a love letter for you

i first came across stephen powers' philadelphia mural project, 'a love letter for you', about six months ago. i was waiting for the right moment to show it to someone, but there's no point waiting for the right moment (unless you're hatching an egg, maybe); there's only this moment.


so, here it is.




some are hip hop lyrics, some are sweet nothings; all of them are stunning.


cockle-warming...


go see.

louise bourgeois

rest in peace, louise bourgeois.


i'm not sure i could say that i liked your work, but for your clear-eyed vision, your forthright ideas, your boldness and your commitment to turning impulse into reality, i thank you.

dance dance dance

sun is shining, weather is sweet...

tug off your shoe prisons, peel off your sock sarcophagi, and get dancing. because i said so.

dancing through space

santiago calatrava's lithe, elegant buildings always look to me like solid forms paused mid-twirl, so the decision to commission him to create sets for the new york city ballet's new programme is inspired.




from the wall street journal:

'Mr. Calatrava, known for designing the sweeping, futuristic shapes of the Milwaukee Art Museum and the forthcoming PATH terminal in lower Manhattan, created artworks that will be onstage during five new ballets. The work includes sculptural forms, such as a series of gold discs floating above the stage, and sketches—to be used as backdrops—inspired by desert landscapes.

'For Mr. Calatrava, the connection between dance and architecture lies in the beauty of natural shapes. "I have a real devotion to the human body," he said in reference to his work. "The most pure expression of the body is given by dance."'

last year, i went to see sutra, where the shaolin monks leapt over, hid inside, and perched perilously atop antony gormley's simple architectural shapes, assembling, dismantling and reassembling fleeting buildings from the pieces. imagination meets imagination, and solidity meets motion: it's electricity.



one more reason to wish i was in new york...

mitjili napurrula

i'm currently having my mind blown by mitjili napurrula's work. a pintupi, from the northern territory, she apparently only started painting aged 48, but she's now shown in the NGV and the Australian National Gallery.


they're so expansive, full of mystery and story and red earth; and i love that she thinks of them as the product of her family: "My mother taught me my father's Tjukurrpa; that's what I'm painting on the canvas".


i can't stop looking at them.

and it's spring

yesterday, all the signs that i needed to believe were all there...

lunchtime squinting into the sunshine in regent's park:


the flowers were in full petal explosion:


the council workers were semi-naked:


...hallelujah.

is 5, Four, VII

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
-the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis

(ee cummings, of course.)