A personal blog of ideas, discoveries and perspectives.
Books and Words, Design, Performing Arts, Visual Arts
Today marks the 100th birthday of the Irish artist Patrick Scott. Patrick Scott, who would have been 100 years old on 24 January 2021, pictured in front of his iconic artwork. Pat Scott was a shy and quiet man who expressed proudly and passionately in his art. I first met him when he was already …
In these strange times, it's hard to feel motivated. Plans get scuppered, so we can be forgiven for thinking that there's no point in trying. I have battled that demon most days over the past months and, when I woke today wanting to do something creative, I wondered if I could defeat it. How will …
In her essay I Can’t Get That Monster Out Of My Mind (included in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 1968), Joan Didion diagnoses a sickly 1960s Hollywood system that had “a few interesting minds at work; and a great many less interesting ones” and was producing “fewer pictures but not necessarily better pictures”. Despite Hollywood’s self-image as …
The wealthy and the privileged obsess on their legacy. Not content with winning the lottery of life, they want to win against history; a history that conspires with death, that ‘great leveller’, to render everyone equally forgotten. They do great deeds of charity and philanthropy that somehow always require acknowledgment by award, statue or a …
When I was a kid, one of my favourite school lessons was learning the nouns for various occupations. Sometimes the word was obvious: a person who works in a bank is called a banker. Sometimes the word made less sense to my 8-year old mind and my failure to memorise it would earn me a …
My Side of the Matter 