Hi Dad!

In case anyone has been wondering, I have not disappeared into a black hole. I've had one of those periods, which may be familiar to other artists who work in relative isolation, in which I managed to get stuck in my studio and in my own head like a snail in a shell. However, I spoke to my dad on the phone today and he told me he missed reading what I write here so I thought I should pull my socks up and stick my head out again.

I've been away this week seeing friends and meeting the rest of the Toast in the Machine participants. I have also (finally...thanks Max!) procured the perfect leather to finish up one of the sculptures I'm working on. There's been some news in my family as well... some very bad (but it's okay, because the robots are going to sort it out), and some fantastic. On the fantastic front, this man will soon be joining our family:


Doesn't he look nice?

the end of the world as we know it

Big Bang Day has arrived. Today is the day scientists finally switched on the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. The Large Hadron Collider is not just the largest particle accelerator ever made, but its running constitutes the largest scientific experiment ever conducted. Some members of the scientific community believed that switching on the particle accelerator this morning would create mini black holes which could swell and devour the earth. As I am still sitting here typing and drinking my coffee I think we're in the clear. What may be world-changing about this experiment are the questions it could answer. Cern scientists hope to create a mini big bang and examine the resulting particles, possibly including the hypothetical Higgs boson or "God particle," which could help explain why objects acquire mass and help fill in the blanks in the Standard Model of particle physics. The scientists at Cern could get to see first-hand what happened during the creation of the universe and gain a greater understanding of how the universe works, which is tremendously exciting.


black hole!

In the very slim chance the worst does happen, here's some music for the end of the world.

strange creatures

With the combination of one of my housemates arriving home late and noisy every night this week and the workmen across the street starting too early, I've not been sleeping well. Last night I had a very disturbing dream about a group of cat-sized rodents nesting in my bedroom. They had humps like camels, tails like water rats and clawed, webbed feet. I wonder what the humps were for?


(image - Matthew Robins)

Tonight I'm going to watch Matthew Robins perform his "science fiction opera" The Death of Flyboy at the National Theatre, with shadow puppets projected on the fly-tower and live musical accompaniment. Listen to some of Matthew's music here. If you're in London you should come along.

red letter days

For the past two weeks or so I've been reworking my portfolio, traveling, stressing out and interviewing (as well as getting to see friends I don't see often). The result is that I found out on Tuesday I've been awarded a place on a professional development program for puppetry and puppetry-related disciplines. It's being run by the fantastic Green Ginger company in collaboration with the Puppet Centre Trust and several other theatre companies and arts groups. Funding was provided by the Leverhulme Trust, which is funded, among other things, by sales of Marmite.



mmmm..Marmite. Tasty and good for puppetry!

On the very same day my best friend found out he has been given an allotment. This may not seem like a big deal to those of you not living in London, but in the city waiting lists for allotments can be up to five years long, and he got his in less than five days. He is now the proud tender of a plot of land the size of a tennis court. I'm happy because it's near some wild blackberry bushes, and Ben makes fantastic jam. I've almost eaten the last batch he made me and I've had the jar less than a week. Yummy!

Votes for Women!

Today is the 88th anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women in the United States the Constitutional right to vote. British women had to wait another eight years, until 1928, to gain the same rights.



Women have been enfranchised for less than 100 years, and there is still great need for social change. It is extremely important for everyone to exercise their right to vote. I am lucky to be able to vote in two countries, but voting in US elections from outside the US can be tricky. Helpfully, the Federal Voting Assistance Program website allows you to register to vote, print absentee ballots, and find out how and where to return them. I'm doing it early this year to avoid a repeat of a certain panicky evening four years ago in a central London FedEx office, posting my ballot along with several other anxious expat Americans.



There is no excuse for not voting, especially in an election as important as the upcoming one. Hurrah for suffragettes! We owe it to them to make our voices heard.

busy as a..

This bumblebee paid a visit to my studio today. It's the largest bee I've ever seen; larger than some hummingbirds and fatter than my thumb! I looked it up in one of my books and learned that "dumbledore" or "dumbledory" was an Old English term for bumblebee, along with drummel, hummel or humble bee. Tolkien uses the word in his poem "Errantry," which contains many other lovely words as well.

"He battled with the Dumbledores,
the Hummerhorns, and Honeybees,
and won the Golden Honeycomb;
and running home on sunny seas
in ship of leaves and gossamer
with blossom for a canopy,
he sat and sang, and furbished up
and burnished up his panoply."

The ladybugs are still visiting at night, along with some other little beetles that look like stained glass when the light shines through them.

dancing pigs in charity shops

A few days ago I found the most wonderful book in my local Oxfam about the 1971 ballet film Tales of Beatrix Potter. It contains a script for the film as well as background on the development of the production. My favorite part details the creation of the costumes, which were co-designed by Christine Edzard, who also directed The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream, and artist Rotislav Doboujinsky, who designed and built the stunning animal masks. I love this quote on Doboujinsky's working practice:

"Doboujinsky works at his own pace - and to his own standard of perfection. 'Now and again I have found no good solution to a problem,' he says. 'Then I renounce,' - renounce not compromise. He must almost have renounced Hunca Munca; thirteen times that winter he made her mask and it was not until February 1970 that, with the fourteenth attempt he was satisfied."

The characters were all performed by dancers from the Royal Ballet. Below are pictures of Jeremy Fisher, who has the most fantastic stripy-stockinged legs, Mrs. Tittlemouse and Johnny Town-Mouse, several waltzing mice, the foxy "sandy-whiskered gentleman", Pigling Bland and friends on a picnic, and a group of extra tails.










Construction materials included:

"60 yards of paper for tails
5 lbs pig bristles - half white - prepared solid, product of Poland
Gallons of various glues
Bags and bags of feathers - marabou, duck feathers, swan feathers
12 pairs of artificial hands (hired) on which to fit paws
Marbles: ping-pong balls : sugar basins"

..and a Van de Graaff generator for affixing animal hair to glue-covered masks!

Isn't it delightful?