Living the highlight

I am a highlight. A highlight in this month's wonderful online zine Blank Pages. There's its cover below. It reminds my of an album by The The. I don't suppose many of you remember The The. Before your time probably. They were quite good; a bit weird, maybe, but quite good nonetheless.


Anyway, I am very much honoured to have been furnished with this "highlight" entitlement. Huzzah for me! But why?, you ask. Well, I've written a feature in the latest Blank Pages, out today, all about blogging and just how ace being a blogger in the rainy city can be and just how ace one of my fellow bloggers is. She's called Hayley Flynn; you should check out her stuff. Her Skyliner picture set is just getting going, but it promises to make hers a go-to blog. And her misplaced mail stories are fab; they're the letter equivalent of my list collection, which I'm aiming on doing more with soon. And which grew again this morning with "loaf / crumpets / Actimel / 3 meals / veg? / mixed salad / sweets / or fruit and cream". Lovely.

Alchemical reaction

So yesterday, the word "alchemical" cropped up on Words & Fixtures and today, totally by accident, I learnt more about alchemy. Alchemy, so I'm told, is both a philosophy and an ancient practice that attempts to change base metals into gold.

Upcycling also converts worthless tut into wonderful trinkets, as mentioned in this post here, and earlier I swung by the Royal Exchange to see the Craft Shop's Upcycled exhibition.

Supported by the Crafts Council, the Royal Exchange Craft Shop commissioned students from the MA Design LAB at MMU's Manchester School of Art to transform defunct objects into objets d'art, and these are now on display (and for sale) in the voluminous lobby until Thursday 31 March.


I'm particularly taken by Lorraine Otoo's crocheted creations re-using metal and cotton (necklace pictured above) and Catherine Chester's reworking of old watch components and vintage photos into unique jewellery. Other jewellery includes Sharleen Marius' recycled steel pieces, and work by a number of established makers invited to complement that by the students - I've got my eye on the button brooches and earrings courtesy Lovely Pigeon; the fabric flower corsages by Lucy Smethurst, and Chain Of Daisies' vintage gem earrings and bird necklaces and bracelets (I can't stop buying things with bird motifs at the moment).

There are also plenty of homewares and tablewares. Bethan Jones offers up ceramics, while Hannah Lovett, Emily Jackson and Geoff Hall have all worked with recycled glass.

Geoff has also created a special display using recovered glassware, recycled scrap window panes and flameworked scientific glass tubing, and it's worth the trip for this alone. Called "The Alchemist", this three-tier exhibit makes full use of one of the three-sided cabinets near the bar, so each face reveals one of the three stages in the alchemical process: Nigredo, Albedo and Rubedo. The craftmanship, attention to detail and even historical link to the Royal Exchange demonstrated is amazing: go see!

Altered images

Yesterday evening saw the pretty much packed launch of new art show Reflexive Landscapes & Cutting Machines by Bruce Thompson at the Beggars Bush bar on Beech Road in Chorlton. Before we go any further, I'd better come clean: Bruce is my friend and lodger. He feeds my cats and I don't want to get on the wrong side of him.

Nonetheless, I show no bias when I advise you to check out the exhibition over the next month or so. Treat yourself to a drink while you're there. Go on. Here's the exhibition poster, influenced by Bruce's interest in decorative screens:


The works on display, however, are each an image in themselves and the show encompasses two series Bruce has been working on over the last few years. I was already familiar with Reflexive Landscapes, a colourful, dynamic oeuvre (did I just say "oeuvre"? Ha!), with more than a few sci-fi threads. The pieces from the Cutting Machines series, however, were new to me, and I really enjoyed their pared-down compositions, subtle cream and garlic pink shades, and rich textures.

Bruce has studied both art and architecture, and was working on very fine airbrush automatic abstract paintings when I first met him a number of years ago. In his latest work, he reconsiders these spontaneous pieces by rendering them using a computer-based 3D modelling package, and adding more colour, light and depth. This second stage is then further transformed by manipulating points of view and fragmenting and recombining elements of the original canvas to produce a totally new image.

Says Bruce: "This body of work is concerned with the unconscious mind in relation to space and perception, expressed through art and architecture. The work can be viewed as a departure point from painting and a move towards a cybernetic, pataphysical and alchemical world."

Unsure what pataphysics are, I consulted Wikipedia and discovered that it's a pseudophilosophy that parodies modern science often through the use of nonsensical language. Well, if it's good enough for Bruce and French author Raymond Queneau, it's good enough for me...

Taking a philosophical viewpoint

I was flicking through the Guardian Review at the weekend and saw this great picture of Simone de Beauvoir. It's even better on the website, all saturated colour, so I thought I'd share it with you.


The piece it accompanies is all about women's writing: it's 50 years since de Beauvoir's famous "feminist" tome The Second Sex was published. I've not read this book, and I don't know if I ever will. I studied "women's literature" as a subsidiary course at university and, if I'm honest, it put me off the genre somewhat. I'm not much of a feminist, and I don't see why women's literature should be marked out when men's literature is not. It doesn't seem very equal or fair.

The other thing is that I've read three of de Beauvoir's works, and two I didn't like. It took me most of last summer to wade my way through The Mandarins (1954); it took part of this to decipher Une Mort Tres Douce (A Very Easy Death, 1964). Neither was all that enjoyable, although I loved Les Belles Images (1966), so you never can tell.

I can't give up on SDB just yet, as I'm constantly intrigued by her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, her position as a figurehead of French intellectualism and her importance in shaping the Existentialism movement (check this out for more on the far-reaching influences of that). Plus that is some very sharp coordination of lipstick to jacket going on there. Oh dear, what's a girl to do?