read it it's short)

hearty tunnel

christmas

vol 1, issue 3

Great cover and images, not so sure about the inside, looks a bit like the national geographic with swearing.
(THE DAILY TERROR, publication of the 'A Child of the Jago' shop - available there and at Mutate Britain events.)

found in the attic

Vesuvius and Victoria

old men

suit seaside settlments