Hi All... (above: me and Alex about to hit the town....)

Forgive the lapse.....having no internet at home is like having to function with one hand.......having to walk across the rd with partial site...having to ride a horse to work......ok that last one would be pretty cool.... but the point is things aren’t so easy.....

....I’m in a strange state of Limbo at the moment because I’ve applied for every arts job going, I have around 10 serious application in to galleries, from two different Tates to the Barbican,... and none of them are due to get back to me till very late March early April. In the mean time I have been applying for less amazing jobs...diners and bars.....etc....


... Alex has been brilliant...such a star......but as today is my one month anniversary.....I‘m looking for other places to crash for a week or two .......I don’t know anyone in London but feel compelled to stay close to the city due to all the interviews I’m expecting to come rolling in...


I might decide to go to Bath or Brighton for a while and trawl there?...we shall see... isn't traveling exciting hu?

So...limbo... I’m in Limbo.... It‘s amazing how many choices there are when you start from scratch. The days move SO fast here and If I’m not hunting down work and writing applications I’m visiting the galleries I’ve applied to and making connections with friends of friends...

So....I’ve been in the old country for a month... I remember when I first walked bemused into a supermarket and was disturbed at the way the way there weren’t really any brands other than supermarket brands...Tesco Water, Tesco's toilet paper...Tesco brand Coffee..Tesco brand meat......what the? I felt wrong buying it....like I was joining the Tesco cult.....but now Its just the way it is..... I am used to the fact that I have to place pound coin into the shopping trolley so I can use it during my shop then get the pound back by locking the trolley back in place......Everything is bolted to the floor and chained to the wall in London!!!!

I haven’t even told you about the play I went to.... I hopped on train to Leister....it’s in the middle of England but that doesn’t stop English people. ..they just have this excellently ordered national rail service...you just get off the tube, jump on an ‘overland train’ sit comfortably for 45 minutes and BAM your in the middle of England....just like that.

Leicester is beautiful… the cobbled streets, the brick, the ancient buildings, the winding alleyways and lampposts....I went to the Curve theatre to see my favorite actor, Marc Warren do his thing in a play called The Pilllowman. It was a strange dark comedy...very black comedy about a writer...the script was REALLY hard going, monologues and story telling … a mix of gritty realism and child-like musing...but Marc of course pulled it off.... The play was a little immature I thought....it gave too much away, finished things off too well and relied SO heavily on delivery as the script was DIFFICULT… it also went into the lives of less prominent characters at the detriment of the plot line...has a lot of unnecessary symbolism... but all in all it was good.....the ideas in it were very inventive and Marc was brilliant, really brilliant...so was the actor playing his brother.....it had a lot of psychological depth too.....

anyway like a TOTAL fan I went and bugged him for an autograph and photo after the show… he kindly obliged........then I had a 2 pound pint in the quaintest pub I could find until my rail ticket was ready...and zipped back to London Town…. That was that...it would have taken more time to get into a car...drive to Auckland central and get a park under the Aotea centre.

Me with Marc Warren....you only get one chance to look cool in these kinda photos.......alas.......

I've also been to Trafalgar square and the National Gallery...it was incredible...I saw a self portrait of Rembrandt...just there on the wall..... huge sprawling paintings…..figures emerging out of darkness….portraits of incredibly rich inbred royals….their lips defectively tucked neatly above their chins……tiny paintings with more detail than a mural the size of a wall could contain...... religious usually and of course……(I thought often of you Lucy...and Link)....a Lion sits, each of his hairs painted with a single brush hair…. Staring with my foolish 21st century eyes trying to contemplate that the painting I am looking at isn’t a prop…it’s a thousand years old……

I was MOST impressed by the colours…I part expected things to be faded…maybe they were before restoration…but the colours! The blues,….azure, amazing…the rich blood red…folds of glorious materials as vibrant as a light infused pixel on a screen……the blood of Christ spilling out of the ancient brushwork… if the blood really spilled forth I would have had to wade through it… The beasts and the myths.. it was amazing…my eyes began to burn with the intensity and the noise of it all…I’ll have to go back to see the second half of the collection…

I am thinking often about home, of course, especially my family…my friends…my Depot, and my Satellite, all my artists and my Mark….sat there steering Satellite into the future…my Harvey….

I’ll write more once grounded…..

xx-S

pending.....

Hi all....

I am currently without internet where i'm staying...so when i'm paying for internet its all business I'm afraid...

will catch you up shortly.....still visiting galleries and famous London sites...still looking for work....now looking for a place to live...

xx
-S

GENERIC TOURIST....

O.k so loathe as I am to photograph 'englishy London' stuff and post it to you...

I have some friends and family that want to see some generic out and about in London shots....

For all my English friends, photographer friends and beloved art bitches: view at your own risk...

I've been up to a fair bit... I went and checked out the Green Park art scene first... saw White Cube (one of them)... it was fairly unwelcoming and the artist prefers to display (and paint) his work upside-down (I believe he's been doing this since the 70's so for all you scoffing 40 somethings; don’t look at my generation)

It was quite decent show by artist Georg Baselitz... the scale he was able to get loose gestural drawing on was impressive and the contextual side had alot of depth. They seemed like intimate sketches but they were huge. It has like Greg Page meets Heesoo kim...
......trawling the art scene, as I do, I am finding the artists here are interested in similar concepts and ideas our Satellite artists are... (I am biased toward Satellite exhibitors of course). Echoes of Mica Still's palate and content can be seen in Sebastian Brajkovic's work at The Carpenters Gallery, the intuitive painter Frank To discovers shadowy figures in his dark rich paintings much like Tina Frantzen...(I prefer Tina's work).

Sebastian's work was very cool; incredibly beautiful pieces, so playful despite the precision... the overwhelming perfection, the SKILL and the DETAIL.....the images on the site don’t do them justice (of course) the poisonous colours of the thread... and provocative animal forms in the stitch work were amazing (medieval mythological animals). He made cast bronze furniture appear to bleed and fall..... like Dali's clocks but SO much better....


It hasn't been all art....I've walked through Hyde Park on a misty morning, watching people ride horses... (albeit to see Serpentine Gallery) .....

I've had a street vended pancake with lemon and sugar (as the gods intended) in the west end, I've haggled a Camden Market vendor from 30 to 10 pounds for a jacket, I've been to the Piccadilly Markets on antique day...

I've seen the Ritz, had my shoes shined, visited the the Royal Academy (no I couldn’t afford the Byzantium exhibition but look forward to it once employed) and had ALOT of AWFUL coffee..............

....The people in this town know NOTHING about coffee. It’s ASTOUNDING!!! It’s like they never got the memo: They always burn it, it's never smooth and creamy, the froth is always bubbly (when you CAN get a cappuccino) its watery, HUGE and they have never heard of a flat white. (you WARNED me Fran..)

I'm finding all these bazaar traditions my English father carried with him make sense now... for example who carries a handkerchief in N.Z? (with your exception Dad and Lynn)... they are NECESSITY here....your cold nose is SO oft runny. The whole thermos phenomenon makes sense too......you NEED a hot drink here after 30 mins of being outside...

Anyway I hope you enjoy the generic images (below). As far as my 'progress' goes I have (after MANY pains) transferred my cash, I've helped out at a dealer gallery opening, introduced myself around, found some valuable contacts and applied for several interesting positions (not that I'm in a hurry... I'm having a brilliant time)...

PICTURE TIME:

The Ritz.....in the Mayfair area...yep...

the one that costs 2000 dollars if you land on it with a hotel......

Getting on side with the local authorities.....they'll never suspect me now...

THIS is Kings Cross Tube station...there is always all this industrail caging and wire in the tubes....I bet all the first year art students here go CRAZY for it.....

Speaking of the tube this is a view from my ride home to Central Finchley..... it aint all buildings and undergrounds...

A highlight to my city art tour....a giant wall of generations of ripped off posters at the Camden Tube station....I know you'll appreciate this Harvey...It was beautiful.

Me VERY jettlagged at the worlds end..... I was scaring small children and animals with those dark circles

This is where I'm staying... I call it 'Me with Kitchen'

and.....signing off... thanks all. till next time.

xx

-S