Wood Resin Buttons – dark side, originally uploaded by Goldtop.

Went to the opening of loop’s new location in Camden Passage yesterday. It’s a fabulous place for it, with 3 floors of space with tons of natural light. Sounds like they’d had a busy morning too; with over 150 people queueing as they opened the doors!

I’d been after these buttons since the second Juju sent over the photos!. Even if I had nothing to sew them to, they are so pretty to look at and satisfyingly tactile to hold in your hand in their own right, I could imagine myself just having them in my pocket to play with…

In any case they have been bought to go on the February lady Cardi. What I didn’t realise was that on one side is dark wood, the other is light so you can flip them over and use them whichever way looks better. Susan said they reminded her of American artist Rex Ray, but I reckon they also have a touch of the – swoons – Charlie Harper about them

Inside was a tiny clay figure, no bigger than my little finger, all of one piece with carved face and hair. The man animatedly explained how he’d found it on a riverbank whilst walking with his daughter in Ousbrough Wood. He’d just shown it to a historian  friend nearby – we were near the British Museum – to see if they could tell him any more about it.

At this point I could hide my curiosity no longer, and asked if I might take a picture of it on the man’s creased palm. To be honest, I was just as interested in this mudlarking man who carried his treasures in his pockets to show to friends over tea, as I was in the doll; 17th or 18th century, perhaps a pipe tamper, he and his friends speculated. They went back to talking of other things, and after a while the man with the box and one of the friends left.  The remaining man turned to me and said he wasn’t surprised by the finding of the doll, nor of his friend carrying it about and showing it to people; his friend was the poet Anthony Thwaite and was always finding things and then writing poems about them.

I came home inspired by Thwaite’s lifelong curiosity for found objects or fragments, and his willingness to share it;  some research shows a terracotta head making an appearance in his poem ‘The Return’,  his fascination of a graffitied Libyan potsherd in  the poem ‘Sigma’; he even curated an archaeological exhibition at The Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, entitled ‘A Poet’s Pots’ in 1998. Perhaps it is no surprise to discover he describes himself as an ‘archaeologist manqué’.”

Head, originally uploaded by Goldtop.

I picked this matchbox blank up at one the Ephemera Society events a while ago, and recently re-discovered it in a tidy-up.

For some reason they make me happy to look at and hold, and l was trying to figure out why.

• It could be I just love roughly one and two colour printed stuff on card…
• It could be that the scored lines on the unfolded boxes frame the graphics like a miniature variation of a triptych and I like that…
• It could just be the bizarre combination of all the elements; the classical sculpture, the anchor (!?), the typography and the strike panels becoming super graphic abstracts when they’re taken out of the context of being part of a matchbox…

Whatever the reason, I thought I’d scan-and-tell : ) Check out the design with a swallow and the one with another of my loves; a diagram (and the requisite anchor of course!)

MrThwaites_Doll, originally uploaded by Goldtop.

Mr Thwaite had this doll in a box in his pocket. He’d found it mudlarking and was chatting with his friends abut what it was.. (made of pipe clay, too small to be a doll, perhaps a tamper?, perhaps 18thC?).

I’ll never know, but he was gracious enough to let me take a photo of it in his hand. I think it’s beautiful.

He left, and then his friend told me he was the poet Anthony Thwaite OBE and he was often finding things and then writing poems about them… A perfect chance meeting a in cafe… I do love London…

read the rest of the article on the New Statesman website

I’m also giving myself (another) last chance at learning how to knit two socks at once; have just signed up for Chrissy’s class at KnitNation in July…  I really want to knit socks, I just can’t bear the thought of doing one at a time – I even get second sleeve syndrome!

*just trying my luck…

Bizarrely this one captured her better than drawing direct from lifel.

The tutor made a good point; looking at the original drawing – and looking to improve it – you had to ask yourself to remember if the models shoulders / weight / hips / arms really were at that angle / length / position etc… ie all the questions you should also be asking your eyes whilst you are drawing in the first place…

Also it was funny everyone started to contort themselves a little bit whilst doing this drawing from memory; without the original model, we used ourselves as reference…

I know mum – who’s an illustrator – does this when drawing expressions of people for her work, so I ought not to be surprised really – it was just funny in a room full of people doing the same thing!

1 hour lifedrawing pose from week 1

Have gone back to lifedrawing class; first time in probably 15 years (eek!). I was fully expecting to freeze up and only be able to scratch out a 2″ high little stick (wo)man, but after 6 poses in the 2 and a half hour session, I was quite pleased with what I’d done…

It’s a strange experience really,  the resulting pics themselves aren’t anything that I like aesthetically or anything, but I really enjoyed the process; don’t think – just draw…

I guess it’s a bit like being a child again when what you’re seeing doesn’t always translate that well onto paper! Anyhow, the class is for another 10 weeks so am keeping a record of how the pics progress…

Some of you know by now that the magazine I’ve been Art Directing has now gone bust in it’s current print format. Richard writes a lovely goodbye piece on the FP blog, mentioning not only the lovely design – ahem! – but of course all the fab content and contributors.

It has been a brilliant, challenging and rewarding experience working with V (Editor) and although it was a sad day to send the last issue to the printers, plans are afoot for new and exciting incarnations of the ‘Sheep and the website is having a much needed tidy up right now (to go live in Feb) so right now we’re feeling pretty positive.

And they’re not just looking for potential authors; illustrators and photographers can get involved too, to contribute images to inspire the writers on the theme – based on a group of city centre allotments, ideas of shared and private space and the real and imaginary barriers between a range of different urban characters – or ultimately to go into the book itself.

On their website they mention to use the Ning community to get involved, but so far it needs an invitation – have written to them to get one… fingers crossed one comes my way!

(There *is* another 24 hours on Sunday in which the CompletelyNovel team get to edit everything; I’m hoping to get involved then as – very appropriately! – I’ll be picking apples in a Sussex orchard on Saturday)