Kim Beck

Using images of architecture and landscape, Kim Beck makes drawings, prints, paintings and installations that survey peripheral and suburban spaces. Her work urges a reconsideration of the built environment - the peculiar street signs, gas station banners, overgrown weeded lots, and self-storage buildings — bringing the banal and everyday into focus.

Kim Beck is my new favourite artist, times one hundred! The descriptions of her work on her website are gorgeous and now I feel totally inspired, after a bit of a grumpy start to my day.

I am starting my new job on Monday, wish me luck, and forgive me if you don't hear from me for a few days while I settle in. I'll be back with news about how I'm getting on and, i expect, with some lighting design deliciousities!

Have a fabulous weekend, everyone!

Elysa Voshell

My work is rooted in intersections between art, literature, and history, and draws from research into a constellation of interests: historical quotidian photography, eighteenth-century travel writing and cartography, the migratory patterns of birds, and anatomical maps of the body. My methodology stems from a desire to capture the ephemeral movements and places of memory within everyday life.

Elysa studied the same MA course in Book Arts as I did. I have never met her, unfortunately. Her work is so vibrant, sensitive and ephemeral.

Julia Pott - My First Crush

(Found via Design for Mankind)

Julia says:

This was my final film at Kingston University, it is an animated film based on interviews with people about their first crushes. (best version). I can be found at www.myspace.com/angrypony_ and at www.juliapott.com. Animated By Julia Pott, Music and Sound Design by Christopher Frost (for all those who wanted to know who did the music!!)

Some Artists from my lovely new book (see post below).

Aili Schmeltz -

The materials I choose are crucial to understanding the premise of my work. I choose materials such as vinyl, shag carpet, wood paneling, and polyester as emblems, snapshot memories of the 1970s tract home of my youth. These materials speak to the dualities inherent in the suburban landscape as hideous and seductive, kitsch and homey, humorous and heartbreaking.

Melvin Galapon -

MELVIN IS ORIGINALLY FROM A SMALL TOWN IN THE NORTHWEST OF ENGLAND. HE NOW LIVES AND WORKS IN LONDON CREATING INSTALLATIONS, ILLUSTRATIONS & DESIGN WORK.

Stephanie Dotson





Lisa Solomon -

I think that my work is closely tied to the practice of drawing. Mine are drawings that incorporate thread and wire as well as charcoal, watercolor and ink, satin, quilting, felt, and the wall as well as paper and canvas. These drawings have seemingly found a place between 2-D and 3-D, shown on the wall, and yet concurrently existing and yearning to be off of it. In this tenuous position my work is, in many senses of the phrase, “between states.”

As I was telling you yesterday, Steph bought me a lovely new book on Friday. Here are a few of my favourite artists from the book, and one which I found as a result of researching those artists.

My new favourite book: Illustration Play

I accepted a job on Friday working for a lighting design company here in London. I'm very excited, and a bit nervous, to start on Monday. I'll let you know how it goes. Anyway, to say congratulations, Steph bought me this beautiful book from Magma Bookshop on Clerkenwell Road. More about it later.

Illustration Play explores new trends in handcrafted illustration, each of which lends a welcome departure from digitally generated graphics. In a bold departure from the pixel based aesthetic, Illustration Play focuses rather on the return to experimental and unique techniques such as paper cutting, stitching, knitting, needlework, origami, patchwork and more. Thirty artists from around the globe present their distinct yet diverse perspectives on their signature styles, and the myriad skills they bring to each project, and share their resounding successes. Contributors include Catalina Estrada, Genevieve Dionne, Melvin Galapon, Caroline Hwang, Steven Harrington, Johanna Lundberg, Miles Donovan, Stephanie Dotson, Peter Callesen, AJ Fosik, Richard Saja, Ian Wright and many more. Through interviews and photos of the studios where they find their inspiration, the artists and designers takes you on a voyeuristic journey through their personal realms and share their work from vision and imagination to creation.

Buy it here.

Katsumi Komagata

Katsumi Komagata is Japanese graphic designer who creates books "...using various paper textures, colour and cut-out shapes to draw the reader into a three-dimensional paperworld full of discoveries and surprises. Reading his books becomes a tactile as well as a visual experience..." (quoted from website). Komagata is another of the artists I discovered whilst working at the Bookarts Book Shop.

“Here it is,
It starts slowly slowly
There are empty and full
I move them round
They get longer, they lie down,
A small thing becomes a big thing
A single thing becomes multiple
And everything goes back to place
Slowly slowly.”

- Introduction from Pils and Plans

The Paper Cinema

I just came across the site of The Paper Cinema who have some show dates at the Battersea Arts Centre on 18-20,25-27 September, 2-4 October (take a look at their website to see more dates and venues). I am definitely not missing this one!

What happens at the accidental meeting of
inkblots, photocopies, cardboard, angle-poise lamps,
the occasional table, video technology, a laptop and
a banana box?

A cast of hand-drawn marionettes are
magically brought to life by the Paper Cinema.

UPDATE: I just booked my tickets for September 19th. I am SO excited... I'll let you know all about it.

John Plowman - The Reading Room

"Handel Street Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by John Plowman. The objects that Plowman has been making recently are the outcomes of performances in which the private act of reading is made public, as the book is read the pages are torn and re-stacked within a plywood structure. Using his own library as his source material Plowman has read a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica to produce ‘mis-un-pedia’ and ‘mis-un-library’."

I can't believe I have just missed this exhibition.