Beautiful Losers

I recently watched the wonderful documentary 'Beautiful Losers' and was enthralled by listening to the late Margaret Kilgallen speak. Her work is absolutely stunning. I have often said that beauty is found in things that are off, or 'wonky', and that this imperfection is beautiful. She expressed that thought so much better than I could:

'I like things that are handmade and I like to see people's hand in the world, anywhere in the world; it doesn't matter to me where it is. And in my own work, I do everything by hand. I don't project or use anything mechanical, because even though I do spend a lot of time trying to perfect my line work and my hand, my hand will always be imperfect because it's human. And I think it's the part that's off that's interesting, that even if I'm doing really big letters and I spend a lot of time going over the line and over the line and trying to make it straight, I'll never be able to make it straight. From a distance it might look straight, but when you get close up, you can always see the line waver. And I think that's where the beauty is'

"Margaret Kilgallen" on Art:21, PBS.com, 2005 (via Wikipedia)

(Images via The Initiatives and Visualingual)

Women reading

I came across this photo by Tom Hunter called 'Woman Reading a Possession Order' from 1998, which I hadn't seen in some time. It's based on Vermeer's 'A Girl Reading at and Open Window' and is a beautiful contemporary take on the old Master. Language is power...

(Photo by Tom Hunter)

Rockin' out

In my very serious quest for more fun in my life, I've been rockin' out and doing some serious air guitaring to baby darling doll face honey by Band of Skulls. I am LOVING this album so much! I'd heard their stuff on the radio and ordered the CD online, but I didn't know anything about them. So pleased to find out that the bassist is a woman - Emma Richardson - and that she painted the amazing album artwork. Go the girl bassists!! Makes me want to swap my double bass for an electric one, that's for sure.

Every woman needs a place to think

So I was walking down the South Bank on a rare trip to London, and I came across this bench. It reminded me of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own which had such an impact on me when I was 18 and at Uni the first time round (can't believe that's 16 years ago now - wow!). It's funny that now, as a 34 year old woman, I still feel the need for a space of my own and somewhere to think. It seems that as women we don't always get space, and perhaps even more importantly time. With the expectation on us that we will look beautiful, we spend - to differing degrees - time on our clothes, our hair, our appearance. We are told our houses should be beautiful too, and in our domestic arrangements women often shoulder the greater cleaning/tidying duties, in unbalanced relationships. We are told that in this allegedly post-feminist day (don't get me started on postfeminism, dear reader!) that we have have our cake and eat it, but in amongst doing the childcare, cleaning the house, going out and having our careers and looking as fierce as we possibly can, we lose our most precious asset - time.

Since E was born, nearly 17 months ago, I've been struggling for balance in my life. I'm trying really hard to find something that works for us as a family, but that allows me to retain some sense of who I am. This blog is one part of this search. I feel that I need to cultivate space and time in my life. And in that space, I need to find the creative part of me again. Music, design, art, culture. In short, a life that cultivates beauty. Writers like Virginia Woolf and Helene Cixous talk about women finding their creative selves; actively seeking time and space to do so. And this might all start from finding yourself a place to sit, a place to think.

Photo via ruburton on Flickr