Burning Buildings

I hated Chemistry at school. Seeing things fizz (peanut in a bunsen burner, a chunk of liver in hydrochloric acid) was the only thing that piqued my interest long enough for me to raise my head from it’s horizontal station on top of my textbooks – even then, the theory and equations either side what ever our hapless teacher was combusting made me twitchy with frustration – and with the exception of clipping safety tongs to the Head of Science’s lab coat, I spent most of my science department hours paralysed with boredom. Still, some of those demonstrations at the front of the class must have remained buried in my head, because Australian artist Jennifer Mehigan‘s work, reminded me , amongst other things, of the multicoloured flashes you get if you through pure sodium in a flame (a point: I have both tried this over my gas stove unintentionally when salting water for pasta, and it’ not nearly as pretty and searched for an informative, accompanying Youtube video but they’re all underwhelming). I’m not sure which of her work above and below I like best: the prints overlaid with paint, the less saturated pencil series, or the abstract colour studies (probably the pencils actually. They’d look cool and disaffected on my wall). Either way, they’re certainly more fun and interesting than double science (double win) so this Tuesday morning is shaping up better than the Tuesday morning’s of my youth. E= MC Hammer, and all that.

{Painted photographs are part of Mehigan’s 2010 Armed and Luminous series; pencil/paint on paper work is from Various Kinds of Fire (2011) and pencil on paper from Immortal Diamond, also completed in 2011}

Monday Miscellany

Because I quite spectacularly failed to publish a Han Friday last week, I’ve created an entirely new weekday-day themed post to gloss over the fact: Miscellany Monday. Inspired, no?  So without further a do, some bits and pieces from last week that I would have shared earlier, if you know, life, death and the universe had got in the way. From top: the offcuts from a bargain bucket chrysanthemums, glowing in last Sunday’s very early, very bright sunrise; another brunch at Duke’s; what I hope will be the last time I wear an all black outfit with Spring underway; M.Ward working at the Leicester Square theatre (he played both Poison Cup and his cover of Let’s Dance, and my heart broke and was made new before I’d even finished my Kronenburg) and flowers blooming along the Regents canal. Some, for the first time in ages, via Instagram, which I sort of forgotten existed on my phone. Bit like finding a fiver in your pocket, only with more filters.

Hand Hewn

I would like to pretend that my recent – and totally ridiculous – fascination with sturdy, rustic tables was due to an increasing need to remind myself of my country roots; or that, having frittered ludicrous sums of money away on cheap, polyester clothing, I had finally reached a stage where I’d made the link about buying quality over quantity and was starting with my decor. Really, I think it’s just because I’ve got a little old, and a little boring, and in a frenzy of organising things last weekend I managed to persuade a certain design Nazi to help me put up all the pictures that had been languishing, propped against my wall and getting all linty and so now, you know, I think I’m Kelly Hoppen. Anyhow, as I’m not one to keep my furniture fetishes secret (I like a good oak finish, and if metal ‘upcycled’ details are included, it’s business time) and so presented without further ado: the tables I’d have in my kitchen, in my dream home – a result of a Pinterest binge. Oh and as an aside update on kitchen activity – the vegetarian-for-Lent thing is going swell, having got the hand of puy lentils. See: boring pulse-based banter, of the very worst sort.

{All images via Pinterest}