Beckett At Sixty

on having an idea (endgame) photo chris harris

Samuel Beckett rehearsing Endgame and ‘having an idea’ with the San Quentin Drama Workshop at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith in 1980. I worked there intermittently in those days, even had a small exhibition of my paintings there, and the house photographer Chris Harris, knowing how much I loved Beckett, gave me a print of this photograph for my birthday. Continue reading “Beckett At Sixty”

Frames of reference

Sutra

Five years after its first performance I finally got to see Sutra last week at Sadler’s Wells. It was worth waiting for. It’s an intense, concentrated burst of energy. 20 Kung-Fu monks behaving like curious cats in an exuberent exploration of the ins and outs of boxes. It opens with a ‘choreographer’ (down right) describing a moving line by hand over miniature boxes whilst a monk (centre stage) dances the same line over full size boxes. This duality continues throughout the performance, playing with ideas of thought/action, self/other, inner/outer, micro/macro… Continue reading “Sutra”

Frames of reference

Compass Update

bacteriology illustrated

Susie Freeman’s Compass exhibition opened last week. This is her piece Bacteriology Illustrated in the window of Art@42 late on Saturday night. It features Susie’s signature machine-knitted pocket fabric formed into a dress. The pockets contain fragments torn from the pages of the book. Continue reading “Compass Update”

Frames of reference

The Shard

Shard is Open

Christopher Corr painted this picture to celebrate the opening of the Shard, London’s newest, tallest building. For the past few years we’ve watched it grow from viewpoints all around the city. The inexorable rise of this arrogant and aggressive spike was impossible to ignore. Now it’s here it has quickly become another iconic landmark on the London skyline. A spire with a view – click to ascend and there’s a great view of it from the river here.

Frames of reference

The Posh Painting Shed

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Most of my working life has been combining making paintings and prints and teaching, some of the time in Art Colleges, but mostly as a schoolteacher. A while back I read David Wiseman’s lovely post, Garden Studio. When I finished full time teaching last summer, I decided to have a posh shed built, which would enable me to work at the end of my garden in suburban London. Continue reading “The Posh Painting Shed”

Frames of reference

The Queen’s House

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After seeing the final episode of Waldemar Januszczak’s Baroque!-From St Peter’s to St Paul’s, in which he singled out the Queen’s House as possibly the most important little building in the whole of British architecture, we felt inspired to visit this previously overlooked prime site. Continue reading “The Queen’s House”

Frames of reference