Fig 1.

Against all the advice I was given, I neglected this vehicle. 
After three weddings, a funeral, an exhibition and studio opening, I finished this summer with a different kind of exhaustion. I wanted to dive, loose limbed into the deep and scream underwater for one more blistering day. 
 

I made a summer tote bag for the show, a screenprint from two of my paintings. It was actually terrifying to invest in myself, but it was quickly picked up by various muses and favorite stores. Love Adorned in New York, Ottoman Empire in Fremantle, Chee Soon and Fitzgerald in Sydney. So now I have this very summer at my side. With collected memory.

Temperatures risin', it's hardly surprising

Creamer Street studios are kicking along despite the heat and the stink of a mighty New York summer. A smoked fish factory up the road adds brine to the rich olfactory mix established by the exhausted rubbish and industry that surrounds us in our crook of Red Hook.

The last commission was framed and well received and a plethora of exhibition opportunities have arisen since I last plotted word. Tomorrow I fly to Chicago, and drive to Wisconsin for the wedding of a former studio mate, Evan Gruzis and his girl wonder Nicole Rogers. It is at a former Latvian summer camp for boys and girls. I was commissioned to make their invitation.. I won't get lost, as it is a map and after drawing this, it is well and truly situated in my head. I am thrilled, the bride and groom and their circle are a lot of fun and this campsite of sorts blows my tiny mind.
Ahhh canoe time.

Let them eat cake

I am gathering with a circle of remarkable lady illustrators tomorrow. Our hostess Catherine Lazure will open her french doors to the likes of Giselle Potter, Katherine Streeter, Juliette Borda and my girl Sophie Blackall. They can have my cake. And I will say a hearty cheers. They deserve it.

Go Daddy Go

My Dad still tells the same jokes that were fresh when I was a knee high. Now I tell them. I am still telling people that he looked like the Prince of Monaco, was aptly named after the great economist John Maynard Keynes and raced cars when cars looked racy. I have come to admire his fortitude and persistence, and wish that life beyond retirement was a lot easier- the kind of fun he used to have when he looked like a royal.

Mustang riding

Excuses excuses.. I was here and then I was not.
We reined in a Mustang convertible to take us from San Francisco, to Fresno, San Diego and back through Big Sur. Like any tour, I am still collecting myself now that I am back in New York. I have so many lovely memories and more freckles. In short, I was invigorated by the work of Mark Bradford at SFMoMA, affected by the lifelong dedication it takes to conjure a cool underground oasis from a plot of hard pan at Forestiere Gardens and relish San Diego's most Spanish/Baroque parts.  So now I am on an Early California kick, reading Brassai's account of Henry Miller's Paris years, editing photographs and hoping to replicate life Deetjen's style.

Mummy issues

Happy Mother's day!  
Observe for today and every other, kiddies.. Extra love to my very dear black-eyed Susie Bloom, wish you were over here to wonder, wander with. What we do.

Family style

I am off soon to meet and talk about a commission. A family portrait, like this one I did for the Pitman family. This one was easy as they like to dress up and fool around. Bella's super cape billowed as she had a tendency to stand over subway grids to get some uplift from train exhaust. She is a showgirl at heart. And Ona, their dog is tortured repeatedly thus. Not much invention was required on my part at all.  

She sells sea shells.

I just got a note from a framing shop in Brighton, England. They have my Musical Chairs tea towel, a limited edition from third drawer down, framed in their window. And it's getting plenty of attention.

I went to college there for a spell in my third year of college. Exquisitely painful memories of the wind passing right through me and cold baths, an exacting tutor with purple eyes.. and then the thrill of seeing Steven Berkoff in a car whizzing past, learning to etch with acid and goose feathers with my giggly friend from home, Clark, and hiding in my sketchbooks. I learnt to relish the ballast of English life and the relief that comes with making work. I think of those days when I hear the songs of Peggy Lee, see a rickety pier, or a shimmering silver patch on a grey sea. 
I have every intention of making this into a print and sending it off to sell by the seaside.

Waiting for the Postman

I am hovering in great anticipation. Waiting for another longlost cheque so that I can continue living. Living in my place, with the lights on at night, making art in my Red Hook studio, eating my greens, dialing out.

Windblown

It was a whirlwind out there today. And colder than expected. I returned to my studio after a tour de forts with my very favourite people from home. Amongst our adventures, I revisited the Balthus, we sampled chocolate, brought a muppet to life, clocked up the Cindy Sherman, belted out some Shakespeare in my Valentine's acting class, dined at the Neue and fetched to Grand Central whispering gallery. It was Cheryl Orsini's long awaited turn to be here, en famille, in New York, where so many turned out to look like a Maira Kalman painting come to life. They saw 2 celebrities, some old friends, her Italian relatives in New Jersey and a dead person being wrapped up on a subway platform. As if it were achingly pitch-perfectly art directed. Now that they have left town, the winds can go wild.  

I am back at my desk, feeling sated.

A Manhattan Vintage Affair

  

I illustrated chapters for a friend's website, Olives Very Vintage. Which is why stuffed olives feature in each of these images. Note the savory bridal bouquet and a cheeky reference to an Odilon Redon painting. The vintage clothing fair opens again in Manhattan this week, and I have other friends who are vendors now too. I am so inspired by them and their booty. I'll be hanging out with Amy at Wildfell Hall, and you can see why.

The most thrilling part of this particular job came later, when I met and sold one of this series to Angela Missoni herself. This sole piece, and four others besides. I think I am still over the moon. She was so much fun to chat with, plonking herself down on the ground amongst her collected favourites at the Park Avenue Armory, Pulse NY Art Fair. Her dearly beloved, Bruno Ragazzi, took a photo of us lolling amongst the loot. I wish I had followed through with their invitation to meet to loll about again sometime, somewhere in Italy. Ah perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.. or forse, forse, forse.

Springy

Found: that picture I made to encapsulate springtime last year.

The couple who bought it are the spitting image of these two figures. They visited the New York gallery from London the first weekend of the show. Especially. And I was utterly charmed by them.

There is plenty of that 'wandering eye' on the street, now that spring has so spritely sprung again. With blossoms and blooms and birdsong we are waking, with limbs and bangles and coloured toes in reveal. That blessed sun is back in play and so are all the street foxes.

Playing natural selection. 

Friday the 13th

Wonder of wonders

Miracle of miracles. This, issued by National Geographic Magazine, 1937.

Sometimes when the phone rings it seems far too rude or distracting to answer to its pleading bleat. So I have this framed on my wall at home to remind me life wasn't always this easy. And I just talked to my lovely mum, her early morning in Sydney. What sweet relief- she made me feel so much better.. as did the birdsong in the background.

Musing

A photograph of DJ Nikki Nikita as a 15 year old girl has been plugged to my studio wall for months now. Finally, after attempting to resolve some half baked works, I rescued her and started this new portrait.

Then I scanned, copied her head, cut her some limbs and shifted her around a bit.
Found: A new series to pursue. Posters featuring various characters of fiction.

Then the memory of Boo Radley's prized collection and Dill's pale toothy face interrupts the flow. Shylock soon, perhaps Reality Nirvana Tuttle. And Honey Barbara.

Whoa there, I must call Nikki... about our project- a real one.

Happenings

When things get utterly disrupted like this water spillage, I swear profusely, clean up, apply bandages if need be, then leave it all behind to take a big deep breath up on the roof top. 

Found: a cutting of red hair, still dry.

 

To get back on the horse, I'll make something fresh, and fast. I have been inspired by the Pina Bausch dancers from Wim Wenders' documentary, listening to the soundtrack on heavy rotation. I want a long rope of hair again, after seeing this film, and more vintage slips to spin around in.

It was a good thing; that spill. 

To have come undone. To have seen some daylight. To be provoked to shake it up a bit.

Her First Appearance

   

Found: A beautifully gilded pinstriped book cover. 

As ever, I was inspired by the title, and then its smoky arte nouveau heart. My second posting. New to it. First day out of the box. How apropos.

Hello. And thank you for turning into my street. I hope nobody chased you here..

  

Found: A how-to-manual. A plain yet softly foxed book cover with a letterpress title.

Dress-ups, dressage and escape came to mind.