Jig-Saw

Having found myself between contracts, my attention has been diverted by jig-saw puzzles. I have always loved the extraordinarily kitsch imagery of jig-saws, especially those found in charity shops. They are reminiscent of needle point and other domestic crafts: soft focus animals, cutesie toys, warming and economics free rural scenes, busy peasants, the odd iconic landscape.

I really do love this imagery. What has been amazing since becoming involved with jig-saws is seeing the same puzzle repackaged. Isn't there enough crappy cheesy imagery that we can't have 100% new designs every time? Why did I vote in the first place?

This isn't The Monocle so I will park that debate right there.

Nowadays, anyone can get a photo of grandma made into a puzzle. Technology is a wonder.

But in fact the history of the puzzle is quite interesting. They started as a late 18^th century marketing tool, then went onto become a toy to teach children about geography. I see in the history of things and objects a move from bespoke artisan excellence to small scale industry, then to mass explosion, until the thing becomes so ubiquitous they are no longer relevant. Which is when post modern culture steps in and revives at will, endlessly tweaking whether its kitsch/homely/ironic/comforting qualities.

I am sure to return to this process at some point so lets just let it sit there for now.

Anyway, as in life, the puzzle offers a variety of methods for completion. I have found I am very task specific in my response, in that I will search for specific shapes or colours in order to compile a section at a time. I am also totally fine with sharing the puzzle with others. So I guess the jigsaw puzzle paradigm for me is group focussed, task specific. It also allows a time of pictorial intimacy that I don't think I would even spend on my favourite painting/album cover

I also like the classic jigsaw puzzle piece shape: the prefect roundness of the interlocking design. And so satisfying clicking it into place.

Gombrich eat your heart out!

FURTHER READING:

Puzzle Equipment:

http://www.jigsaw-puzzle-equipment.com/

History of:

http://www.woodentoys-uk.co.uk/jigsaw-history.html

Looking Up

I love cities. They afford a lifestyle that no amount of stunning sunsets and milking cows can replace. Although I do feel that the people who live in the city are yearning for the wide open spaces and country folk want to shop at Burberry.

I digress.

Years ago studying art history, our teacher exhorted us to look up: to always look UP. The only people who look up are twitchers and air traffic controllers, and it is amazing what you can see and absorb through looking up. Clouds, building details, hidden windows, a tree branch growing towards the artificial streetlights, reflections of landscape framed and delineated through the edges of concrete, glass and brick.

I grew up in an extremely flat city. After being given this advice, my understanding of the civic growth and development of the city expanded incrementally, simply by looking above my head. I saw old advertisements and webs of wires, pot-plants on ledges and a life above eye level

When I say look up, I don't just mean to the top floor, I also mean above the doorway or simply the ceiling above your head. This came clearest into focus when studying a leadlight frame for a jewellery shop in the town I grew up in. Above the front door, behind the entrance sign, was the most amazing leadlight that told the story of the settlers in the city. I had never seen it before. It was a joy and was celebration of the lead-lighters craft.

I know that when are somewhere new or in the countryside, we are in a constant state of looking up-ness; but its the streets that are the back of your hand, the park at the end of your street, the high street you know so well because you shop there every day, that shows us the quietest pleasures of looking up.

FURTHER READING:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/look+up+to

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Looking-Sideways-Alan-Fletcher/dp/0714834491

Chewing Gum

You know, I love my neighbourhood. We have only lived here for a year and it already has most of everything we want: a beautiful park, a corner shop where the owner smiles when you walk in, its on a hill so you get some perspective, lots of families and life on the street, a sense of community, a local hall for yoga, a pub with real ale and wheat beer on tap. Heck, the aspirational middle classes have to live somewhere.

Something I love to do is notice what goes on under your feet or over your head. The wood for the trees. And something I have been noticing is chewing gum: this stuff is everywhere. And its really hard to get off. I remember as a kid stories of my older sister peeling it off the footpath and recycling it. At that time, this struck me as genius as it broke the capitalist circuit route, plus she was helping the environment, and also probably boosting her immune system to boot.

Chewing Gum is EVERYWHERE. I cannot pretend that I know the history of the stuff, although I am sure its fascinating. Its not food, but you chew it like tobacco, and you should definitely NOT swallow it because it has been scientifically PROVEN to exist in your intestine for 50 years.

My affair with gum stopped mostly after all the phenylalanine got involved in the recipe and was told it gave you cancer. I have a distinction between 'chewing' and 'bubble', as distinct genres of chewable mouth sweet.

Take a look the next time you are in a built up area or even if not, the smooth palette of the concrete or paving will inevitably be broken up, pointillist style, by randomly spaced varying shades of grey though to beige, irregular circles that dot the landscape like way-markers across 2 dimensions.

FURTHER READING:

Madrid Council tackles the stickiness of gum:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/chewing-gum-spanish-government

History of Chewing Gum:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bladams.htm