Illustration

The summer issue of Illustration is full of drama. It appears that the Pre-Raphaelite illustrator formerly known as Florence Harrison was not the true Florence Harrison at all, and that there were hidden depths to two of the earliest illustrators of Pickwick Papers, Robert Seymour and Robert William Buss. While Oliver Messel’s reputation rests primarily on stage design, his distinctive illustrative work is no less entertaining. There's also a reconsideration of the work of Thomas Bewick prompted by Nigel Tattersfield's monumental new study. At the contemporary end of the spectrum, look out for 'Letters from the Arctic', a feature on How to say 'I love you' in Greenlandic.

The magazine can be found at a number of venues including the British Library and Tate Britain bookshops; the feature on How to say 'I love you' in Greenlandic can also be accessed online, thanks to Cambridge University.

The Cemetery

'The Cemetery' - a pantoum from my Arctic series - has just been published in the online magazine Ink, Sweat and Tears.

News from New York

The Night Hunter

Roni Gross - a longtime friend and more recently collaborator - has put up some amazing images of recent work on her website. Here you can see a generous spread of the Zitouna offerings that Gross has printed biannually for Valentine's Day and Hallowe'en since 1989. To me, who only gets around to making a Christmas card every other year, this output seems phenomenal. Especially when the rest of Gross' work is taken into account. More of that here, too: a selection of poetry broadsides, and for those curious to see more images of The Night Hunter than have appeared on this blog to date, there's a slideshow of sorts, with the artist's commentary.

Tertulia: 14th July 2011

A Tertulia? The Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie, Luis Buñuel

‘Tertulia’ is a Spanish word ordinarily applied to social gatherings with literary, artistic or bohemian overtones. "One would speak of ‘going to a tertulia’ as in ‘going to a dinner’," explain Phil Owen and Megan Wakefield, founders of Bristol’s Tertulia - a salon for people working with or interested in language from a range of different disciplinary and methodological perspectives.

Tertulia is held in the Reading Room at the Arnolfini. The next salon falls on Bastille Day, 14th July, 7.30pm (free entry). Responding to a gauntlet thrown down in Cambridge last month, I’ll be presenting How to say ‘I love you’ in Greenlandic through performance rather than print, re-imagining it as a sound work that befits the oral culture it documents. I’m looking forward to seeing the other contributions, particularly Rachel Flynn’s analysis of Graham Sutherland’s writings on the landscapes of Wales and Mary Crowder’s subversion of medical texts. Not to mention the coda: ‘Sam Playford-Greenwell will attempt to balance a banana on his head.’

Andrew Lee's London

Andrew Lee explores the darker side of London signage. Regular readers will remember his work Gangland Caff, the menu board featuring some gruesome Cockney morsels. This macabre humour is also evident in Lee’s recent photographic work, including the topical NHS Cuts at the Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital (above).

Visit Lee's website for more photographs, as well as graphic work on urban life and urban nature - some favourite subjects being 'birds' nests, geezers, pears, and bull terriers.'

Canapes in Cambridge

Is there a collective noun for icebergs? I am casting around for one worthy of the silver platters of edible icebergs which appeared in Cambridge on Thursday evening. The canapes, made from frangipan - yellow raspberries - cucumber - white asparagus - shrimp - sea salt pearls - and what appeared to be nothing less than gold dust itself - were the inspired creation of Jaqi Clayton-Church of CuisineJacqueline. Many thanks to Jaqi, the World Oral Literature Project and all at The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities for making the preview of How to say 'I love you' in Greenlandic such a resounding success.

Doverodde Book Arts Festival 2011

Photograph: Ahlrich van Ohlen

At the beginning of June book artists from across Europe met on the Limfjord in Denmark for the annual Doverodde Book Arts Festival, where I launched How to say 'I love you' in Greenlandic.

The festival was accompanied by a juried exhibition '... in the air ...' held in the magnificent nineteenth-century Pakhuset. Anne Bossenbroek interpreted the theme to create Bruits - a unique Georges Perec doily of a book - that chronicles noises heard in the Netherlands. Alf Bjork exhibited a set of three bicycle tires, bursting from their boxes in various states of inflation. (I had the opportunity to discover more of Bjork's work when we took off for the North Jutland coast one evening with new friends Katriona and Eva. We were moved by Lamningar, Bjork's installation on the theme of ancestry.) Mette-Sofie Ambeck's installation They came, they flew (inspired by Hitchcock's film The Birds) occupied a building all of its own - a thirteen-story vertigo-inducing turret that looks out across the waters of the Limfjord. Ambeck is interviewed on the work and gives a tour of the exhibition here.

After Light (Nancy Campbell and Paula Naughton, 2009)

... in the air ...