ESOPUS

Incredible magazine, massive variety of work from very different artists, designers and writers.

Yvonne Jacquette

Yvonne Jacquettes aerial view cityscapes are incredibly effective, the use of just black and white is very striking and very powerful but her technique of painting is beautifully subtle. 

Daily Reminders

For 15 years on every school day Robert Guest would wake up early to write a note for each of his two children. Daily Reminders, Letters by Robert Guest is a sampling of the thousands of notes his wife collected and saved from laundry piles and lunch boxes. The notes are incredibly moving. They are funny, smart, wise and very loving. The amazing collection was featured in Esopus magazine. The cover showed a huge pile of the notes neatly folded into small triangles, how he would give them to his children, and inside there are 19 to read.

Harewood House

I recently revisited Harewood House located just outside leeds. The national trust House was build for Edwin Lascelles in the 18th century. Each room is filled with beautiful furniture, paintings and china. The furniture is mostly designed by Thomas Chippendale as he lived in Otley.

It is a really amazing and historic house, as you wander through each room you learn more about the Lascelles family, who still live there today. I discovered how Edwin Lascelles earns his fortune that pays for Harewood House to be built. Each room also has such an impressive individuality the decoration varies greatly, each room incredibly impressive in a completely different way.

Tracy Emin

The ideas behind Ghada Amer's work remind me of those of Tracy Emin. Her "everyone i have ever slept with tent" has a similar concept behind it. By embroiding all the names on the tent she is showing that it is her body and she shouldn't be embarrassed by what she does with it.

Ghada Amer

Egyptian born american artist Ghada Amer's work depicts erotic images of women that you would not expect to be created by a women.

She creates feminist images that revolt against the masculin ideal of femini beauty, she is clever in that shows explicit sexual acts by using typical delicate feminin handycrafts such as embroidery. Her whole idea is that she wants the female body to be reclaimed from men by women.

"I believe that all women should like their bodies and use them as tools of seduction," Amer stated

And the Beast, 2004. Acrylic, embroidery, and gel medium on canvas

Snow White Without the Dwarves, 2008, Acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas

Living in a blue house

I read an interesting fact that blue houses are selling for more than any other coloured house. And that the average person living in a blue house is in a long term relationship and has two children and four close friends. This is very random but i thought it was of some interest. I couldn't think of any explanation for this, perhaps it is just coincidental.

V and A

This sculpture made of chairs by Martino Gamper is in the garden of the V and A museum. Inspiration could have come from the the chair arch created in 1877 for when Queen Victoria travelled through High Wycombe.

Drawing by Delta

American artist James Marshall (aka Dalek) and Amsterdam-based former graffiti maestro Boris Tellegen or Delta have this month come together in London for Dalek & Delta. Each artists work is interesting in its own right but the combination of the two, in my opinion, adds so much more to the exhibition. Although both artists create completely different pieces their work has some similarities. There is an architectural sturcture in both of the men's work.

By Dalek

Redwood Paper mould by Delta

"Come as you are"

Richard Burbridge new adverts - idea that McDonalds offers anyone and everyone through its doors.

A bathroom in Reykjavik

I saw this picture in The Times it went alongside an article on Iceland going bankrupt. This picture showing what Icelanders think of bankers in a bathroom in Reykjavik.

Korda

Chevolution is a new documentary/film that tells the story of most iconic and reproduced photos of Che Guevara by Alberto 'Korda' Diaz. The photo was not actually taken for the purpose of use on propanagnda or as the semi official portrait it later became. It was actually a snapshot that Korda took of Guevara at a memorial service in 1960. Nothing was thought of the image it was not even used in newspapers at the time. It was not until 1965 that the picture began to appear and subsequently took many different forms.

Broken Dolls Campaign

"You can lose more than your patience" is the message that photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten is trying to get across, by using such powerful images of porcelain children. She has created this campaign for polish charity Nobody's Children Foundation which provides assistance to abused children, their parents, and carers.

The White Tiger

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, winner of the man book prize. The novel is set in India, Balram, a chauffeur murders his employer justifying his crime as an act of a social entrepreneur. Balram then recounts his transformation from an honest hardworking boy growing up in rurl india where education and electricity are scarce to a determined killer.

It is the tale of one mans hellish experience in modern India.

Adiga's message in the book is very clear his obvious disagreements with social order in India and his observation that many are sacrificed to the whims of a few. These views are impressively depicted through the voice of his main character, Balram.

The Time Travelers Wife

The Time Travelers wife originally a book by Audrey Niffenegger was recently made into a film with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams directed by Robert Schwentke. The book is meant to be really amazing and brilliantly written. The film however was so confusing. In some cases this can be a positive and can keep the audience interested and waiting for an explanation. Though in Schwentke's film the explanation never really came and this i don't was a purposeful aim of the director.

Pop magazine this month has 13 year old Tavi Gevinson on the cover. Tavi writes a fashion blog that already has half a million hits a month and has been reported on by many leading magazines. She not only writes about fashion but also about the political situation in Darfur, for which she has designed a line of T-shirts where profits will go towards helping the cause. For a 13 year old she has made a amazing impression among those much older and at the top of their industries. Leading designers follow her blog and subsequently she was in the front row at many of the fashion week shows in New York.

Deep Cut

The play Deep Cut will be arriving at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in November. It is a verbatum piece, which means the text comes from primary sources, made up of testimonies from people experiences. The play details the events leading up to and following the deaths of four soldiers at the Deepcut barraks between 1995 and 2002.

Cheryl James, above, one of the four soldiers is very central to the play as her family instigate the investigation into the supposed 'suisides' of the four soldiers. your left at the end feeling a great injustice has been done as the evidence supporting the 'murders' has been twisted to favour the army.

(above) image from a scene of  the play