1. A friend gave me a Peggy Guggenheim bookmark when we were studying together - when we thought I'd be a curator and he'd be an artist.
She had good taste in art and sunglasses - and bad taste in dogs.
During lockdown, this place-keeper has slowly moved through the 700-pages of a single book - a reminder that time is moving on, just at a different pace.
2. White flowers have evolved to smell more fragrant and more beautiful than their colourful counterparts
in order to attract the insects and bees that are not naturally drawn to their more muted, milky petals.
The Yokoto Dress, The Row
3. Lessons in lockdown: Propogating plants
I have religiously watered 6 avocado seeds since the beginning of lockdown, waiting for something to happen - a small sign of life, a reward for my diligence. There are also apricot seeds drying out in the fridge, lying dormant until the time is right to plant them.
4. 'Reservoir' is a collection of sketchbooks, notebooks and excerpts from artist, Alice Maher. I have been drawn to her work during lockdown, having spent more time in the flat which I share with a print by the artist.
Her work is often about the body - the feeling of being trapped by its limitations, its fragility and its history. An exploration of how thoughts and energy are transmitted, how we affect the world around us. The continual feedback loop between our own interior worlds and exterior influences, and the power struggles that occur within us, and with those around us.
David Wojnarowicz by Peter Hujar
5. 12 May 2020 - Olivia Laing 'Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency'. Online book launch hosted by the Centre for Fiction NYC.
Notes on a Zoom call:
A Chantal Joffe painting hung behind Olivia's head - a portrait of the artist, David Wojnarowicz.
She often mirrored his pose - still and intense, relaxed yet active. Both figures are processing and formulating - thoughts about ready to emerge.
Floating to the left just above her shoulder, the painting formed a familiar and contemporary composition; the floating head and shoulders - framed by the canvas - hangs in the air in the top left corner in much the same way that one's own face appears on FaceTime.
A scene within a scene, your own image is like a side-note, an asterisk.
8. At night time I draw and cut out patterns inspired by marble inlay, cutting them out from a roll marble-effect vinyl as I watch TV.
Olivia Liang by Chantal Joffe
7. Friday 15 May, 7.30 pm
Bloody Bishop drawing class on Instgram live.
Drew: a vase of pink and purple stocks
Drank: white wine
Top tip: Do your first drawing on toilet paper to keep the stakes low and the mood high
6. I miss the sea
9. Barber Shop Chronicles - National Theatre Live
A document of how men tell stories, how they think about and recount their childhoods and how they relate to one another. What is said, what's not said and what's intimated? and how do these things adapt, mutate and change as people move or are displaced.
N.B. FT Culture Call with Mark Bradford
Bradford's mother owned a hair salon, where he worked and trained for years before becoming an artist, when he had to re-learn to prioritise his own intuition rather than listening to the direction, wishes and whims of the client.
10. The many, many configurations of working-from-home.
By day, stacks of books and magazines pile up on the sofa, transforming into side tables. Clusters of chairs gather nearby turned into footstools, work desks and cup holders.
By night, glasses of wine nestle into the indents left in the cushions, plates teeter on the arm, laptops warm our thighs.
Chargers spill out from underneath, and an iPhone can be found in the slither of space between the arm and the seat.
11. Zoom life drawing classes
You always gets the best version of the pose
and the poses are more strange
and more beautiful and more personal when viewed through a screen
12. Black Lives Matter
The sankofa bird walks into the future whilst turning its head to watch what came before.
Always looking behind,
the bird examines the past as it strides into the future.
