Perseverance and disobedience
Hello hello. Here are some things.
A couple of unused pieces for a recent editorial illustration job. The process is somewhere between collage and digital painting; repurposing and remixing art, smashing and rubbing it together to create something new (using actual intelligence).
More new work on my website, which has been given a thorough spring-clean. Mostly book covers, but some other rectangles on there too. Plus the Meanwhile site has had a bit of a tweak. Hats off to Buttondown HQ for continually improving their offering, rather than pivot-creeping it into some other product altogether.
Criterion’s forthcoming The Complete Kubrick looks stunning … if a tad jesus how much?! Designed by Drusilla Adeline (aka Sister Hyde), with packaging inspired by the bespoke Ryder boxes Kubrick used to house his archive; as featured in Jon Ronson’s 2008 documentary Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes.
“The level of effort is so low that we consider it spam” – the Street Fighter subreddit has a much better, well-reasoned Ai policy than most universities or corporations.
Currently rewatching the excellent first season of For All Mankind alongside Star City. Can definitely recommend watching it this way; both shows are elevated and expanded, presenting overlapping events from different perspectives. Interesting parallels are drawn, contrasting the attitudes and cultures of East and West – for example, Star City has its own husband-wife Cosmonaut arc that runs parallel to the Gordo/Tracy one, with its own notes of tenderness and tragedy. And all of it is soooo much better than the most recent season of FAM, which replaced space exploration with people getting lost in corridors (but still worth watching if only for the hilariously frustrated Cinemile reviews).
Anish Kapoor gives Dale Berning Sawa a private view of his giant studio and talks censorship, controversy and why disobedience is central to making great art. Little bit excited for his new London show.
Some wonderful art-of books coming this year: The Art of Cartoon Saloon; The Art of Gravity Falls (aka Widow’s Bay 1.0); The Art of Andor.
Visited York’s newest bookshop, Toppings, and fell a little bit in love. High, labyrinthine shelves, lot’s of face-out books, late opening hours, ladders on casters. Opening week, it was rammed – I really hope that continues and it does well, as we need more independent bookshops like this, everywhere.
“Persevere, Shacky, persevere. Tomorrow is a school day, and all shall be saved” – Sir Ernest Shackleton’s journal entries from the week he spent home with his sick kids.
That is all.
