And Then There Was Freedom

Apologies for absence of late. I finally finished the academic year and thusly became allergic to my computer and ran away to do things like read books, see friends and sleep in late. Also, I had to wake up to the nasty reality of study being replaced by working far too much to save some money up for next year. Now that's it is holidays and despite the nasty retail hours I have promised myself to get some summer projects done. My poor sewing machine has been lying dormant for far too long and now I am determined to use some of the little free time I have.

I am deeply obsessed with patterns. To start me off and spring a little inspiration I have been looking through some of the clothes I own and some of the material that I want to use. I took photos of some of them to share with you, apologies for the somewhat dodgy photo quality. Enjoy.

A Place To Call My Own

by Eleanor Rudge

Hello lovelies. Today is a neither here nor there sort of day. The weather has plummeted from blossoming spring warmness to some sort of drizzling cold greyness. There is much to be done before I finish my degree in SIX DAYS TIME. So I am procrastinating from what is really very pressing by hunting for a house to live in. An activity which is in equal parts tedious and exciting.

Tedious because you have to search through listings and realise that everything is too expensive and then go see houses which turn out to be awful and then find one you love and have someone else get it before you do. BUT exciting cause there is much time to be spent in planning the way things will be. I have been saving homely images that I want to model my abode on. I love the fresh brightness of these combined with a sort of eclectic clutter. I think my version will have a few added super bright artworks.

I can't wait to escape the study hibernation and find myself a brand new kitchen to spend the summer cooking in.

I come from a family of hopeless bibliophiles. Moving always involves some epic logistic feat of book packing and rearranging. I never feel at home until they're all on the new shelves. I love this slanting bookcase, I know that it won't quite be the same in the small studenty apartment that I will find. I can dream though.

Goat Of The Day

Ok, so this post is pretty much just nicked from my love for you is a stampede of horses, but the goatiness was just too good to refuse. Montreal based artist Brad Woodfin has painted a series of mysterious goats for his latest exhibition: The Returning. The combination of goats AND art together is getting me all jittery with excitement.

Giarra

Le Classique No. 342

Betorz

I'm sitting writing this in a cafe and a stranger just walked past, atonally mumbling some mangled lyrics: Sheep are very boring, goats go to heaven. Too perfect.

Maybe My Essay Would Write Itself If I Put A Bonnet On and Ran Away With A Mysterious Stranger.

Friend

hey

still the pope of procrastination?

18:00Me

hells yes

you?

18:00Friend

no

but i am the duke of doing fuck all

My attempts to study this weekend are a farce. For a little bit more procrastination, here are some pretty book covers I found while looking up dramatic farces in Spanish. 

Ring is in the air!

Well it turns out we all have exam-time backgrounds. I too have adopted a mantra of sorts. Mantra? I don’t think that’s the right term. Anyway, mine reads “This too shall pass”.

The story behind it is quite long and has Jewish/Turkish Origins. Pretty much king Solomon wanted to take his chief minister down a peg or two, so sets him this obscure test; “go find a magic ring that makes sad men happy and happy men sad…my son” I’m pretty sure he would’ve said. “Also, get it done before the night of this specific festival, my son”. Night before the task it due some local jeweller works it out for him. The minister turns up to the festival with a golden ring baring the inscription “This too shall pass”.
The king realises his wealth is fleeting and he will be dust one day.
During exam-time dust is the best I can hope for.

The trick with the saying is getting it down before holidays start…nobody likes a dusty spring.

My Mind is A'Wanderin'

These last few weeks of springtime have had me drunk on blossoms and sunlight winding through bright green leaves. There have been many wide smiles while riding home on my bike in the evening inhaling the heavy scents from sun soaked flowers. 

The end of the university year is drawing near and thusly there are many things to be done involving writing things that sound intelligent and memorising large quantities of information such as exactly what are the functions of third person pluperfect and the subjunctive in indirect speech. 

However, the distraction of life and spring time is making me feel more like this when I try and sit down in front of the books. To quote Bernard Black I can feel a bit of my brain falling away like wet cake.

I have set this as my desktop background and hope that it might just convince me to get something done. You can buy the print from Mary Kate McDevitt here

If I Could I Would Build You A Whole New World Out Of Paper

I love paper. I like drawing on it, writing on it, reading it. I like the way it feels and all the possibilities that can stem from something so bland as a single white square of it. One of the oft-told apocrypha of my childhood is that one christmas I was sitting on Santa's knee and upon being asked what I wanted for christmas, I answered 'A big roll of sticky'. Barbie be damned, all I wanted was a big roll of sticky tape so I could stick pieces of paper together and make things. When I got older I became enchanted with the story of Sadako and have contributed twice to sending one thousand paper cranes to Hiroshima's Children's Peace Monument. 

I started thinking about this all again the other day because I saw a fantastic documentary called Between The Folds. I just love watching passionate people get excited about something wonderfully esoteric that they've adopted as a passion. At first I thought the documentary would just be a series of lovely, slightly crazy people talking about making animals out of paper. However, Vanessa Gould has crafted an elegant documentary that flies through the realms of craft, to art movements and mathematicians exploring the possibilities of paper as a modeling tool. 

I think it is something very special if someone can manage to get me so excited about maths. This guy conveys infectious enthusiasm for the subject:

Erik Demaine

As well as making incredible mathematical origami 

I also stumbled, quite by accident, upon James Roper, who has incorporated origami into his sculptural installations.

Construct, Into The Fold exhibition 2005-2008

I want to go home, ignore my obligations and fold creases to make something unexpected. I want to go and write letters to someone I haven't talked to in a long time, with a pen and a nice piece of old paper. Go home and make a cup of tea and curl up and inhale the smell of old book pages.