The book is her story, it’s hers and Robert Mapplethorpe’s story, and it could be the story of any struggling artist out there. You don’t have to be a fan of Smith to get something out of this.

It charts her struggles, not only to become an artist, but also to become herself. Her family background is traditional, but this does not stop the not yet twenty one year old Patti from landing in New York City without any friends or money, and starting out on what would be her meteoric rise to fame.

At first she dabbles with drawing and writing while working in a book shop in order to pay the rent on hers and Robert’s flat. Then as time goes on and the experiments continue, Patti finds more of what she does want to do and less of what she doesn’t, all with a backdrop of her affair with Robert until he realises that he is gay. Their affair ends, but their connection never did.

The language Smith uses is, as you might expect, poetic and lyrical and worth reading for in itself. The book is a must-read for any aspiring artist and for any fan of Smith, or even just for fans of something that is incredibly well written. It is as inspirational as it is open and honest.

Before I go I need a bit of advice, I have been asked to design a stand for a friend of mine at the marketing convention this wednesday. Any tips on where I can get some good pvc banners at short notice?

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There are many designing and website management tools available today and Dreamweaver is one of those. Dreamweaver not only lets you design your webpage but also track all the links and ensure that you are uploading your files to the correct location on the server. To help Dreamweaver to perform its job efficiently, you have to tell about each site and the location of the site on the server. With every web hosting you are provided cpanel to manage your site files on the server but when working in Dreamweaver, you can manage your sites from the Files panel group.

Every site is a collection of files on the server and you can manage these files by opening the dropdown menu and clicking the menu item “Edit Sites or Manage Sites”. Clicking this menu item will open the dialog box where you can select the site that you want to manage. If you are creating a new site then click on “New” and you will be presented the screen where you can create new files to place on your site. You should perform some tasks listed below to create new site or manage an existing site.

First of all confirm that you are in the basic tab or advanced tab and if you are in the basic tab then go to the advanced tab. A website requires a name so think a name for your website and create a folder with the same name. It would be better if the name of folder is same as the domain name that you registered with your web hosting site. This is to avoid any confusion when uploading your site to your server to be seen worldwide.

Now provide the information to Dreamweaver required to make connection to your server. This information includes the username and password to login to your server. If you can connect then start working on your site and if you can’t connect to your site then either you may need to login using a secured connection or some information is missing or incorrect. In such cases, you should call your webhost.

If you want to look at some more really great online art stuff, check out this enigin PLC design blog. It is written by one of the employees and is really insightful, well worth a look!

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Learning to paint using watercolours can be a frustrating thing which doesn’t seem to get any easier, no matter how hard you try; first you need the right brushes, then you can’t decide on what paint to buy, and everyone has a different opinion on the weight of paper you should use…

In reality it doesn’t need to be so hard; here are some pointers for the beginner looking to just start without having to do hours of research first.

1) Choose a rough paper to begin with: paper comes either ‘rough’ or ‘not’; rough is self explanatory, not means very smooth. While it may allow more detail, smooth paper also lets your paint run riot, turning your creation into a total mess with one wrong move. Choose the rough variety at a medium weight; the pits in the paper will keep the paint where you want it

2) Don’t paint on a flat table: the beauty of watercolour is that the paint can fall down the page, cascading and exploding into different colours. If you don’t own an easel then simply lean your board against a table, tilting it slightly.

3) Don’t go straight out and spend crazy money on posh brushes: to begin with, a beginner set really will do. They will last longer than you think, providing you take good care of them.

4) Same goes for paints: the temptation is to buy the best available, because these paints are more light-fast (the colour will remain vivid for a long time). In fact, there’s nothing wrong with the amateur paints. They are much cheaper and chances are you may not keep all of your first paintings anyway.

Before I go, I have a couple of friends who are looking for Art Jobs in secondary education. If anyone knows of any places that are hiring now, it would be really useful information to pass along.

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The auditorium is silent. Two men sit on a bench, spotlit and over the course of the next seventy minutes we are all subjected to a display of acrobatics that is in turns amusing, astounding, nerve-wracking, delightful and mind boggling. How does a body fly through the air like that, self-propelled? How did the two performers come up with this routine? What is going to happen next? These are just a few of the questions I found running through my mind as I watched the show.

Using nothing more than benches and ropes, their intelligence and humour, not to mention their unique skill at manipulating their dexterous bodies, this performance is seventy minutes of pure magic. The timing of the pair is all important and they pull this off unhesitatingly and unflinchingly, unlike those of us who are watching with baited breath. One wrong move or one nano-second out and they could end up seriously injured.

Of course, none of us are fooled by the “I’m a bit clumsy and not sure if I can do this,” fakery of Jonathan Guichard, one half of Compagnie Ieto, but his silent theatrics lends its charm to the show. He often reminded me of the stars of silent films with his exaggerated gestures and huge brown eyes that speak a million words without him uttering a single one. Fnico Feldmann on the other hand is the perfect companion, being solid and inscrutable and like all of the best double acts this one works perfectly.

Our audience gasps, laughs, holds its breath and views the action through screwed up eyes at times but Companie Ieto pulls out all of the stops and charms us, rightfully so, at the end of the performance, up and onto our feet.

I have thrilling news for you all, I was talking to my friend last week and he has just got a excellent new gig at an human resources software company. Well done Harry

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For a kick off, there’s Kapoor himself. Not particularly high profile in terms of an art world celebrity, so therefore he’s got me interested already. He’s not a part of the Britart brigade, although he is a Turner Prize winner. He says himself that he doesn’t really need to explain his work; he doesn’t have any great message to impart to anyone else. There is his artwork and there is you, the viewer. If he takes a risk with his sculptures and goes somewhere he’s not sure of, all he’s asking is that you join him on the journey.

And what a journey it is. I first became familiar with his work in 1998 when I went to the Hayward Gallery to see his exhibition there after a very enthusiastic flatmate returned home and insisted that I go because it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen and I don’t think I’ve ever been so blown away by an exhibition either prior to that, or since.

Certainly in terms of the audience I’d never witnessed anything like it. People were actually talking to each other, interacting with the work, trying not to touch it, but having a sneaky feel when the curator’s weren’t looking, so it all felt a bit naughty which was one of the characteristics that made it so attractive. People were playing and laughing and found themselves bemused and delighted with all that Kapoor had put on display for us.

There is something magical about the colours that Kapoor uses in his work. Yes, some pieces are made of steel and metals and are therefore reflective, but the ones that use pigment really do seem to have an emotional quality that is hard to define. How can I describe in words how the colours make me feel when the pigment goes beyond language? But it is not just about the pigment, it’s the combination of colour and the sheer saturation of it, combined with whatever Kapoor has applied it to, and for me it does work best on his larger-scale works. They become immense, colossal, overwhelming. Language escapes me in the moment when I’m standing in front of one of these pieces, I am rendered speechless, lost for words but it doesn’t matter, I don’t need words, I just need to stand there and feel whatever it is that I’m feeling and it goes way beyond the lexical, it might even be pre-verbal.

When I stood in front of Yellow at the Royal Academy I wanted to climb into it, the colour made me feel really happy, it’s such a sunny, citrusy, juicy colour that it was hard not to feel anything other than excitement at seeing it. Like a huge lemon ’inny’ navel the concave shape of it reeled me in, yet I also felt that the colour of it was somehow, strangely inside of me. If I believed in chakras I might believe that Kapoor’s Yellow had my yellow chakra spinning like a whirling dervish on a waltzer. That’s what happens in front of his work at times, you’re neither within nor without but instead you occupy some strange and unfamiliar area in between. You don’t see the colours or forms you feel them.

His work is baffling yet easily accessible, it feels meaningful but you’re not sure why, it’s emotive but again, you don’t know why, it’s sensual yet you’re not allowed to touch it – which throws up that dichotomy, should you take the risk and reach out, touch it and feel it beneath your skin or do you stay within the rules and keep your hands to yourself? You want to respect Kapoor’s wishes and not touch it, for fear of causing damage and yet…and yet…it’s just so hard to resist.

When I saw Marsyas at the Tate Modern in 2002, I was again impressed at what Kapoor had done. On one level I was now familiar with the shade of red so often favoured by Kapoor. What is this colour about? Is it the colour of blood and therefore life (and death)? Or is it suggestive of the earth, deep down, below our garden soil? It’s a wanton red, not scarlet, but it’s succulent and impure, there’s a lot more going on in this red than red alone. It’s blended and it’s impure. In some ways, it doesn’t matter what it reminds me of, it doesn’t matter what else it alludes to, it’s just there and it’s gorgeous. The most impressive thing about Marsyas was that you could never see it in its entirety. You entered the turbine hall and had to be careful not to be sucked into the sculpture itself. Wham! It hit you like a surprise punch in the face. As you wandered around the gallery you saw different parts of the sculpture and so vast was it in scale that you could never escape it, not that you would want to particularly, but as you moved around you pieced it together in your head and made the fragments whole. Again, Kapoor had managed to put craftsmanship, engineering, cleverness, intelligence and playfulness all together in one glorious, awe-inspiringly amazing piece of work.

The same colour was used in his last U.K. exhibition in both the huge block of wax that was moving through the gallery known as Svayambh (which reminded me in shape of a loaf of bread, maybe I was just hungry that day), and again the colour was present in the wax that is fired from a cannon, Shooting into a Corner until finally it appears in Slug on the lips of the piece. “Is this a bit rude?” asked my friend. “We’ve just been standing in a room, with the tension building and building until the cannon fires off a huge, loud ball of red wax which explodes and splatters on the wall and you ask me if this is rude?” I laughed in response. Yes, it could be interpreted as some great Freudian symbol, for sure. Or it could be appreciated on its own merits. It’s about what the viewer gains from standing in front of Kapoor’s work and I defy anyone to gain something from it.

One cautionary note however, we were in agreement that Greyman Cries, Shaman Dies, Billowing Smoke, Beauty Evoked was probably the least successful work of Kapoor’s that we’d ever seen. Here, colour was noticeably absent and to use a computer programme to build a piece of work left a real sense of disappointment. I think it just felt like there was no sense of Kapoor in the work or of ourselves. So, a cautionary note, if you’re thinking of doing this again Anish, don’t. I’m all for experiments, that’s how you find out what works and what doesn’t, and this one didn’t.

Overall though, being in front of a Kapoor work is always a rewarding experience.

Last thing before I go I have a little and rather odd favor to ask of you guys. A good friend of mine is doing a show in a theatre and needs a set of shutters for this play that is opening next month. If you know of anyone who has any for cheap please let me know.

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Take a walk in a field of digital flowers that light up as you move through them, interact with Thom Yorke on screen, create your own artwork triggered by sound and take five minutes to sit in front of a camera that will record your photo in a ghost like image before superimposing it with that of someone else. These are just some of the delights of “Decode” an exhibition of digital media currently being held at the Victoria and Albert museum in London.

Is this the future? Is painting now dead? Well, perhaps painting is not dead per se, but it could be resting for a while.

The work on display here ranges from the fun, the curious to the beautiful. The range of work is diverse and thought provoking with not a sliced up shark or an unmade bed in sight. Visitors do not have to scratch their heads and wonder what the point is, they can instead observe or join in or both. They can wonder and have fun; they can ask questions and have an experience.

The pieces of work in this exhibition change as you interact with them. Part of the enjoyment is also about watching how other people interact with some of the exhibits, and so in a way you get two exhibitions for the price of one; a sort of voyeuristic pleasure at the same time as the real exhibition.

There is a sense of wonder about these pieces were created in the first place but then questions are forgotten as you make a painting just by moving or you make the leaves on a virtual tree fall off just by walking up to it. You also end up having random conversations with strangers - a virtually unheard of phenomenon in any London gallery, which also adds to the sheer enjoyment of this show

A visit to “Decode” is thoroughly recommended, I defy anyone not to have a good time and to wonder at the marvels of modern technology.

Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road
London SW7 2RL
+44 (0)20 7942 2000

One final thing I have a cheeky and rather surprising favor to ask of you guys. A close friend of mine works at a theatre and needs a set of shutters for this play that is opening this spring. If any of you has any for cheap please shoot me an email.

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Vincent Van Gogh is perhaps the most famous, and certainly the most enigmatic, artist of the 19^th Century. A ground breaking exhibition now on at the Royal Academy of Arts reveals not just the magnificent paintings but the man himself.

As well as being a prolific artist Van Gogh was also a voracious letter writer and the Royal Academy exhibition, the first Van Gogh exhibition in London for forty years, showcases not only around one hundred of his drawings and paintings but also thirty five original hand-written letters.

It is these letters that give us a fascinating insight into the character of the great man himself. It is easy to think of Van Gogh as the stereotypical tortured artist, as a caricature with his famous red beard and a bandage where his ear used to be. The letters, however, reveal the hidden side of his character: a thoughtful, sensitive man, battling poverty, apathy and his inner demons.

The main recipients of his letters are his beloved brother Theo and his fellow artist Paul Gaugin, who famously lived with Van Gogh in The Yellow House in Arles, Southern France. The letters reveal the strength of their friendship and respect for each other until Van Gogh’s increasingly volatile behaviour, and the infamous slicing of his ear, caused Gaugin to flee.

The pictures themselves, consisting of oil paintings and watercolours as well as intricate pen and ink drawings, are as spectacular as you would expect and show the brilliance and luminosity that took impressionism to new levels. The letters too are often illustrated giving a glimpse into his mind at the time that the letters were written as well as showing initial sketches of some of his most famous paintings.

This spectacular and moving exhibition is a must-see for all lovers of Van Gogh in particular, and art in general, and gives a deeper insight into this flawed, complex genius.

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Please feel free to click on the contact me section of the website in order to give me a heads up on what you woudl like to learn about in the mean time.

Class dismissed.

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