Kristin Hersh Drawings Norwich

Tonight I went to Norwich arts centre to see Kirstin Hersh perform her songs, that she say come into her head, but I think they come from her heart and soul. My Boyfriend Robert is a big fan of Kristin and use to see her play in Holland. So he bought me a ticket and was excited about introducing me to Kristin. I was intrigued because when I first met Robert he had her photo on his laptop screen saver. 

My first impression of her voice was like hearing a dutch girl speaking English, but she is from New Orleans. She has a very childlike appearance which is hard to draw but I gave it a go. 

Normally I draw on the floor of gigs but for the first time ever in my history the arts centre had chairs and they were all filled apart from two near the front speakers. This is not good for me with hearing problems, as I thought straight away I would get feed back from the speakers. As soon as she started playing it was hearing a lullaby and the sound quality was the best I have heard in a life time of gigs, although lyrics are hard for me to make out. 

I sketched her as best I could knowing Robert would want to frame these pictures being her big fan. 

Then near the end I went down the back to see her face on, but she was quite far away and I was now sketching in the dark. The audience was middle aged and above which was a first older audience I had seen at the arts centre and it was nice to see them enjoying the show. There was also a little girl with her dad enjoying the show.

Kristin's songs were great and she came back out after a standing ovation and gave three more songs. 

At the end of her show there ques for her CD and I should have gone back stage to meet her and show her my drawings but I didn't have any dinner and was tittering on fainting so I went home and thought she could check them out on line.

As cycled home with Robert waiting at traffic lights at the bottom of Grapes hill, I waited for a guy to cross the road and as I waited I heard him humming Kristin tunes aloud amongst the traffic and he had a little skip in his step. 

We got home and showed Robert the drawings he was happy with the first impression but the others in the dark down the back were not his impression of her. 

Kristin has her songs on line for free or by donation of cash which is nice, because if you were a teenager like me who could not afford to buy records in the 80's and felt alienated by Friends who all bought records and new about music. This can only be a good thing.

Warhol-Factory-reject-party-Norwich!!!!!!!

Mother! photo by Katie Utting!! from Mad dog magazine more party photos at Mad dog magazine, check it out.
Me as Mother!!! Photo by Rod Penn

Mothers Shoes!! photo by Katie Utting.

Party Poster!!



It is just about exactly 40 years since Stonewall happened in America. The stone that rocked the world and took 40 years to get to little Norwich in the UK.

Stonewall was the first gay pride parade in the states, the reason gay men took to the streets to parade in public was because they were constantly persecuted for being different. In those days having a little bit of hair gel in your hair to form a curl at the top was different, playing records that the general mass were not listening to was different, wearing a pink tie was different. For all these little things you could have been dragged out of a bar, beaten and thrown in jail for three months. 

The people that dressed or behaved differently didn't hang out in very public places they hung out in under ground bars but the cops still managed to find them.

So when people are suppressed enough they get together and rise up against the system.

All they did was come out and wanted to be counted, wanted to be apart of society. 

So they came out and paraded through the streets and the cops came out and beat them up again.

The lesbians never hung out with gay men before this they were even more secretive about there difference. They had no interest in men what so ever, but when they saw these men dressed as women being beaten to a pulp and thought hang on there gay and were gay wee going to help them too and help them for the cause justice to humanity of all kinds of difference and diversity.

So in 1969 I was conceived in Ireland where my family lived, but due to my family being different, my Mother and brother and sister got on a boat and train and went all the way to north Norfolk, so my Mum could give birth to me in a little cottage hospital in West Runton. Then she took me back to Ireland after my christening at Blickling hall. Which all of my well chosen God Parents turned up. 

Back in Dublin my father was designing one of the first underground night clubs for the gay community and for David Norris who is now Senator of Ireland and still fighting for the rights of gay people. In Ireland gay people married women and had children and lived a lie to cover there secret. What does this do to the wife's and children? It makes them very angry and dysfunctional. 

 In the UK gay people and marry same sex partners and live a normal life, without discrimination and hatred.

10 years ago I took a flight to Sydney and stayed there and took part in the biggest gay parade on earth and supported the gay community. The parade in Sydney is no longer just about coming out and being gay, its about supporting groups that need support and standing up for all the gay people on a world wide basis. The Mardi gras also brings in tourism and employs thousands of people.

So back to Norfolk my birth place, is about to have its first gay pride parade, if your like colour, diversity, fun, dressing up or your gay come out and celebrate. 

The festival parade needs help to build floats and costumes and is about skill sharing and communicating and supporting causes.

To start the fundraising for the Parade I was invited by my face book friend Nick O'Brian to a party at Take 5 called the Warhol reject party and it was the best night I have ever had in Norwich. I did not feel like a minority person dressed up because every single person made there own costume for the party. Everyone there was good fun and really friendly.

Here is some photos from the party

Nick O'Brian Norwich Pride organizer. Please head down to the Catherine Wheel pub on Wednesday nights to help make Norwich Pride floats and costumes and meet some amazing people.

Crazy costumes! Photo by Rod Penn.

Lovely girls!! Photo by Rod Penn

New friends!! Phil Coles camera.

My family my son on the left, its the first time I seen him since I left him outside a church in Norfolk many years ago. My son turns out to be just like his mother and loves clothes. You can find lots of amazing clothes in the Ship of fools vintage clothes shop on 45 St Benedicts Norwich. Uncle Emma who came out to see what all the fuss was about and had so much fun there is no turning back. Me as mother in Red dress and pregnant Aunt Bowery. Photo taken by Phil Coles

Donna Jane Whitbread. I was taken back by this wonderful attire made with fabulous factory reject fabric.

Photo by Rod Penn

Yes Mother and Son showing off my First prize ticket for the Best dressed Trash. I am so looking forward to hobbling down on the cobblestones to the Ship of fools and cashing this prize in for a frilly frock.

PS. Thank you to everyone who took the photos. I would like to say that they are under there copyright. 

NIGHTHOUSE Australian animation film

The night house an amazing Australian film that makes me feel like I am back in Australia, sleeping in the forest in amongst all the amazing creatures. 10,000 unidentified creatures per square metre and logging company's still chop down this glorious part of the world for toilet paper and junk mail. If only Captain Cook was hung, slung and quartered, before he sailed there.
Nature is fighting back now by drowning or burning people who think there quarter acre block, car and swimming pool is more important then nature and if you don't drown a crocodile will eat you.
The intelligent Australian aboriginal people cared for and looked after this part of the planet for millions of years before a European drunken sailor landed there and savaged land and sea.
Back in the UK were concerned about ID cards, this is nothing new to pommy bastards. The Pommies love tagging anything they have no knowledge of, like the native people to Australia who were tagged with collars right up until the 1970's and treated with no respect like the Brit's treat there own people, creatures and off spring.
There are however quite a lot of younger generation Australians who don't want to live the European way down under and live in the forests, these people the Australian Europeans call Ferrel meaning wild. Well if I had a forest to live in near by I would be living in it too, but in the UK they logged the whole country to send out ships to steal other peoples land. Another what if only they stayed where they were and kept the forests to live amongst.
How do we stop the forests from disappearing like wild fire by logging company's. Any ideas please do tell everyone.
My feelings are show the world how beautiful forests are when still standing then they might get protected by general mass empathy. But the bit in our brains that creates empathy is worn down by alcohol poisoning and as the majority of people drink alcohol how can there be any empathy.
Captain Satan has been developing his music skills for a few decades in Australia and this film shows his hard work has paid off.
The collaboration is with Donna Kendrigan who made the animation. I am a now a big fan of her work and look forward to seeing the next film.

Painting seaweed

6 layers of paint later, the seaweed looks like something that can be put in the children's ward at the hospital.  This is only a tiny section of the Eel station that is going in the waiting area. 

I have been working nights to get it all finished for the big installation day. It is nearly 6 months since the very amazing idea popped into my head. The amount of work that has gone into bringing it to this stage is astronomical.

 

Shed Working

Shed working got in contact with me today, to be in there new book. Have a look at there blog it makes me want to build something amazing outside somewhere. I will let you know later which bit of me is going in the book when its published.

Telling Yarns

This week I have been given a marvellous commission to Knit a wonderful costume. Where on Earth do I find the time to knit, with painting and helping with the new children's ward. Well a good time is while socialising talking on the phone, chatting with friends over a cup of tea. 

So while knitting the garment the story's that are passed around will get knitted into the piece, thus giving it life.

I have no idea how to read a knitting pattern or write one. I just imagine the finished piece and then knit the shape. I know plain stitch and then create new stitches for different effects.

   

Homemade lemon cordial

My first go at making homemade cordial. It was so easy compared to making beer. I saved about £4 by making it myself. It tastes yummy and has no after taste of all the chemicals normal drinks company's put in soft drinks. 

5 large lemons squeezed/two grated skin on small grater bit.

1 and half litres of water boiled with less then a kilo of caster sugar, but could have been even less sugar.

2 teaspoons of cream of tartar 

After dissolving the sugar in the water add the lemon juice and cream of tartar.

Leave with tea towel over pan and cool down then leave in fridge over night.

Strain through clean straining cloth and bottle in sterilized bottles. It made 3 litres of lemon cordial. 

Add water or fizzy water to drink.

Now I have made this I am tempted to make elderflower, blackberry, red currant, strawberry this summer.

Run of the paper mill

It only takes a few idiots to destroy the planet. People such as the Manager of Preference Services at the DMA, who is trying to stop you getting rid of junk mail.

Planet destroyers like this must not be able to sleep at night. Tonnes of paper comes through our doors every year. Rainforest's are being logged by the mile to produce paper that is so ugly and glossy that you can't even use to wipe your arse with. The direct victims are the people who live in the forests and have relied on it for millions of years. The DMA doesn't care about the environment. They care about pushing dead trees through your letterbox and producing strings of lies from behind their desks which they call statistics.

Let's stop the idiots. Opt out of their unsolicited dung and save a bit of planet. Go green and get rid of the Destructive Marketing Asbo's

Political propaganda

Today I was horrified to be sent with my name and address on a piece of propaganda junkmail from the Labour party. Only minutes after hearing all there in house stealing and fraud, going on in parliment. 

If you are a political party please do not waste our natural resourses and tax payers money on printing paper that is going to be torn up into shreads or scrumpled up in anger or cooked in a dinner.

Plus please dont send me leaflets about pig flu when this is available on line and in the newspapers.

We have all read When the wind blows! and in this book by Raymond Briggs, the couple follow there government leaflet very carefully right up till the point of a neaclear blast. The leaflet had no use what so ever because they all died anyway.

Noone is going to vote for the Labour party, Conservatives or BNP so all these partys should now stop wasting money on trying to promote themselfs before an election. All the propaganda in the world cannot make a dirty party look clean.

I have an idea how to deal with the injustice behaviour of Parliament and isn't hanging or jail.

Over the past year or so people in government have been closing very important public buildings, like the children's Livesey Museum on Old Kent road, public swimming pools and library's. Over 20,000 people a year used the Children's Museum and it was very cheap to run as a public service. 

So all the people in Parliament who have been caught with there hand in the till, should now as justice, open all the public places they closed! By selling there 2ND home in London to pay for costs. Then they will be reappointed a lower paid position of running these public buildings and will get to work with normal people and learn normal social skills, like caring for people in the community. They will also have to use there own wages to pay rent, bills etc. Like everybody else does.

Chipolatas Norfolk and Norwich Festival photos

Chipolata's Chapelfield gardens Sunday afternoon. Sam's Super sensational, solo drum roll.


The mighty, taller then a big top, quicker then a boaconstricta, stronger then king Kong, more tricks then Paul Daniels, hairier then any Scotsman, the funniest Jasper.


Garden gnome party. Robert entertaining guests while I have a costume change.

Sing along around the fire.

Mick Hardy singer song writer sings his famous Burger song.


Pig flu masks demonstration.

Grand chess master Mike Read, Emma Jarvis the female Frank Sinatra of Norfolk in the background of the Chipolatas playing the three wise monkeys, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil in my around my guitar bar in my studio.

 

This photo with out the flash looks like an old painting.

Luminarium in Chapelfield Gardens, Norwich. Amazing photo of Sam.

Warm Feet
This is a photo I taken in the lumiumarium down the channels. The light inside through the camera was black and white. Then outside it turned red. It felt like a whole new experience going in there. It made me feel like I was at a rave in the 90's in Sydney. 

Emma said she felt like she was in the womb again.

More sketches on the way of the Chipolatas and Speigal tent performances at Chapelfield Gardens in Norwich.

Norfolk and Norwich Festival The Chipolata's!

Chipolata's


1. 2. 3. Jasper Juggling sketch at the Theatre Royal Norwich. Drawn in the back row in the dark. Sketched with feeling and expression. 3B pencil. 39 years of practice drawing. In 1986 Dick Condon who ran the Theatre Royal when I was at City College, let me, Holly and Becky draw from the Audience the shows and the inside of the theatre for 3 weeks solid. This is where drawing shows all began for me and here I am reunited with my starting out point in life and this time with the performance group who gave me my first costume job in Bradford 1994 on stage and here I am drawing them. At City college Brenda and Mike taught us to also draw blind folded and wonder around the college blind folded.

Magic! Sketch of Chipolatas at the Theatre Royal Norwich.

Timing is everything! Chipolatas sketch Theatre Royal Norwich.

Oh Nose! Chipolatas Sketch Theatre Royal Norwich of Jasper.

Bloomin Heck! Sketch of Chipolatas Norwich Theatre Royal.

A festival is about joy and to take time out from are ritualistic lives, stuck in the domestication of our mundane habitual numb self reliant reality that is put upon us by the system.

At some point in a narrow minded general system, steam needs to be let off. Thanks to a handful of nice people in the UK that devote there time to organizing festivals for everyone to enjoy, local or visiting we can have an opportunity in the system, to let off steam and have some fun. General happiness is a good cure for a happy life is my motto. If everyone is happy I am happy.

One group of people that came together thanks to Norwich festival was the Chipolatas and was I pleased to see them. The chips had found me all over the world and cheered me up in previous decades and if it hadn't been for the chipolatas I wouldn't be where I am today.

Bradford Festival 1994, was the first time they got me out of strife. I was up to my eyeballs managing the Java continental cafe, it was long hours and very much 24/7. The only vegetarian restaurant in the north of the UK, so it had ques all the way to London and back. I was thrown a job one night, By Linda and Joe The Elderly Blind Date Show, sets and costumes. Crikey. When do I make all this. Instantly I took up juggling, from making coffees, cooking, doing the till, to making costumes on the 20 metre long vegan cakes counter and managing the festival cafe with 10 metre wide queue and so thick I never saw the end. 

When the costumes were needed I took them back stage to Sam and Chips and they wore them on stage and the local press gotta a cute picture of the winning blind date contestants with Sam hosting as Cupid. Down under and beyond I was walking down the main drag In Sydney I bump into the chipolatas, who jumped off a moving bus, upon spotting me on the pavement. We hung out on the roof top of the old weetabix factory in Chippendale and saw a whole view of the moon and Sydney where I lived with Sydney artists and performers. Then I am up at Woodford festival in far north Queensland building a giant whale tent and see them again. They all stayed with me when I moved to an old bullet and lucky charm factory near the harbour. The place was so big with giant corrugated doors and enormous sewing room and giant group workshop space and a shop front that I renamed with Phil Free the poet who helped me take the sign down and painted and my shower in the nude for a free feed, wine and some poetry.

The sign became polluted planet and had all sorts of rubbish stuck to it. The kitchen was in a stone cave that was underneath the shop. I had no shelves so everything was kept on the floor. The place was a hive of activity, Stephen juicing fruit in the kitchen, me sewing, the trapeze swinging, Esmeralda making things, Burkurr being a chicken, music being played and huge party's and circus's stopping over while they were performing in town and cousins staying and were cooking in top restaurants.

The Chipolatas blended in so well at the warehouse I didn't even notice they were there, plus they were out doing shows in Sydney. Wow! So they played in Norwich to for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. I got in contact with the chips via there website and I organised a wee gathering of a barbie in my back garden.

I took a group of friends along to see there show at the Theatre Royal and I was really happy to see my friends joining in with the show and having a whale of a time. The chipolatas show was top class, down to earth. There comedy, music, performance can be matched with all the greats but better. Chipolatas is a trio group that have been together for 17 years, hopping round the world. For Norwich they put on a special show with 3 extra performers.

Tune in tomorrow for photos of the chipolatas having fun in Norwich.

Jont Recording

Tonight while a big firework displays were going off at the Norwich festival, I was being boring and a workaholic but also too exhausted to venture out into the night.

I was looking at my Myspace for Creative artist, Eloise, which was set up for my band and performance side of drawing live bands and performances. Managing now 5 groups on Fb, two myspaces, 3 websites an many other social networking sites and my blog is quite a handful. All just get a peak look at for a few minutes every now again.

While I was at my myspace today I came across an old message from Jont and thought I would click on his page to see what he is up to. Jont has a single released called Sweetheart and a has a photo slide show of his Album recording in Wandsworth. The photos are on the left side of the page and there is me doing my spontaneous drawing of the recording.

Jont has a gig page with Unlits and gigs on his myspace and a link to his main website.

Pig Flu leaflet

I found a link to the pig flu government leaflet. It states that we must blow are noses and dispose of the paper tissue in the bin. Have they thought who might be emptying the bins. Have they thought that cleaners have to clean the surfaces of where the virus might be. What about the dustbin men too who collect the rubbish and empty street bins. Washing up in restaurants, after costumers might have it and the big one handling money. 

Have they thought about the amount of trees that would be felled to make paper tissues. Paper tissues causes burst blood vessels on your nose and scratch the nose. Cloth ones would be better, that you take home in a plastic bag and wash in the machine or soak in Tree tree oil.

What about all the people that spit in the street or drop there gum or cig buts.

What about all the people who are too drunk to wash there hands in public places.

Thinking about it is enough to make one very ill. 

Nearly all children eat mud in garden and baby's like to taste nearly everything they get there hands on and crawl around on dirty floors. Why this sudden need for hygiene once your in your teens and adulthood?

Business  as usual.

 

Hospital Arts project furniture.

The hospital called me in to day to have a full on long one, sorting out paper works, exhibitions and the new Children's Jenny Lind ward. Working in the office with Emma Jarvis is like trying to keep a jumbo jet in the air. Emma wears a head phone piece and is typing like playing a classical fast piece, I can barely see her fingers touch the keyboard, as they tap at 5000 words per second. The office door is open only because it is bursting at the sides with art which is also stacked up along the corridor and in any where there is space. Paperwork sits in piles on everysurface. The voices from the other offices sorting out all the running functions of the whole hospital system. So there all working faster then beavers. Trying to focus on the job is quite some task for a me who normally works in silence.
After a morning of untwining the paperwork. At midday we had a special treat of going over to Acre Joinery and seeing the finished computer console table. We went in and said Hello to Barry Wakefield big boss and Ivan Eves, then we saw the table, in the large woodwork space with lads were chiseling and sawing and sanding. There it was, shining like a star. It was amazing beyond believe, unimaginable and so well crafted. I was dumbstruck and overwhelmed by my designs turning into something so brilliant.
We then greeted and thanked the talented carpenter Richard Horner who made the table.
The table also had special metal pieces made to join the game boys to the table so they don't get stolen, John Rackham came over from the metal works Rackham engineering and showed us the amazing metal craftsman ship, which was also state of the art and well crafted and matched the colours of the table.
We worked out a plan of how to ensemble the metal pieces and decided I need a space somewhere to paint the legs of the table.  Then back to the hospital for a long after noon of putting up a Amnesty International exhibition with pictures drawn by different illustrators.
I took down the staff awards photos that had lined the corridor and came across Mr.Innes my consultant who did an brilliant operation on my ear. The last check up I discovered he had retired from the hospital. I wish him a fantastic and well deserved retirement.

I then went home Robert cooked my dinner and I kneaded bread for a picnic and finished painting a couple of illustrations for children's book.

Jasper musician and friends, helps fund new equipment for School

Table Eleven Bungay Primary School in Norfolk. Destination Swing. Spontaneous sketch. 
Jasper at Bungay Primary School, Norfolk. Playing with Destination Swing. Fast sketch.

The full band Destination Swing at Bungay Primary School, 1st of May 2009. Super fast sketch.

Tonight I went out to Bungay with picnic in toe and few bottles. Bungay Primary School was having a fundraising night for there playground to build a playhouse. Emma had told me that we would be sitting on little chairs at little tables. When we arrived there was golden chairs, tables, tablecloths, candelabras, a big stage and back drop. We were at table Eleven, the table number was made by the children and the pictures that lined the walls were by the children.
We unpacked our picnic and I had made guitar shaped bread buns to go with a humus dip and many other bits. The table was already covered then the rest of the group came to sit at the table and brought an even bigger picnic. So we just pretended it was Christmas and indulged.
After the raffle ticket break and Kate at our table won a bottle of wine. We cleared the table and done some drawing, other drawers moved to another table to spread out.
The music was the best Jazz I have ever heard live. The night went so fast I sketched very fast to get the whole band in one song. After the evening we hitched back with Kate and dropped into the Alex pub, people were all outside because of the warm weather.
I had a coffee as I was juiced to my limit and the others indulged in some local beers.
It was a nice night then to walk home and on to my street with Syfi blue Led street lighting which I cannot yet make out if it is a good thing or not. I suppose its the next level to getting solar.