Nouvelle Vague - Sweet And Tender Hooligan

The only one who could ever teach me - was the son of a butcher man

Tiny Vipers - On This Side

Catching The Butterfly

It was a year ago last Sunday that my ex girlfriend, Emma, died. She was only 29 years old. And a few weeks shy of her 30th birthday.

I was sitting in work on the Monday morning, running through my emails when my friend Jamie called with the news. On this enlightenment, I thought it wise to leave work then. Although I had only seen Emma briefly in the last few years, I still thought of her often, wondering how she was getting on and only two days before this, I was talking about her with one of my good friends as we enjoyed a few beers, blissfully unaware she would be taking her last breath and exiting planet dust in a matter of hours. It came as a massive shock to be honest, like a deep void had suddenly been created in my life and I really didn’t expect that. I suppose you are not in control of these things. So as I went into partial meltdown for the week, my fiancée patiently waited for me to resurface on the other side.

This is a sad story from start to finish. A hard battle that she often faced alone. Sadly, Emma had been struggling badly with depression and had recently been diagnosed as bi-polar, which would explain a few things. With some questionable life choices in the mixer, the outcome didn't look overly optimistic. There is a lot that I could write with regards to this but I won't. I shall save us all from my badly conscripted tale of these events, for her sake at least. I just didn't want the occasion to pass without being noted.

They say you learn something new from everyone you meet. I believe this is also true of people you simply pass in the street, acknowledging each others existence with only a smile. But from Emma, I'm not sure what I learned. A total melting pot but much more than I first realised. First love and heartbreak. Life and friendship would also be true. Maybe it's that you have to enjoy what you have at the time, as your time is short. You are here and then you are gone. And where after that, we do not know. We should just be good to each other. She will be sadly missed but hopefully now, she is in a better place.

The girl with no name

She has no name but a pretty face? An emulsion soul and a heart of grace?

Hungover and tired, Sunday was indeed a day of 'productive rest'. I was going to be spraying up some stencils outside as it was nice and warm but the back garden (that is shared) had some of the neighbours clothes hanging out to dry and no doubt, they were going to end up being covered in overspray, which would have been a bit of an inconvenience for them I'd imagine.

So undeterred, I painted in the living room instead, exchanging spray paint for wall emulsion. I have a few small (some may say extensive) decorating jobs to finish in our flat and one of these was putting the final coat of paint on the bathroom roof. In the process of digging out all my tools and brushes, I found some old paint samples that we had laying about. You know the story, the colour looks great on the tin but once you get it home, pop it on the walls, it turns into something completely different. I'd cut this stencil a while ago and it was one piece that was going to be incorporated into another but I was just glad to be painting something (other than the bathroom roof) to be honest.

It turned out alright but it's fairly rough in comparison to using cans and it takes ten times longer to do. The paper also starts to curl up and peak when the paint goes on making it a little harder to work with. I might add some more to this or it might just be best to set her free and paste her up somewhere around town. Fly my little one, fly!

Hello there, Bollard

The Stolen Scream - A Story About Noam Galai

It's crazy that something like this can get so big and a shame that to date, Noam has received no financial benefit from the mainstream corporations that duplicate his image to sell their products. As he says it's cool when artists use his 'scream' for art and not for profit. I'd be fairly happy with that too! Below you can watch Iranian street artists ICY and SOT use the stolen scream in their Hope 'n' Pain set.

Six Pack Frame Cinch

I know what you are thinking.... 'That is amazing!' 'I don't even have a bike but I'm going to buy one of these anyway, just in case'? I thought so... I'm not actually sure if I should be promoting 'cycling and drinking' having seen the dark side of this firsthand when my friend Taylor smashed his incisors in while cycling home after an evening of refreshments. That required quite a bit of attention from the local dental practice as well as some rather uncomfortable stitches at the hospitals accident and emergency. And my friend Thomba had a nasty spill when he inadvertently cycled into an empty shopping trolley parking area as he raced through the supermarket car park in the dead of the night. His enjoyable drunken liaison came to an abrupt end as his knuckles were introduced to the trolley park cross bar at high speed.

However, everyman to himself! Scoop it here if you likes. It's essentially a strap used for carrying polo mallets (?) but the hanging six pack array looks good to me. And the bell... you still get those? Nice!

Amsterdam Acoustics - The XX - Crystalised

By miles upon miles upon miles, one of the best bands to come to light last year, in a place that is close to my heart. A few amazing weekends have been spent in Amsterdam. I think I've been there five or six times now. In saying that, it's probably time to head back. Fancy a bier (smoke and a pancake)?

Joni Sternbach - Surfland

Wow, wow, wow, wow!!! I absolutely love these vintage looking photos by Joni Sternbach. They are amazing! Her Surfland series of photography is soooo nice! The super talented Joni Sternbach grew up in NY, graduating from the New York University and International Center of Photography in 1987. She currently teaches wet plate collodion at the ICP between projects and exhibitions.

These photos were actually taken quite recently (2009) but aged through a process called 'tintype' using wet plate collodion. I'm not familiar with this process but having read a little about it now, it sounds like a fairly complex lesson in chemistry (which I failed) and given that she does this outside of a studio is incredible. Apparently this type of photography is more closely associated with images taken during the American Civil War and other happenings from that era onwards (not only in the states).

Joni displays the same natural elements in her other sets: the sky, ocean/sea and decaying architecture. This in turn gives her style a beautiful timeless feel.

Each image is taken on an 8×10 inch one-of-a-kind tintype. The collodion process is instantaneous and processed on location with the aid of a portable darkroom. Many of the first stills taken were of local surf heroes and artists that reside in the Montauk area of New York but most are simply strangers. Lucky ones! Doing their own thing but willing to help out, met on location, up and down Americas east and west coasts. The Surfland Series consists of several hundred photographs and is available in a super sweet hardback book that would look very nice sitting on your coffee table. You want it? I think you do? Go get it!!!

TateShots - John Squire on watercolour

John Squire, The Stone Roses guitarist on Patrick Heron's watercolours. A nice clip. John Squire seems like a really mellow guy. His talent with the Roses was never in question although I never cared much for any of The Seahorses stuff. I was always more of an Ian Brown fan while my friend Kev (the young one) was a Squire man through and through. Needless to say, that topic was debated quite a few times. However, we both agree his artwork is sweet.

Hello there, poor little blue guy

Hello there, St kilda

Christmas day on St Kilda Beach (or about three feet from it as this was taken) Melbourne, 2001.

All together now.... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

The Archive

I wish John Peel could have met this dude. Not only would they have been the best of friends, maybe John could have helped this poor guy out. A compelling story of one mans passion sadly coming to an end.

Hello there, wife!

Yo Yo Yo Robots!

Awesome underwater base jump/free-dive - Guillaume Nery

Hello there, Koh Tao

Sometimes I think I could have stayed there forever, although it would have killed me. Koh Tao was super nice and our first taste of island life. Oh lazy days and amazing nights. Learning to dive and meeting new people. This was about a week before the full moon party on Haad Rin Beach on the island of Koh Phangan, September 2000 I think. I absolutely love a sunset (these photos do not do it justice) and settling down with a beer on the beach and watching this every evening was heavenly. A little slice of natures splendor. Complete with some mellow, ambient tunes resonating from a little beach bar in the background. It was always an amazing start to the evenings' fun.

Koh Tao was small and remote. The closest neighbouring island was an hour away by boat. Somehow you get a strong sense of how beautiful life is, how easy it is to take the important things in life for granted when you are this far away from everything. Enjoy it as you are only here once. The possibilities are indeed infinite.

To this day, one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen and experienced was on the water just off this island as we were heading to Koh Phangan for the full moon party (yay!).
The sun looked like a big orange fireball slowly sinking into the sea on the horizon, burning the sky orange and reds as it went. On the other side of the boat, the moon on the same axis, was half visible on the opposite horizon! Rising from the sea to meet the night. And they were both so big and vibrant! It was sooo cool to see and quite a spiritual moment (but that could have been all the drugs I'd taken).

The journey back was hellish as we had stayed up and partied into the next day (and for the next few nights). The heat was unforgiving. I'd also lost my shoes as I'd buried them for safe keeping and someone dug them up. Thanks for that! (Well, it seemed like a well thought-out plan at the time haha).

Ah sweet! The footsie's up!

Layer Cake

This was my first attempt at making my own multi layered stencil. It didn't turn out too badly (but has its faults) considering I cut the image layers by eye as I did not have the luxury of owning a copy of photoshop at the time.

I ripped the original image from the net. It was a caricature of a pretty lady. I thought it could work well as a stencil and would be good practice. It has no deep meaning or message behind it. Just a visual. The original image size was tiny which made it harder to cut as the pixels were huge once I'd blown it up to a nice proportional A4. I found the actual picture of the woman later and she turned out to be not as tasty as first thought. I've seen this sort of re occurrence in the more recent stuff I've done. A beautiful looking woman doesn't always transcend into a beautiful looking stencil. And vice versa. So it's trial and error but I've learned to spot what works best, to a point. And what imagines will look bad due to lighting/contrast.

Having no place to actually paint I had little option left other than to start doing these in my lunch hour at work or not do them at all. This itself can pose a few logistical problems. The first being time or the lack of it to be precise. And the second is people. Being curious animals by nature, everyone wants to have a look at what you are doing. (This eats into your very limited time). Once people have attributed this stencil work to you, they know where it originated if they pass by it on the street. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees that this is a good thing to be doing with your spare time! The police especially.

But anyway, I love doing this and it's all about developing your skills and getting better right? And if they happen to be pasted up in the odd doorway around town. So be it. You have to go with what brings you happiness and fulfilment. Well, this does it for me.