London in black and white

February 3rd, 2006

The south side of St. Paul’s is being repaired, so they’ve got this massive tarp up that’s printed with an antique drawing or etching of the building, for a sort of trompe l’oeil effect. It’s weirdly cartoony.

Here’s a self-portrait I took of me looking at a Franz Kline painting in the Tate Modern, before I was accosted by a guard and told to stop taking photographs. I’ve never been big on painting, but I love Franz Kline’s black-on-white stuff because it looks like ink on paper.

There’s an installation up in the Tate Modern’s vast turbine hall called “Embankment.” It’s stacks and stacks of these translucent plastic boxes. That’s me on the left looking up at the biggest pile.

My Morning at the BBC

February 1st, 2006

I’ve had quite a busy day in Londontown. It began with an interview on the Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4. I didn’t know what a fancy important show this was until after it was over. I was on for about five minutes, between the director of that film about the women iron range workers, North Country, and a lovely woman who’d just written a novel about chronic fatigue syndrome. They made me draw a cartoon about my BBC experience for their website (click ‘photo gallery’). You can also listen to the very brief interview there.

I did a lot of other exciting, blogworthy things today but I’m too tired to write about them now. It’s time for bed.