Self Portrait of the Day

Ooops, nearly forgot....

After that splenetic outpouring t'other day I quite forgot there's some other stuff caught my eye

Cultural items you say?

I mourn the passing of the great Maurice Sendak

I was privileged to run Blackwell's Children's Bookshop for a while and given a fantastic brief to go in and "appreciate the staff". All of whom were committed to children's literature and they introduced me to some new writers who I did not know. I knew and adored my A.A. Milne of course and my John Masefield, Roald Dahl and my Tolkien & Lewis obviously but thought my (superior?) knowledge of classics meant they were never to be matched but they introduced me to Susan Cooper who I came to adore and the work of Anne Fine, both of whom I think of as wonderments.

 I already knew my Maurice Sendak and bought my son 'Where the Wild Things Are' when he was of an age to look and read it for himself but the shop introduced me to his other illustrated works and I became smitten with his drawing style and his artistry so discovered 'Very Far Away' Higglety Pigglety Pop! and the rest of his oeuvre so that we stocked everything we could and had the loveliest stuff toys of the boy Max and his monsters all over the shop!

Great man gone!

Also I wanted to say something about the building of stuff for the Olympics this summer. Now I LIKE Anish Kapoor and we had an exhibition curated by the lovely and wonderful art historian Marco Livingstone and we got to meet Anish a fair bit but this latest 'piece' in the East end of London has left me speechless!

I have said elsewhere that architects are frustrated artist and shouldn't be allowed to vent and vaunt their hideous carbuncles on the humans beneath them from drawings on fag packets that have largely contributed nought to the 21st century but added to the stress and despair of the common man. They are largely soul destroying! But artists to have a responsibility to do better. And much much better than this monstrosity! It is literally a doodle brought to hideous life. Anish Kapoor specisalises in wondrous pieces consisting largely of organic forms covered in what appears to be beautiful primary coloured powder paint. I love them!

But this is way out of his depth turning to a material he clearly is ot comfortable with and will stand as a testimony to nought but more male posturing on the skylines of the country! (see Angel of The North) Notable here perhaps that women artists/sculptors don't so often thrust their ideas vertically into the sky like so much twisted crap!

Other than that I don't have any views on the matter.

Sorry Anish 3/10 Must Try Harder!
I for one would contribute more public money to have this doodle writ large cast into 'Orbit'