Bag of bones.

^{The films of Pedro Almodovar are so bizarre that they have a way of dropping back into my mind at odd moments. Many of the films that I have seen are extraordinarily sympathetic to women,women who like me are insane, idiosyncratic and teetering precipitously on the edge!}

^{Recently I watched ' Flower of my secret' which, apart from being wonderfully funny and beautiful to watch recalled some rather interesting work by a Chinese artist,Lin Tianmiao in an exhibition at the Asia Society New York. The underlying tenet of her work seemed to be about restraint, about desire for freedom from the constraints and confines of expectation, about breaking free. In contrast to many of her earlier works which are in white the final work in the show was in glorious colour, a rainbow of silk threads wrapping a series of bones.}

^{Freedom at last but all that is left is a carcass...picked clean!}

^{http://asiasociety.org/new-york/exhibitions/bound-unbound-lin-tianmiao#exhibitionhighlights}

Out of Sorts!

^{I managed to pop in to see Judy Chicago's exhibition 'Deflowered' at Riflemaker, Beak street between the ridiculous demands of Christmas preparations. To be honest I was as much struck by the gallery as I was by Chicago's work. The building had originally been a brick kiln in the 17th Century. Now with its walls lined in wood and dark rickety stairs it felt like a cocoon, far from the bustle of Soho just outside. The exhibition is on three floors with the ground floor displaying Chicago's Corvair car bonnets in sprayed acrylic. Hard and shiny with their bright symbols of feminism; cats, butterfly wings,and female body parts these large works sat rather incongruously in the rough unpolished space . I rather like the way this juxtaposition sets off little trains of thought which go beyond the gallery and the work shown. It is this discordant twist that I continue to search for in my own work...that is when there is time to contemplate beneath and beyond the glittering Christmas cheer.}

 

 

Body pod. Constructed Drawing.

Stuffed!

^{Another delicious treat this week, a trip to Paris for the day! Fuelled with coffee and croissant my daughter and I wandered through the Marais to visit the Musee de la Poupee which was showing a special exhibition of ' Baby Boomer ' dolls. http://museedelapoupeeparis.com/?lang=fr}

^{I am not sure that our gales of delighted laughter were altogether appreciated by the young French girls on the front desk but we could not contain ourselves in front of some of the displays! Particularly surreal was the cabinet recreating a scene on the beach, over 50 baby dolls, swans, hanging rattles, oversized fish, sandcastles and shells caught in peculiar juxtaposition against the backdrop of a menacing sea!}

^{How wonderful then to wander from here to the magnificent Pompidou Centre where I came across Dorothea Tannings work from 1969 'de quel amour' ( by what love) http://www.dorotheatanning.org/life-and-work/view-work/work-119/ . Stuffed, slumped, sagging,drooping. And on the next floor a work by Barry Flanagan 'Casb 1 '67' a sewn sandbag, a cut off cone, another slump of weight about 4 foot high only just holding its form, sinking into the floor.}

^{There is definitely something that resonates with these stuffed, bursting 'bodies', something that makes me gasp and want to explore these ideas in my own work.}

^{Or maybe I have just remembered that I must get in that turkey stuffing in time to stuff the big bird!!}

Don't Give Up

Untitled Constructed Drawing

<sup>Fractured and disconnected thoughts have all collapsed in on me this week and given me no space to breathe. It has taken three weeks to finish a piece of work that could have taken a day.

It was this sense of fragmentation and the threatening disintegration of the body that so touched me in the work of Alina Szapocznikow. A exhibition of her work, 'Sculpture Undone 1955-1972' is on at MOMA New York until the end of January.

Yet it is artists like her that inspire in me the determination not to give up. After all these little scraps and scrapings, bits and pieces may one day make up a whole...or do I mean hole!

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1241</sup>

Judy Chicago comes to London!

Untitled Constructed Drawing Detail
Photo Robert Taylor

^{In the dimly lit recesses of my mind, whilst deciding on my itinerary for my second day in New York, I recalled that some of Judy Chicago's work was to be exhibited in London over the winter. Chicago, one of the leading feminist artists of the 1970's has not had her work shown here since 1985. I also recalled that her seminal work 'The Dinner Party' was permanently housed in The Brooklyn Museum, how could I resist the temptation to fit this in to my day even though it meant braving the New York subway. Sitting rather nervously on the edge of my seat I followed the stops on the yellow 'N' line on the MTA subway map from Times Square to Eastern Parkway. And oh I was not disappointed! The Dinner Party is beguilingly dated now in the 21st century but is nevertheless an extraordinary piece of work. Skilful, thought provoking and celebratory it is a paean to women from pre historic times to the 20th century both mythical and actual.}

^{http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/dinner_party/}

^{With two new exhibitions just open in London Chicago continues to be a women to admire. Experimental and productive over four decades I for one am keen to see both these shows and learn from her determination and industry.}

^{http://www.riflemaker.org/s-next-exhibition}

^{http://www.benuri.org.uk/public/?event-details=29}