Central Saint Martins Degree Shows 2012

I've just returned from the press preview of the Central Saint Martins Degee Shows 2012. Such clever (and beautiful) young people. It feels wrong to single out one artist from a dgeree show but it is impossible not to have have favourites and I was both impressed and moved by the paintings of Molly-Clare O'Donnell. This JPG taken from her website does not do full justice to the delicacy and subtlety of her work. The figurative elements of her paintings unfold themselves much more slowly when you view the actual painting.
The shows are open to the public over the next week: Friday, Monday and Wednesday 12 to 8pm, Saturday  and Thursday 12 to 6pm, closed Sunday, at the new  Central  Saint Martins building, 1 Granary Square, King's Cross, N1C 4AA.

Playing with Blender

Playing with Blender again: what do you think? Comments welcome.

The Genius of Mees-Hell Sang

Painter and photographer, Polish born, London based, Mees-Hell Sang has an issue of HorrorZine dedicated to her work. Go and enjoy

Gerry Judah's The Crusader

When I arrived for 7.30am Mass this morning, I found Gerry Judah's fibreglass sculpture The Crusader is now installed at the back of my parish church. The version is different from the larger version shown here (and originally commissioned for the Imperial War Museum North). This version is smaller and in a ferric red which tones in well with the Victorian brickwork of William Butterfield.

Larkin and Hitchens: Two unpopular Englishmen

Over at the National Review Peter Hitchens writes about the Collected Poems of Philip Larkin.
It's an inspired commission on somebody's part because the reputations of both men lie under the shadow of the disapproval of received opinion.

Kestrels on Hampstead Heath

I photographed this young male close to the tumulus (sometimes called Boudicca's Mound) just after sunrise a few summers ago. I used it as the cover for my poetry collection.
The poem below is about another occasion.

Jimi Hendrix at the Saville Theatre

The Saville Theatre, photographed here on a gloomy December afternoon, is a cinema now. Forty-five years ago this weekend, on a bright June evening it hosted ten minutes of Rock And Roll History.
Even in the Swinging London of 1967 puritan shadows still flickered around Sundays. During the week The Saville Theatre was a comedy theatre. That summer Spike Milligan was in a one man show there, but on Sundays the Saville was dark, like every Theatre along London's Shaftesbury Avenue.
Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager had taken out a lease on The Saville, as one of his many interests, and used the empty Sunday nights for pop concerts. On Sunday June 4th the auditorium was flooded with famous faces: all four Beatles were there, Eric Clapton and Lulu among many others. Everyone who was anyone had come to hear The Jimi Hendrix Experience.