byebye

so after a few short months here...
I'm leaving.
http://sb-a.tumblr.com/
it's just simpler. easier. cleaner.

so hello tumblr

-sb

Things I've Been Looking At Recently

Jean Tinguely -
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Very Small Objects -
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My tutor David Fusco told me about VSO after watching me arrange my shells like this -
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Is it not fantastic to have a system for naming and recording hoarded fragments? It reminds of the scene in Everything is Illuminated where the old lady has hundreds of labelled boxes, one of which is labelled "dust".
He also showed me these Caddis Fly sculptures by Hubert Duprat -
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I think that it's very interesting to have thought of taking some creature which scavenges and uses only what it can find to build a home and putting it suddenly in an environment where it can have expensive, glittering materials instead of twigs and debris. It makes me wonder what it would be like to surround people in slum dwellings with valuable building materials to replace their corrugated tin and timber rafter homes. 

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What if they found corrugated gold? What if their reused timber was polished mahogany? What if their scavenged rope washing line was pure hand-spun silk? 

-sb

First day

First day of art school today - UAL's foundation course in Camberwell.
We had a project called "Cheap Date" - to break the ice and get us started drawing things.
There were 10 locations to visit and record in some way - only got to about 3!
En route, you purchase your "date" a £1.00 gift, which goes to form part of an installation back in college.
I was paired up to a guy who admitted stealing golf balls when he was six, then putting them back through guilt!
Here's a few shots of our Cheap Date installation - gifts were a honeydew melon, an Aladdin video and some caffeine pills (I haven't got any shots of the video case with the crushed caffeine on) - also sorry for the bad quality - these were all taken on my phone because I didn't take my camera (not a mistake I'm making again!) -
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I also took these photos once I got home with just the video tape that I'd cut into -
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Credit to Alex Wood for being my "date" and collaborator for this little project.
Let's see what tomorrow brings...
-sb

Personality

I was thinking about meeting all the new people in halls and at college tomorrow - what do I say? Is my name Susannah or Susie? Am I English from Scotland or Scottish with English parents or simply British? Which accent do I use?

How much do we make up or gloss over when we meet people? Are we true to our real selves or does that just come with time? 

I made this using the photo I handed in for my student ID and an old Moleskine notebook - 

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Each cutout shape is almost imperceptibly different from the previous - each day we know a person our knowledge of their identity changes as we learn about them or as they change as people. It often goes unnoticed until, upon reflection, we realise that the person we met isn't quite the person we know.
I then stuck all of the cutouts, including the original cutout from a photo booth photo onto my sketchbook for college tomorrow.
Seeing all of the cutouts together also highlights the progression of outline - 

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And the three spares on the inside cover -
Personality - the pattern of collective character, behavioral, temperamental, emotional, and mental traits of a person -

-sb 

Jerzy Goliszewski + Ofra Lapid

I first came across Jerzy Goliszewski on Society6 (his society is here and his blog is here).

Jerzy is a Polish artist, based in Warsaw, who focuses on site-specific projects - something I've always inexplicably admired - I find it brave somehow. Quoting from his website, Jerzy "is most interested in complicated and complex structures. He strives to use simple and natural materials."

The end results are poignantly mystifying.
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His blog showed me the beautiful work of Ofra Lapid who also has a blog, here.

Ofra builds models of these derelict buildings from photographs taken by an amateur photographer from North Dakota who obsessively documents the decaying process of these houses.

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So graceful yet melancholic.

-sb

Swing Lamp

Swing Lamp by BCXSY -
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"Never again feel alone in the dark! The Swing Lamp creates a comforting ambiance through lighting and movement."
Part of PLAY!, the first collection of designs by Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto, aka BCXSY.

Is this not just beautiful? I'd love to have my own swing - they're so soothing and meditative.

-sb - [via pipeline]

CHRIS

So, back to exhibitions. Next up - CHRIS, as seen in Le Moulin de Maintenay in northern France -

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These are both sides of the advert for Les Empreintes du Temps - this side is a photograph of one of his visually and also texturally stunning paintings.



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Photography was banned inside the exhibition, but I did manage to sneak one photo, above. The exhibition was mainly large (all between 600mm and 1500mm square, at a guess) paintings of walls and doors of traditionally built derelict houses from the region. They all use a particular kind of wattle and daub style technique to make their walls, with wooden beams inside. Nearly all of the paintings showed this in some way.

What was stunning about the paintings was the texture - each one had been built up before the paint was applied, but in a planned way. Where CHRIS was going to paint wood, he would make the texture underneath the thin layer of paint as wood. Where it was rough and matted, there would be rough and matted material applied and then painted over. I thought it was pretty unusal to build up texture in this way - using other material and one or two thinned layers of paint rather than huge thick clumps - as many other artists do.

Seeing as I couldn't take hundreds of photos of the exhibition, I took a few of the Moulin de Maintenay and the lush countryside setting -

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This and the previous photograph are of the building which housed CHRIS' exhibition.

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Artisanal Creperie just across the road ... mmmm!

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Eating crepes outside with a glass of cidre, absolute bliss!



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Especially with such a beautiful view...

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Or two!

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Everybody needs propping up in their old age!

-sb 

New Apron + Vanillekipferl

Finished off a neat little apron this morning - how twee am I?
To quote my father - "such domestication in one so young"

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What must you do with a new apron?

Test it of course!

Cue one batch of vanillekipferl - I'll include the recipe - they're just too yummy not to share -

(Adapted from a recipe by Rachel Allen)

1. Ingredients:

350g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

100g caster sugar

60g ground hazelnuts

Pinch of salt

250g softened butter

2.5 tsp vanilla extract

(make sure it's a good quality strong one)

1 egg, beaten

5-6 tablespoons icing sugar

2. Add all the dry ingredients, except the icing sugar,

together in a bowl and whisk them. Whisking helps

to keep everything nice and light without having to 

sift it all.  

3. Mix in the wet ingredients with a wooden spoon to

form a nice soft, slightly squidgy dough.

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4. Flatten it into a disk about 2cm thick, wrap in cling

film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

5. Preheat your oven to 180'C at this point.

Roll walnut-sized balls of dough and now you have

a decision - which shape? I chose heart shaped

this time, to match my apron. Traditionally, kipferl

are crescent shaped, from the word kipfel in

German. Shape your biscuits and lay them out on

a lined baking tray. They don't need much spacing

as they don't tend to spread too much.

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6. Bake your biscuits in the oven for about 10-15

minutes until pale golden. They'll also feel

pretty firm now. Allow to stand on a cooling

rack for a few minutes.

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 7. Whisk the icing sugar in a wide, shallow bowl.

Once the biscuits have almost cooled, but

not completely, toss them in the sugar to

coat completely in sweet, white powderiness.

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This recipe makes between 40 and 60 biscuits and they keep well for around 3 days. Keep the leftover icing sugar in the tin or bag with them and then shake before serving to keep them well coated.
Enjoy!
-sb