Well I'm back. Its been a long time since I've written again. This definately reflects how I'm feeling at the moment, I'm in full on procrastination mode! If only there were a job that required this particular skill as I am very good at it. Since being back from Greece I have managed to busy myself with pretty much everything, except the things I know I should be doing.

Before I move on from Greece all together I wanted to share a couple of things from my trip. The first are the posters for the Athens and Epidaurus festival 2011 which I saw on the metro.

         

I love these! Wish I had been in Greece for the festivals which sound brilliant. They are a mixture of music and theatre and take place in two of the most beautiful outdoor theatres in Greece.

I also wanted to post some photo's  I took while I was in Greece.

 This is the view from our apratment in Athens - you can see the Acropolis in the background.

 This is a view of the port on the Island of Serifos.

 Dramatic rock formation on the beach at Agios Sostis, Serifos.

 Agios Sostis, Serifos

 The little graden of the Island house. I love it out there. You can see the bits of drift wood that I picked up at the beach. I love the retro furniture! The house is full of it.

These next photo's were taken in an apartment back in Athens.

Hope you like these. I'll post soon - er, promise!

Yasu from Athens!

I'm somewhere in that sprawl to the left

Hello again! its been too long hasn't it? I hope that all is good with you - person who might read this. Now, the picture may have been a bit of a give away, but for anyone not completely awake yet - I'm in Athens!

Yes, I'm currently in an apartment in Athens listening to the John Lennon anthology and typing away to you. As nice as this scenario is, I didn't fly here to listen to the music of John or to write this blog from a new exciting location -  I came to work.

Being half Greek, I have been to Athens many times. It is a city changing very quickly and not always for the best. The birth place of Democracy has become the birth place of Greek discontent and unemployment. This is not a blog about social or political opinion so I will say no more on this. I just wish to give some idea of the situation here as I think its an important backdrop for the project that I am currently here to see.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre is an amazing development that will truly enhance the face and future of 21st Century Athens.

Development sketch of the site from from Renzo Piano Building workshop

The development was born from the desire to give Athens a state of the art Cultural destination. The Centre will encompass a new National library, an Opera house and a much needed area of outside space in this very much urbanised City. The development is being built on a prime site on the sea front that has been unused since it served as a huge car park during the 2004 Olympic Games.

Plan of the site, showing the large areas of green space. The prinicple buildings are underneath this 'green roof'.

This section of the site shows the arrangement of the two main buildings, side by side. It also shows the sloping angle of the whole site.

The project is on a truly huge scale. It is being led by The Renzo Piano building workshop who are responsible for the co- design of the Pompidou Centre in Paris and The Shard currently under construction in London.

I really can't wait to see this project when it is finished. It really will be a truly fascinating structure and the park will be a wonderful place to spend time near the sea in Athens. The buildings are underneath a huge man made hill the rises to the shear 'cliff' edge by the sea. The roof of this hill will be green space accessible to all.

This image shows the huge 'sail' over the top of the building which houses thousands of photovoltaic panels to create power for the buildings.

A view up the man made hill from the new green space. At the top will be fantastic views out to the sea.

The building has been so beautifully designed and thought out. Every detail has been looked at to create an inviting, inspiring and ultimately functional space. Seeing a project like this in action is a true priveledge and you can really see why the Renzo Piano team is held in such high esteem. Their dedication and proffesionalism is something that has truly inspired me.

All images from Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

Phew! writing that has taken much longer than I thought so I'm going to leave it there today. I also wanted to say hello to my new 'follower', I won't name and shame, but you know who you are because you are the only one I didn't make follow me ; ) It really made my day to see someone had read this so many thanks and Welcome!

Birds of a feather

I have just seen these most incredible wall coverings from Schumacher and wanted to share them. I think they are just so beautiful.

          
          
        

I had thought that these were printed wallpapers, which would be fab. But it turns out that they are actually hand made from real feathers! I'm not sure how I feel about this -There is not denying that they must be breathtaking, but thats a lot of feathers to get from somewhere.

I'm not sure if the mental image all those naked birds whould ever allow me to use this paper!

                                                 
I think not, but if you don't mind you can see the whole Nest range at http://www.fschumacher.com/

The Museum of Me - about bloody time!

Good morning! Today I would like to share this very exciting invitation to the grand opening of my very first exhibition. Well, not quite - but maybe one day!

Until then everybody can get their very own exhibit at the Museum Of Me courtesy of Intel. Go to museumofme.intel.com and see how great your life can look with the proper curation!



I love how refined this makes all my photos of nights out look!



I think this is my favourite.



So I guess that is my life in a nutshell! Now that part of my life has been properly documented and seen by the masses its time to get started on work for my next life exhibition.

On that note, I know there hasn't been much about my 'journey' on here, but rest assured I am busy, busy working on ideas. I really can't wait to share these, so watch this space. This is why the posts have been a little thin on the ground - sorry!

Things I like today

I have been fortunate enought to spend most of the day swinging in our newly erected hammock. It really is in a very nice spot, with lots of sun and little spots of light from the mirror ball (yes mirror ball, don't you have one in your garden?!) playing over the plants. This has made me very happy, as the small things in life often do and so I am including a few more little things that have made my day.

1. Fishy paintings


 I'm loving these super colourful and summery paintings by Patrick Chevailler. Patrick is an artist living and working in ST Vincent and the Grenadine islands - nice life! I've always had a bit of a thing for fish, in fact anything water related and when I was younger this manifested itself as a mini version of the London aquarium in my bedroom. I now have three rather more modest goldfish!

Its not very often that you see fish as subject in paintings, but Patrick has clearly been influenced by his beautiful surroundings and all his paintings are of fish. I love his quirky compositions and his attention to detail. They may not be quite right for my home in London, but I'm sure that if I had a little place in the Grenadines there would be a few of these adorning the walls!

See more at http://www.patrickchevailler.com/

2. Home fit for a screen legend



Today I saw that Elizabeth Taylor's house in Bel Air has gone on sale. Im a big fan of Miss Taylor - her work and her life and I'm sure she will crop up on the blog again in some crazy full blown homage.

Anyway, I'd always wondered what her house might have been like and to be honest I'm surprised - nice surprised.

The house its much less grand than I had imagined and the garden is truly beautiful. It really looks like a  traditional English country garden. I'm sure that to achieve this is no mean feat in the Los Angeles climate. I am under no illusion that Dame Liz kept the garden herself, I can't quite see her scrabbling around with a pair of seceteurs grasped in a hand so bejewelled with bling that she can barely lift it, but who knows!



Its really refreshing to see a celebrity home that isn't completely screaming for attention and trying desperately to be chic and expensive, and usually failing miserably at the first. Who knows what the interior is like - I'm seeing pink!



The property is on for $8.6 million dollars if anyone is looking. The house has over an acre of land and the home its self is 7000sq ft, which for a women reportedly worth near to a billion dollars seems pretty modest. Wonder who'll buy it?

3. IL Pelicano



My third thing is the Il Pelicano hotel in Italy. Actaully its not the hotel I'm interested in - not to say that I would mind staying there, but I'm looking at this from a purely artistic perspective of course. So its the photo itself of the hotels famous clifftop pool that I like.

I saw this in Paris Vogue and it was very very small but, it still caught my eye. I think the composition is fantastic, there is a real sense of anticipatipation as if you are walking between the shady pines, just about to step out into the white sunshine and the sounds of the splashing pool water.

I liked the photgraph so much that I am currently painting my own take on the scene, which I have begun in oils but will be finishing in mixed media. I will put it up here when its done and then the world can cast judgement - or the two people treading this, same thing!

Well I was going to make this five of my favourite things today, but actually I'm going to spread out the goodies over a few days. This is surely only sensible as who knows tomorrow I may see nothing of interest - highly unlikely thought!

Ciao

Coincidence?

Yesterday I popped into the Grapefruit gallery on the Fulham Rd. It is definately worth a visit if you like modern prints. They have a particularly impressive collection of vintage Olympic posters which are truly fantastic.

Well I walked in and the very first thing I saw was this original TWA poster for Spain! I couldn't believe it. I've never seen a real one anywhere, then the very day after I wrote about them here, I walk into a gallery I've never been in before and there it is!

I love it when things like that happen! I would have loved to have bought it but I fear the price tag is slightly prohibitive - maybe one day.

Well, I feel like I'm slowly getting into the swing of putting things down in this blog. It certainly doesn't come naturally to a person who prefers to rip things from magazines and paste them into  a rather messy scrap book. I keep thinking of things that I want to share here - and there is a lot, but I have to start somewhere and so I am going to begin by introducing a good friend ...

Her name is Lisa Jarmeus and she is a really fantastic photographer. You can find some of her work and more information at lisajarmeus.com. I love photography and will put some of mine on her at some point. Lisa's photo's have real atmosphere. She takes great shots of simple scenes and has a way of making the mundane and dare I say it unattractive interesting and evocative.


Flatsharing (2007)

Lisa did a fantastic series of photgraphs called In Retrospect of council estates in London. I have slightly mixed feelings about the subject of In Retrospect, not being a huge fan of the architecture. Depsite this I find the work genuinely interesting and almost beautiful.

 Many of these structures are now listed, which is something that shocked me when I first heard, feeling that they were truly ugly. However I can now see that listing isn't just about preserving beautiful buildings, its about preserving design history.

These buildings represent an attitude to housing and building that was truly new and desireable in the 1950's. Time may have shown that we prefer not to all live in these types of sprawling hives of humanity, but it is important to remember them as part of our Country's design heritage.

You may even have seen one of these shots on the London Underground as part of their art below season!

Come Fly with me ...

Today I am well and truly at home but the thought of travel is never far from my mind. I found a copy of one of these fabulous posters in a draw today and thought I would share them with you. They really are the perfect combination of two of my passions - art and travel. I know we have all heard, ad nauseum that air travel isn't what it was in the glory days but these posters really illustrate that.

The posters were made by David Klein for TWA - an airline that no longer exists. They were originally commisioned in the 1950's and perfectly capture the sense of optimism and excitement that surrounded air travel at this time.

I love their retro feel which reminds me of the jetsons in its almost space age imagery. Who wouldn't be tempted to book a ticket to a far away place after seeing these?


Well the posters are one thing but once on board the retro fun didn't end there as this amazing photo shows ...



Actually this 'Tiger lounge' which was developed for the new Boeing 747's was never put into production but it certainly highlights the different approach taken to air travel at the time.

Next time you're on a plane in your small seat watching a Jennifer Aniston movie on your ipod sized in seat screen, cast your mind back to the tiger lounge and imagine the fun that you could be having instead! Maybe its time to bring back at bit of retro design spirit to the airline industry!