Florrie @ Elle Style Awards Pre-Party

Last Thursday I got to go to the Elle Style Awards pre-party at H&M Oxford Circus. I was super excited about this because Florrie was performing and I've been a big Florrie fan ever since I discovered her free to download stuff on last.fm ages ago. There were all sorts of fun things going on at the party. They had free manicures, a photo booth, screen printing and illustrations, as well as heaps of prosecco and a range of tasty canapés. I had plenty of fun sifting through the socks, because you know, I'm passionate about socks.

Florrie's voice is great and almost record perfect. The show ran so smoothly and all the blue light was really pretty. My only complaint would be my usual gig complaint - I'm shorter than everyone in front of me. People, please stop being taller than me - or, if you are taller than me, at least do me the courtesy of letting my ride on your back wearing a crown. Cheers.

'Yup' @ Wimbledon College of Art Interim Show 2015

On Thursday 29th January I showed a wall collage (titled 'Yup') as part of group 2 of 3 groups showing on consecutive Thursdays for our main show leading up to our summer degree show. Our group's show was titled 'murmurations' and my wall collage was right next to the table of drinks (nice). My work was also near a projected video, some backlit 35mm negatives, and some cool multicoloured plinths with creepy little figures on top of them. There was also a bathtub of bright blue gin and vodka cocktail in the sculpture space and a 2nd year with a stonking playlist but that was over in the sculpture warehouse.

my finished piece

I wanted to make a wall collage because it's quite an easy and convenient thing to construct and install, which is important to me as a person who is small, used to occupying a small space, dealing with shyness and particular anxieties, and also as a little bit of a collector and someone really into the ideas behind stuff like Michael Landy's 'Break Down'. I also think it's a great format for my work because I love cutting and sticking and combining, and I tend to work on quick and little things over long periods of time and greatly value the smallness of everyday activities, extending to art practices!

my materials spread out on the studio floor

This is probably the first show across the whole of the course (which started in September 2012) that I feel really involved with wholly in that my presentation really worked, didn't look tacky, rushed, or unfinished, and I felt it worked well with all the installations around it. I had planned, some time ago, to exhibit a book I'd worked on bit by bit across the year for the degree show, but I couldn't figure out how to make that into the kind of vibrant, sprawling, ME object/installation that I wanted it to be. I wanted to find a way to show work - a form that would be visually appealing, bright, representative of my creative philosophies and methods (sort of  simplistic but quite intense?), and simultaneously appropriate in a white-wall gallery style setting. All of that together was what I'd been struggling to achieve in previous assessments and with this I think I've made a big step forward because I have finally represented myself in a way that feels very rich and whole. I feel like I'm really unwinding into showing my work in this context now. I think I've finally gotten the right energetic spirit for exhibitions, and that's so exciting!

Detail:

my collage half installed

Computer Girls

I've been drawing girls in Inkscape and I'm getting the hang of making smooth shapes and curves. I love the look of figures without outlines. Removing the outlines gives them such a cute look and I feel like it conveys the spirit of my ideals: no outline, no rules, no constraints, just be yourself and eat a muffin and watch the sunset, you know? I love drawing digitally but I've wanted to pin down this sort of style for a long time and I'm so glad I am finally getting to grips with how to make drawings like this that are so clean and bright and adorable!

Nap Squad

Much like Rilakkuma, these kids (and uh, the weird drawing morphing from a photo of me) are here to represent relaxing and being cozy. If you've been here before you may know my penchant for naps, and thinking about naps, and quite frankly dreaming about naps even whilst I'm napping, or kipping, or... slumbering. So I dedicate these little pals to naps, on top of piles of cosy jumpers and after half a punnet of raspberries (side note - I love the word punnet). Let's nap!

Fruit Club

It's quite recently that I developed my feverish love for raspberries but you know what? They are filling the world with bright red squishy goodness (that sounds gross but ok, nature is gross, in a good way). Fruits in general (raisins, grapes, bananas, apples, the occasional apricot) make me feel so good and happy and ready to eat more fruits.

Fitting Room Focus: Long Dress Lil

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River Island always seem to have a lot of super cool long dresses, often with turtlenecks that I have to awkwardly squeeze my head through (make your turtlenecks stretchier!), so once again I have inspected the delicious long dress options available in store.

This dress is pretty nice and simple. Long sleeves and long everything make it nice and warm, and the colour is a nice light grey. I feel like light grey is my favourite neutral. The stripes are probably my favourite thing about it. I love a good stripe, and I like these ones because they're quite subtle and unobtrusive, but they also have this cool graduated look.

dress - £32 (similar)

blazer - £55 (similar)

I doubled up on stripes with this white and navy blazer, which has a similar look in terms of graduated stripes. Stripe diversity! Here's a close up of all these stripes:

jacket - £40 (similar in white ¦ similar in blue)

My favourite pick by far was this cute and cosy cream jacket. It's so soft and nice and it's the perfect length and size for me, with nice big, stretchy pockets. An ideal garment. The dress and jacket together give a brilliant smart and super comfortable look. Given it's such a long dress, I think it looks better with the long, slouchy jacket. The stripy blazer is a bit too boxy, I reckon (and you might not want to overdo it on the stripes).

24 & Every Other Excellent Number

So it's my birthday today and I'm 24 entire years old and I wanted to make a post about something I care about: how we treat age. Dominant ideas about getting older are pretty soul crushing and harmful for so many of us! A while ago I had the idea that maybe I could make a bunch of posts about inspiring old(er) women. I wanted to do this because I felt like it would be a great way to be positive about age, and it's something that makes me feel so excited to be older, thinking about Tove Jansson, Yayoi Kusama, Marina Abramovic, Yoko Ono, Aretha Franklin, and so many other amazing women. I also would love to interview some old women who aren't well known, because it's great to look up to ordinary people and to see how cool everyone can be! Here's an article about some very old family members of mine who have been married for 72 years.

I started to notice at about twenty years old how uncomfortable my friends were about entering their twenties. It was pretty uniform amongst everyone I knew who was turning twenty or twenty one and it stunned me that that this kind of age dread could happen so early, since just a year or two previously they'd been really happy to celebrate another birthday.

I wasn't immune to this and definitely started to feel a bit off about my increasing number, and a bit worried I wasn't reaching expectations of progressing enough, but this time I feel really excited, like I'm turning seven and I know I'm going to get a Furby and it's going to be amazing. I try to keep reminding myself that I'm a person, not just an age, and that everyone's life looks different. I shouldn't discredit all my achievements and everything I've learned before now. I still have so much life ahead of me and it's useless to put some arbitrary time limit on myself. Someone will always have done bigger things than me, but I'm the only person who can be me no matter how old I am. At the moment I'm so excited to become every age! Every year brings a million new opportunities and who knows how many raspberries I will get to eat this year! I will be a great 36 year old or 62 year old or 50 year old and this year I'm going to be a great 24 year old! :-)

xxx