signapse

#wip #studioscenes #supportlivingartists #toolsofthetrade #workinprogress #studiolife #contemporaryart #immersiveart #opensignapse #artevent #sketchbook

Helping out the Selway girls rig their shows at Goldsmiths Fair 2017. Walking through Smithfield and it's all gone Eduardo Paolozzi. Good to see that Londoners are still using their rich cultural heritage for practical purposes. @hattongarden @goldsmithsfair

Glasgow, Byers road with my philosophical best friend. Back on tour with the boys including the entirely excellent Bill Brodie the painter I worked with in Skye and wife Bonnie. Proper hard seagulls here. They leave footprints in the concrete pavements. #tapas #seagulls #landscapepainting #bestfriends #lovescotland (at Cafe Andaluz)

Grinding colour. I love the smell of plate oil almost as much as the smell of turps. Why is it that the accidents and incidental marks are so often the most decorative? #oilpainting #colours #monoprint #liminibus @signapse (at River Stour)

More 5 second life drawings. Using my time wisely as I wait just on the Blighty edge of airside. #lifedrawing #airportfashion #happytoseeyou (at South Terminal London Garwick)

Airport arrivals. Forget the free wifi which never works. Enjoy the free life models - endless supply of bored faces which suddenly light up when they see a loved one. Are we there yet ? #lifedrawing #airportfashion #gatwick #onthephone #smiling (at Gatwick Airport)

Today my studio cat is mostly having a duvet day. I'm working on a palette for painting a hot freeway. Raw umber mostly also yellow ochre and green earth. Then some cad red for road signs and rust.#cats_of_instagram #oilpainting #freeway #rawumber (at River Stour)

Shopping mall. Dry gritty concrete slabs. Dry gritty breeze. Dry gritty music through several out of sync speakers all of which are too small and far to toppy. Squeak squeak. The dust that is left after music has been blown around a vacant space too long. #shoppongmall #concrete #dust #grit #musicconcrete #musicconcrète (at Nowhere Island)

Walking tour of the Western Isles. Arisaig. Finally arrived at Arisaig harbour. I feel so passionate about this place, even though I have no roots here whatsoever. Maybe Londoners can function without roots ? It's probably because my Philosophical best friend spent his childhood holidays here and his dad grew up in a croft here. Spent s happy hour drawing some shears in the visitor centre collection. Beautifully purposeful and economical/ you only make something this well when you now the work and the previous versions of the tool by direct hand. #arisaig #crofter #tools #handmade

Walking tour of the western isles. Wouldn't get far walking in these But your definitely have an interesting journey. More work from the dressing up show at the national centre for crafty designifying. #shoes #tottering (at The National Centre for Craft & Design)

Walking tour of the western isles. A quick stop off on the way north. At the national centre for craft and desig. ( I know, the name nearly put me off too). There's s fab collection about dressing up. Jerry Halliwells Union Jack stack heels and this naughty pair. Well worth a trip. #dressingup #showingoff #shoes (at The National Centre for Craft & Design)

Doing a studio clear out ready for working on the big 8' 😊 drawings for the liminibus pop up show and found this. It needs to go to a good home. t's definitely got Lisa Temple Cox's name on it. #mementomori #drawing @lisa.tc #paradeoffools #liminibus (at River Stour)

Just found the long lost twin of the entirely fabulous Jolly Sailor Boy cafe in Jaywick Essex. It’s called Rose’s and has the same relaxed welcome with proper portions of beachtastic food and cold beer.

I had a chat with a local builder yesterday. We were both standing chest high in the lovely warm water feeling cool and toasty at the same time. He told me that they are now running out of the locally cut honey coloured stone that weathers so well. It gives his place a Cotswolds feel, but without the bad weather or the annoying Tories. He started off, in his teens, hod carrying those big blocks up the scaffs. He said bandit building work was the only way to make enough money to save up. We spoke about never reading the manual for our younger bodies, not realising that carrying bulky items up and down ladders wasn’t something we would always be able to do. Proper bloke bonding. But the buildings are still here and looking better with age, just like us #stonemason #buildings #nongrumpyoldmen

Walking tour of Malta. No walking today. Mellieha beach. I feel instantly at home on this island. Just like the one I come from, it's sustained by it's seaports. Their gift is to impact the language and culture with strange, rich and unsettling combinations. To me, Maltese is a language that sounds both familiar and totally totally alien at the same time. The rhythm section is definitely Arabic/Semitic Middle East. On top of that bubbling pulse the horns drop in mostly Italian and Brit words which flash into recognition in the middle of a flow that I can't hold on to. A bit like Don Cherry when he's on one.This is a lovely family beach and I'm sitting here listening the the standard issue conversations between parents and kids, the squabbles between couples and generations that are all the same wherever you go. It's the words that ping over my head, but the meanings are obvious. It reminds me of hearing Yiddish when I was a kid, That strange mix of Middle East and German which had such an impact on the humour and storytelling of the London I grew up in. In fact, my family passed around words and jokes without even knowing they were Yiddish. Those Jews came in through London docks and left behind a storytelling and comedy tradition that survived the end of the Music Halls. It then flowed through tin pan alley and screenwriting and on to the glorious madness of Hollywood. I'm so proud to come from the town where everybody comes from somewhere else. Could anybody out there send me suggestions for a Maltese hip hop playlist ? #malta #maltese #etymology #yiddish #musichall #hiphop

Walking tour of Mayfair. Sometimes the town I love doesn't fit into the corporate developers grids that are ripping through her underwear. This beautiful wrought iron wedge clearly didn't. Won't stop it being worth s few hundred mill and one day being repurposed an a microbrewery and bagel chain. (at Green Park)

Walking tour of Mistley station (infrastructure division) comedy error message on our new superhighway always on ticketing kit. Living the Grater Angular dream (at Mistley railway station)