PATTERNS (ARCHITECTURE)

Top: hexagons somewhere in Farringdon 

Bottom: rectangles on a building on Granary Street 

'I'M A UNION MAN NOW'

I work for the union 'cause she's so good to me;
And I'm bound to come out on top, that's where I should be.
I will hear ev'ry word the boss may say,
For he's the one who hands me down my pay.
Looks like this time I'm gonna get to stay,
I'm a union man, now, all the way.

'King Harvest Has Surely Come', © Robbie Robertson, 1969

As well as my college work on narrative, I'm working on -well, at least the ideas for- a zine about the history and contemporary relevance of trades unions in London. It's not really a subject I particularly have links to, besides living in an area where a couple of unions have headquarters, the main one being the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), housed in the appropriately named Unity House on Chalton Street. I hadn't given it much thought until seeing a flyer on a local barbershop window about the unions' presence in the area.

Figuring out the front page on Illustrator

In addition to my initial research in Bookmarks and Housmans and looking around at the various organisations, it was interesting to hear Owen Jones's opinions on the relevance and future of unions at today's Culture Now talk at the ICA. Again, it isn't a topic I'm too knowledgeable about but I agree with what he says about the unions being "all but airbrushed out of existence". After all, those of us who aren't trades union members only seem to hear about them when they're struggling against the powers that be for better pay and conditions for their members. Anyway, if I get away from the politics right now and return to my ideas for the zine, I'm thinking of working with black and white film (which I also something I plan on doing in my narrative project). Film photography isn't something I've worked with before but seeing Hisano Luttman's St Pancras Diary at the Hardy Tree gallery a while ago made me think about using this medium. Now all I need is a camera!

BRIAN GRIMWOOD

A week ago, I went to a panel at WORK Gallery on the subject of British illustration. I found that most of the audience and panel members (illustrators Brian Grimwood, Simon Spilsbury, Rose Blake and art director Richard Tennant) seemed to appreciate the resurgence of craft techniques in contemporary illustration -as a reaction against computer generated work. It was quite interesting point of view as I think that in comparison, young graphic designers are making so much computer generated work influenced by Internet art and Memphis (like my trendy squiggly icon!) to the point where even I'm a little tired of it. The other day I went back to WORK to have a proper look at Grimwood's retrospective:

The musical notation drawings (2008) were my favourite. Look at the character on the top right! I feel I should also note that the gallery lighting wasn't that terrible, it was just that my phone camera was on the outdoor setting.

THE ART OF PUNK

On Wednesday I went to the Art of Punk exhibition and panel discussion which neatly tied in with my research into the work of Linder Sterling. Since visiting Someday All the Adults Will Die last month I've been quite interested in the processes used as well as the punk aesthetic, so I've been using the library photocopiers a lot (and it doesn't hurt that a4 black and white copies are only 5p, either).