Back to Lala Land and my first ever Thanksgiving.

Hello hello

It's been a while hasn't it. It hasn't been that my brain has frozen into a green bean that fell out of a bag of green beans in the freezer and got stuck to the freezer drawer. Oh no. It's actually that I've been leading a very hectic life recently. This isn't like when you told the teacher your dog ate your homework. I am not just making up excuses.

Work has been all-consuming. I've had a huge project. It's been very exciting but stressful. In fact it is the best project I have ever worked on. I'm not going to say this to my boss (until I get drunk at the Christmas party) because I'll sound like a loser. Noone wants to be that excitable. But I'm really proud of what we have produced. It's not finished yet of course, so I'm probably jinxing the whole thing.

The project has meant that I have spent the last 2 and a half weeks in LA. I currently reside in a rather swanky hotel. It was where Shane Ward filmed a music video. Shane Ward? Come on you remember him from X factor. Louis Walsh says he's a big star!!

During this time I also enjoyed my first Thanksgiving dinner. My two colleagues and I were lucky enough to bag the company of two of the LA Creatives for a dinner in a cozy old fashioned restaurant where we had turkey, bread pudding, mash, corn, greens and even an apple crumble for desert. Afterwards we had a pyjama party (minus the pjs) watching classic movies like Beetlejuice and Sexy Beast under duvets lying on cushions on the floor. It was like being 15 again.

Lovely work friends and I.

yummy.

So thank you America for having me. I liked your holiday very much.

Definition by list - who are you?

Often, when I'm walking by myself, I play games in my head. One of my favourites is called list of me. You are all going to think I'm very sad but list making is one of my most favourite activities. List of me is simple - I list what I'm wearing, where I got it and how much it cost. If it was a gift it counts as free...unless you know the price. But when you think of it a list can define your day too. How many cups of tea you drank, how many times you emailed your partner, how many posts you wrote on your blog. Here's my list of me today. I'd love to read your list of you so please send me one.

Silver and semi precious stone earrings: Christmas present from my Dad from Crundles in Swansea. (counts as free)
Silver Necklace : present from my ex bought in medina in Tunisia.(free)
Platinum and diamond engagement ring: bought by Fiance in Bond Street. (free)
Red bra: present from Fiance from Agent Provocateur in Selfridges (free)
Purple pants: Calvin Klein discount store in Bridgend (£4)
Seven for all mankind jeans: Gilt staff sale in New York. (£30)
Black vest top: hand-me-down from my colleague Krista (free)
Black cardie: from Mango on Oxford Street (£40)
Black trainers: Gola from Bridgend discount store (£12.99)
socks: M&S (a complete guess: £2)
Leather jacket: River island in Swansea (£100)
Total outfit: £188.99

Things I spilt on my jeans today: White wine at lunchtime. Berrocca.
Things I've eaten today: porridge, strawberries, blueberries, honey, squid, prawns, roast potatoes, beef, figs and parma ham, stew, bread, pizza, spinach, egg.
Estate agents emails: 6.
Number of houses I've liked that I've been sent today: 0
Times I've changed my mind about buying house: 3.
Number of houses looked at in Swansea just to see what I could buy if I actually lived there instead of London: 8

Ok ok send me your lists and I promise to read them and comment back.

Love to you all xxx

Charles Matton's exhibition - one of the best I've ever seen

If you haven't heard of Charles Matton don't worry, you're not retarded, he is little known, especially when you consider how talented he really was. A French sculptor, painter, photographer, model maker and many other things, his work has been mostly hidden away and only come to light in the few years since his death in 2008. Perhaps he was knocked back and lacked confidence, perhaps he hated self-promotion, perhaps he felt like fame would damage his art, either way I feel it is a shame that the world can only now see these masterpieces.

Charles Matton's exhibition in "All Visual Arts" in Kings Cross is free and contains over 36 of his pieces. In themselves they look like a lifetime's work. First there are the beautifully intricate miniature rooms - every detail constructed with such painstaking care that each book looks readable, each newspaper perfectly printed, each duvet creased and dirtied as if they had been lived in. Matton uses mirrors to create rooms that have depth and space outside his construction. They allow you to pear into adjoining corridors, to believe that the libraries in a single box actually sprawl on forever. The mirrors also play tricks on you. Sometimes you struggle to work out where they are. Sometimes they appear to be in one place when actually it's just wire and symmetrical object arrangements. But the best thing about his rooms is they seem to tell stories. stories of absences, stories of sad lives, stories of decay and neglect as well as collection and even, in one disturbing room - masochism. Even the light is included, lightboxes creating shadows in rooms and light falling from fake windows making patterns on carpets.

Matton's efforts to keep his art works original meant he would produce large paintings only in order to reduce them and hang them in his tiny microcosms. So to produce one piece of model making he's have already created 12 pieces of separate art. In another piece he depicts the room of a sculptor of the human form and fills his room with tiny handmade sculptures.

But that wasn't the end of the process. After all this work he would then photograph or make paintings of the scenes he had created. Each capturing scenes that seem hyper-real.

Here are some of my pictures of the exhibition but the true effect and the feeling of discovery and exploration that you get as you walk around can only be appreciated when you see the exhibition. Do not miss it.

And these are the pictures he took of the models.

For this work matton had to paint every picture in the collector's bedroom. The full sized pictures he painted for this piece are displayed alongside the model. He then reduced them down to use.

This painting was made from one of his bathroom models.

His most disturbing piece is this attic scene from the house of a masochist. He posed for all the degrading images on the wall too. In this and in the bedroom scenes in particular you get the sense of a whole story being told.

This is the most Francis Bacon piece to my mind. His sculpture explores human shapes and forms and their movement and distortion.

NEWS FLASH: Giant baby trashes bar!!!!

I'm really not quite sure what this video is. But it's pretty funny. Baby drinks alcohol (fake I hope) and does what a baby does: cause mayhem. It's also got puppets. I like puppets. Watch and enjoy.

Unleash your fingers: Galaxy SII for France

A pretty nifty new way of representing touchscreen in an advert. Check out this lovely bit of choreography and animation.




Guy is nice to watch too methinks.

Arthur Kannas, one of the founders of Heaven Conseil, who is a specialist in communication and online marketing said: “I watched Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky and I knew right away that this viral video had to feature music. Then the universe of dubstep and urban style popped into my mind. I just had to find an original way to reflect the values promoted by Samsung (…) When I discovered Jay Funk, I knew he was the artist I needed. His dance expressed a language that reminded me of phone handling. The Samsung phone becomes the extension of hands".

Love it when there is a nice poncy arty explanation for the ad too.

I'm buying a house, but more exciting than that...

Everyone...I am finally joining the adult world and making a commitment to bricks and mortar. the lucky lucky house will be a little victorian terrace near Greenwich. I will love it and paint it and convert the loft and clean it's skirting boards. I will remove the textured wallpaper from the ceiling and paint over the brightly pine varnished built in cupboards. i will restore the fireplaces and then fill them with crap like candles. oh house I will love you.

...But not as much as I will love the two kittens I will buy as soon as we have a spare £700. After a life of having to convince my parents to buy a pet (they finally got a gorgeous Ragdoll kitten called Maisie who now lives with my Dad) I can get my own at will. And just to celebrate, I'll get two. Because I can. They will keep each other company when I'm out, and keep me company when I'm in. They will snuggle up on my lap to watch X Factor and purrr loudly when I'm trying to sleep. They will annoy me by scratching my new sofa and throw up on my work. And I will love them.

The question is which breed shall I get?

A Ragdoll like Maisie?
A Maine Coon (apparently they aren't lap cats but they are beautiful)
A birman (is it just a not-as -good ragdoll?)
A british blue (my favourite option but now I'm thinking not fluffy enough)
A Norwegian Forest cat - apparently very clever and lively
Or something else?

Font fun

Ever doodled words in bubble writing in class? Ever written your name with a sparkler? Well you were probably creating some lovely typography. One of my art director buddies sent me this font website after the words "handwritten" came up a bunch of times (art directors usually look a bit concerned when this idea rears its head).
http://www.handmadefont.com/

There are some seriously inventive ways of writing here - including ones using smoke, flowers, fruit and even poo (that one grossed me out).

And what's better than inventive type? Animated type! Loving this!

Sparkler from Handmadefont on Vimeo.