LEONOR FINI: Artist, Libertine, Provocateur

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Loved this . What a fabulous woman , great artist. Wish I could have lived in that world.

MaskedSphinx's avatarMasked Sphinx

Leonor Fini - cat

Portrait of Leonor Fini by André Ostier (1951)

“I am independent. I am free. I am not a surrealist and beyond classification.“

Leonor Fini (1982)

Unconventional, free-thinking and experimental, Leonor Fini was once the ‘it-girl’ of Paris and was one of the most photographed women in the art world. Known more perhaps for her flamboyant nature and penchant for dressing-up and cross-dressing rather than her painting, she had an illustrious career in theatre and set design, illustration, product design and film too. However, it is her status as a painter that needs to be examined; so we can appreciate her unique influence on 20th century art history.

finicostume

Fini in Corsica (1957)

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1907) to mixed Argentine, Spanish, Italian and Slavic blood, Fini fled with her mother at two years old to Trieste, Italy, to escape her father. There are stories of her father’s plots to kidnap her…

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Printing on maps.

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Printing on old maps was an idea formed in my mind a while ago. With the advent of mapping systems paper maps are less relevant in everyday life. I love maps , particularly when the pressure of navigating to a destination in a timely manner has been removed. The crackle of an ordnance survey map was the first sign, when I was a child, that a trip was being planned.

I love the physicality of them, the awkward folds, the musty smell , the promise of adventure. I could’nt bear to part with my fathers maps when he died and I hate to see them unloved at charity shops.

I came up with a plan to print on old ordnance survey maps. I’m at the very early stages of this   and have been buying old ordnance survey maps. Initially I’ve been printing, painting and stencilling but soon I want to start Letterpress printing on them.

As often happens in art , things don’t go quite to plan . Ordnance survey maps lead different lives from one another. Stored in different ways , treated, or not, with respect. Stored in smoky,damp,daylight,houses, sheds, rucksacks. Each has a different quality and it has become an adventure not dissimilar to working on hand-made paper.  I select a portion of map to print on and then gently steam iron the creases  out. Then I decide what to do with each one depending on its intrinsic colours and those that it’s gained along the way.

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Today I’ve managed to match the blue of the text on one printmap and the yellow of minor roads alongside mustard of the nicotine stains on another.

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The maps remember their folds , and many are stained along the creases . Some do not succumb easily to inks or paints and fall apart during the process .

I’ve been asked to do an In Memorium print on a friends grandfathers map. A good bit more practice before I do that I think .

Travelling with a Coffee Addict

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Coffee Hunters, Home TownsLeave a comment

For a variety of reasons we are doing a lot of travelling this year. Good coffee is the fuel that gets Hannah around the world. In an effort to make mornings more calm regardless of our location. I bought this little device from China

Smugly , I relaxed on our latest outing. Happy in the knowledge that a hand grinder was in the case. What I had not checked was that the beans were packed. Thank goodness that on this occasion we had only travelled to the depths of Crystal Palace. Once again the morning plans developed with a central coffee searching scenario.

IMG_0704Crystal Palace , thank goodness, is not a coffee shop free zone. Quite the reverse.

Dalhousie had recently followed theoldmortuary.design on Instagram so with an embarrassment of choice on the Triangle we hastened to them to “wake up and smell the coffee” and in fact buy the beans.

Dalhousie is super stylish , the coffee is great as are the cakes. Furry coffee hounds are also welcome.

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The Dog ( Crown and Greyhound)

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, Interior Design1 Comment

IMG_0459Ten years ago when we left Cornwall , Dulwich Village became our London home. Serendipity took us here and we have stayed within a couple of miles and have home and family here now. For the last couple of years the local pub has been closed for refurbishment and the addition of hotel rooms. The Crown and Greyhound is named after an amalgamation of two former Dulwich pubs and was built in 1900. Known locally as The Dog it has been greatly missed during its closure. Much has been written about the charm of London pubs, and as the grandchild of publicans I am particularly charmed. I have a love of pub aesthetics and the smell of them that I can’t really put into words. I’m all about the place rather than the drinking .

As an aside, in my mind, the bar mentioned in ‘Shape of You’ by Ed Sheeran is exactly the ‘shape’ of The Crown and Greyhound in Dulwich Village.

Trepidation was, I suppose, the feeling I felt on walking in to The Crown and Greyhound on my first visit in June as it re-opened.

The refurbishment of the Crown and Greyhound is a triumph. All my favourite corners and spaces seem unchanged and the parts that were formerly a little awkward have been reworked into great spaces that look every bit as genuine as the original. A new bar and bar-b-que area in the garden is a great addition

I didn’t stray into the hotel area on my first visit. We had lunch, the food was fabulous as it has always been. Despite being very busy it was served promptly by very attentive staff.

On a lovely Saturday lunchtime the pub was heaving with people having a great time.

In common with many pubs in this area the Crown and Greyhound suffers, a little, from irresponsible families imagining that the pub is an informal play school and buggy park with a bar. Just a few feral children can be a big pain in the arse , ruining everyone’s enjoyment . Especially the families who have busy happy children who are a pleasure to share the space with. I’m sure this is a tricksy problem to resolve.

http://www.thecrownandgreyhound.co.uk/

Congratulations to the team at the Crown and Greyhound for a job well done.

 

 

 

Real Interior Design

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Interior DesignLeave a comment

IMG_0696We devour Interior Design magazines and Pinterest is a regular time waster. How often do you see loo rolls featured? We’ve repurposed an old French hatstand, from TK Maxx to hold loo rolls and really without them in position it would still be an old hat stand. The Crystal Palace poster came from Brixton Village. Hand blown glass bottles from Kokkino Chorio, Crete and the Vanishing Cream from Shanghai.

Real Interior Design is about curating our possessions into colour themes and reusing things into contemporary life. We have far more use for loo rolls than hats!

 

Some days…

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Not so long ago my creative life was hiding behind a busier life. Until recently I worked in the Cath Lab of a busy London teaching hospital. At times it was 24 hours a day. The team I worked with saved lives, sometimes in controlled but dramatic and messy circumstances. Mostly we were successful , other times we weren’t. Art and creativity happened on my days off.  If I had a creative block there was always an entirely reasonable excuse given the pressures and hours of my day job.

Three months into my year of not doing the day job I’ve hit creative block without having a decent excuse.

So here are my not so decent excuses.

#1 The weather

#2 My iPhone camera is playing up

#3 The dogs are playing up

#4 Can’t really be arsed

Faced with zero creative energy I did what many creative people do, I tidied my studio. Surfed the net. Ate chocolate. Bought some new pens on-line.

The turning point came when my phone unfroze. I wrote an article that was overdue for a local magazine. When I looked for the photos I needed to send in with the article , I discovered my phone had taken a crazy abstract image when I had dropped it in the woodpile, which is why it froze. The only portion of this picture that I recognise is a portion of a decking offcut. Beyond that I’m mistified , but I love the image.

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After finding this I was inspired to get back to finish painting the picture that I had planned for the day. I had been printing in the studio so there was no alternative to painting outside in the rain. The painting only needed its top coat so I figured rain was just another fluid to add to the already eclectic mix of mixers . The painting is another one featuring litter and pollution in a harbour . The bright colours are created by the reflection of an amazingly clear blue sky in May.  I get the pollution effect by mixing paints and pigments with a variety of clear fluids so that they attract or repel each other. Today the clear fluids were the unavoidable rain, lube, saline, gin and acetone.

IMG_0454Now the studio is completely unusable. This will take days to dry and is in the centre of the now tidy floor.

Creatively damp from painting in the garden I took the grumpy dogs for a very wet walk, happy in the knowledge that even if I could be arsed tomorrow there is nowhere left to be creative . Who needs good excuses?

Another day, another print.

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IMG_0683Who knew that printing on old Ordnance Survey maps would prove to be such a compelling activity . This must be about number 6 and I feel like I am getting close to something I would be happy to sell. The journey! has been thwarted by the differing qualities of the paper the maps are made of. They also react to the weather and atmosphere as my studio is in the garden. I hadn’t realised the maps were quite so delicate and as mine are all recycled they have all had very different life experiences with their previous owners .This makes them unpredictable when taking up the print medium.IMG_0654Inspired by this chap and by an idea I had a week or so ago , I decided to print the VW’s in the colour palate of the original maps so the harmony of the complete image has the same quality as the original untouched maps.

in this print the VW Combi/Kombi is just north of Glastonbury heading to Worthy Farm.

A Planter, or not?

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Garden Design, LetterpressLeave a comment

IMG_0655.JPGOh dear, yesterday, we popped into Stax Reclamation to buy a door to turn into a garden table. Barely 5 seconds in, we were seduced by this old water tank with printing on the side. Only there for a few minutes we could have bought loads of things. I particularly liked the old dentist chair with clamps to hold the patients head still. We didn’t buy the door though, a fine excuse to browse again.

Naked Bunting

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, PhotographsLeave a comment

17 years ago I posed for Jo jo’s first book Plymouth Unveiled. In many ways it was a life changing experience. Body confidence is a funny old thing and it’s odd that a virtual stranger with a camera and a disarming manner gifted me mine.IMG_0629His new book, Naked Truth, was launched tonight. A cornucopia of real women, curves, crevasses, confidence and contradictions, it is simply brilliant.