Final preparations for Miami were underway, packing pictures to take as hand luggage. And considering buying a new car.
Rebecca Hossack with potential new wheels
Two thanksgiving meals: lunch with Tina and Belinda and turkey with Alvin and Ian in Highgate, surrounded by their amazing Aboriginal collection.
Then desserts and much discussion about Alvin and Ian’s forthcoming wedding party at the gallery.
I arrived back in London, and unpacked and repacked for Miami for Saturday 29. The climate of both are similar.
That evening, we had an amazing party at the gallery for the Aurora Scholars. Four years ago there had never been an Aboriginal scholar at Oxford or Cambridge- now there are 26. We had cocktails and the Aboriginal scholars spoke. Their stories were amazing. The philosopher A C Grayling talked to one scholar doing a doctorate in Cambridge in the Philosophy of the Mind.
The Aurora Indigenous Scholars
Rebecca Hossack with Jon slack,  Director of Australian  and New Zealand Literary Festival
Rebecca Hossack with A.C Grayling , Richard Potok and Jon Slack
I totally love Burnt Ends restaurant. The owner Dave Pynt looks like Ned Kelly- and of course he is Australian. Â
We were having a party to launch Laura Jordan’s new Singapore series.
Dave was at a wedding in Margaret River in West Australia and rang to see how it was all going- quail’s egg, a wood food oven and the pictures looked stunning. It was perfect.
At 8.30, I left to catch the midnight plane to London. another week, another long international flight.
The waitress at the restaurant where I dined lives in Malaysia because it is cheaper and travels four hours each way to and from work. She has two little boys and loves children. It was 11 pm and she was still working.
Friday 22- Sunday 23 November     Â
Yo-Hann Tann took me for a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant on Saturday night. It was quiet and relaxing and delicious. He had just come back from Seoul. Everyone I meet in Singapore is weekending in Jakarta, Hong Kong, Cambodia....
The fair finished Sunday evening. We had virtually sold out.
My Sunday evening roll call of crates is always something I dread and we had work to be shipped to London, Hong Kong and to remain in Singapore.
However, the prospect of a delicious dinner in Duxton Hill and cocktails on the roof top terrace of Marina Bay Sands with the other British dealers sustained us as we wrapped and packed.
At 2am, I was back at my hotel but too tired to sleep. I went to the 7-11 in China Town and bought two Magnum ice creams, and sat under an awning watching the rain.
The juxtaposition of vast skyscrapers and little shops with shrines placed on the streets, with offerings like a cup of coffee or an orange in front of them never ceases to amaze me.
This morning I went for a run and saw an old man gathering fallen flowers and putting them in a plastic bag. Later I saw the same flowers spread out on the ground at the entrance to a temple.
Scattered flowers at the temple
It is impossible to run in Singapore.
Although it was like being in a refrigerator, the opening of the fair was totally ablaze. Laura Jordan’s new Singapore series was appreciated by a crowd three people deep.
Rob Tucker paintings, channelling the vibe of Singapore colour
Monday 17- Tuesday 18 NovemberÂ
Experiencing the bucolic joys of Autumn at Griff and Jo’s, it was hard to come back to London and pack for my departure to Singapore on Monday evening. I still had not unpacked from my trip to New York one week before, and I could not think HOT, and I had decided to carry Robert Bradford’s recently completed sculpture of a bejewelled dog AND an Iain Nutting scrap metal horse. Three cases, and not enough clothes.
I arrived in Singapore on Tuesday evening and went straight to the art fair, where I found Isy and Sarah had already unpacked the crates. It was so hot and humid, but then they do this crazy thing in Singapore where in every car, shop or hotel the air conditioning is absolutely freezing. What is wrong with lower buildings and the slow whir of a ceiling fan?
I bought a Magnum ice cream for dinner (Singapore is hard for coeliacs) and went to bed.
Friday 14 November- Sunday 16 November
Griff Rhys Jones has been criticized in the press for his complaints about mansion tax. So he was not on totally ebullient Griff form for his birthday weekend in Suffolk. But his daughter Katherine created the most delicious meals- breakfast segued into lunch and by the end Griff was singing opera around the table. We found the biggest oyster in the world in the mud at the bottom of their garden.
This is the time of year when I meet all the artists and we plan their schedules for the forthcoming calendar.Â
Iain Nutting is doing really well with his life sized gorillas made from reclaimed metal. And Rebecca Jewell is continuing as Artist in Residence at the British Museum.
A late dash to Charlotte Street for the opening of Hepzibah Swinford’s show. Her daughter Beatrice, burlesque dancer extraordinaire, has made cakes to complement, inspired by the paintings.
Lee Evans continues her support of Hepzibah by buying a superb work.Â
The team from Anthropology love RHG, and after the success of Holly Frean’s chicken show they want to work with more of our artists. Barbara Macfarlane was in the gallery to discuss her NYC show and they loved her work and hearing about her amazing Khadi paper project.
We had cakes from the Brazilian café and then it was time to head to the Burlington Arcade for the Christmas lights. With so many meetings, Frankie claimed she was slipping into insanity. At that moment, the Poetry Group started to arrive. John Stammer is a wonderful poet and he has mentored the group for over a decade. They were launching their new anthology in the gallery.
Rebecca Hossack with poets Edward Barker and John Stammers
I wanted to stay and hear them read the poems (Edward Barker is my favourite) but I had to go to the Resurgence and Ecologist Dinner at the Lancaster Hotel. I am a trustee of Resurgence and a huge supporter of Satish Kumar, the Editor.
I hated the hotel ballroom and the hotel seemed so removed from what Resurgence stands for, but someone told me they keep bees on the roof. Hmmm…
Awoke with a sense of dread. Philosophy class tonight and I HAVEN’T READ PLOTINUS. Resolved to spend the day reading. As if! Morning meeting with Laura Jordan and lunch with Frankie Whitaker, tea with Katherine Virgils. Artists all day long and then a dash to the 7pm start of the two hour class. The teacher really annoys me. He is so tentative. I want to sit there and be told things, but he expects me to THINK!
Adrian Dannatt brought his 90 year old mother to meet me. In January, we are celebrating her birthday with an exhibition. I adore octo and nona- genarians. They are so brave, so modest, so interesting.
Saturday 8 November- Sunday 9 November
This was my first weekend in London for months, and so Matthew and I rode our bikes to the Tower of London to see the poppies. A bit of product placement in the City of London.
All weekend people flooded the gallery to see the Derren Brown exhibition. Sold one of his photos.
Ian Butchoff is a remarkable man. He was born in a house with an outside loo, which his family shared with four other families. He began his career as a young boy buying silver plates with his father from Bermondsey market. Now he presides over a beautiful, and vast, antiques shop on Kensington High Street.
Ian and I are both Directors of LAPADA (The Art and Antique Dealers Association) and he took me to lunch at the coolest restaurant in Fitzrovia, Dabbous.
 My dinner that evening was with another remarkable man, Yo-Hann Tann. As a student studying at LSE , Yo-Hann used to walk past my gallery and say 'One day I will buy something'. Now he is a lawyer, and he has. I took him on a studio visit to Emma Haworth and then we went to Scotts for dinner. We discussed art and Singapore, two of my favourite topics
One of the strangest things I have done was to carry a stuffed black swan down Euston Road on New Year's Day. I had bought it for Derren Brown, the genius illusionist. The swan settled in Derren’s home, and Derren and I had coffee and discussed his portraits.
Rebecca Hossack with Derren Brown's stuffed swan
In order to excel at his craft Derren has to study the human face intently. This understanding of physiognomy is fundamental to his art. After lunch with fellow LAPADA board member Catherine McKenna and a visit to her beautiful Beauchamp Place shop, I returned to his opening at the gallery, alongside Barbara Macfarlane's mapscapes, which was a WOW. It was particularly a WOW seeing the subjects of the portraits standing next to the canvas.
Ivan Massow is standing for the next Mayor of London. I like him.
Rebecca Hossack with Ivan Massow
