Number 1 Christmas Toy 2012?

Destiny Davis Fashion Dolls...coming to a store near you!! Well maybe not, but I'd definitely buy one! :)

The Empresses New Clothes...

So Destiny is going to have a mega over haul for the Fierce event in April, it's not long to go so I've started ordering some things, new makeup that will last the night, and dome proper effects make up to cover my eyebrows up and I've also been looking at wigs but the ones I like are all mega money, they look blooming awesome though...

Story time with the feminists...and some trannies

I bought some good books today to help me with my project (and to give me something to read in the five hours sat in Melancholy). I want to look more at stereotypes within gender and hyper femininity/masculinity (I think I mentioned this before) but also hypersexuality, which I believe is the way in which females (not exclusively but more obviously so than males) are portrayed by the media and by ourselves. So I've ended up getting a couple of feminist books of which I've only properly looked at one and so far I've found it really interesting and have enjoyed it. It's called "Living Dolls, The Return of Sexism" written by Natasha Walter, who is also the author of a book called "The New Feminism".

So I haven't finished reading it yet but so far it has prompted some fab ideas for how to move my project on so it seems to have been a good purchase, for me anyway. I'll maybe do a bit of a review when I finish reading it but until then you can see it reviewed here... http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1844087093/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_dg9xpb16PT2XM There's a good mix of positive and negative reviews.

The other book I bought is called "Female Chauvinist Pigs, Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture" by Ariel Levy, I haven't really looked at it yet but again it is reviewed quite well on Amazon... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/1416526382/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331681433&sr=1-1

Finally the third book has been purchased from amazon so hasn't arrived yet, I asked at a few book shops but it seems that it went out of print at some point. It's a book by Peter Ackroyd called "Dressing Up, Transvestism and Drag: The History of an Obsession". It's a factual book about the reasons why men feel the need to dress in drag but remain as males, the fetish behind transvetisim, etc. Should be a good read and useful to my work.

I can't really find any reviews on this book that are useful, so maybe I'll do one when I've read it.





Fierce Festival

This will be awesome, Destiny Davis is going to leave the studio and have a night out...get dressed up and get involved.

http://www.wearefierce.org/fierce-festival/whats-on/shabba-dabba-dah-special-guests

Photos show Destiny Davis and Daniel Lismore in one of his fabulous costumes. Love.

I Heart Melancholy

My first day at the Joy in People exhibition was on the I Heart (or love) Melancholy section, it was the evening of the private view so my shift was slightly later than usual, I started at half past 4 and sat until 8.30. On the melancholy section we are sat on a black sofa against a matte black wall on the wall in gloss the slogan 'I heart Melancholy' is painted (heart is an actual heart symbol). Deller's idea was that the 'I heart' slogan, as in 'I heart New York', 'I heart snowboarding' or 'I heart raves', is not something that would usually be associated with the word 'melancholy'. They are at two different ends of the spectrum. Deller has one or two 'sitters' on the sofa at anytime, each of us reading a book and being 'melancholic'!
So I was on melancholy with a girl called Jess who is studying fine art as well but in London. As it was the private view it was really busy and I was quite aware of people looking and taking photos. Because of the private view we agreed with the ladies who were own Valerie's Snack Bar that we would have only one of us at a time on Melancholy and the other on Valerie's so we could see a bit more of what was going on (and someone hadn't turned up for the snack bar shift so it worked quite well). I did the first half on the snack bar and members of Jeremy's family (his mum, dad, sisters) came for a cuppa, his mum seemed very proud, she spoke to various people who came over to say hello . Jeremy's sister joked that his room was nothing like the instillation as it was far to tidy!! Another guy came and sat with them he had bought lots of things from the shop, a t-shirt with the 'my booze hell' slogan on it and various other things, he also came to chat to me when I was on melancholy (when watching the BBC culture show a few weeks later I realised that he was Ed Hall, the guy who makes the banners for Jeremy's work). Myself and Jess swapped and I was on Melancholy for the final 2 hours, I was reading the book about Grayson Perry, 'Story of the Artist as a Young Girl' which is really his memoirs as told to his friend Wendy, who is the author.a couple of people asked me what I was reading and told me that Grayson Perry was actually there. I didn't see him which I was a bit gutted about, some of the other volunteers saw him and spoke to him, I wanted to find him to get him to sign my book!! What a geek! After we had finished our shifts the gallery was closed and that's when myself, Jess, Amy and Dominic got asked to go to the boat party, which I wrote about before! All in all it was a really good first day, Jeremy was really nice as were all the staff and volunteers at the Hayward! Love it!

The Brutalist Southbank

A couple of pics to show where I am volunteering in case you haven't been (and if you haven't you should!)

Above is the Royal Festival Hall. This 'photo is obviously taken in some rather favourable lighting as the South Bank buildings are built in the rather ugly Brutalist style. Below is the Hayward, again designed and built in this concrete jungle style.

(Above is a 'photo I took of the Hayward when I visited the Tracey Emin retrospective)

The Brutalist style of architecture comes from post World War 2, 1950's - 1970's. The design style was an offshoot of the modernist movement and not only included architecture but also popped up in other areas of art and culture. Brutalism was an international thing but particularly took off in the UK where it was used as a cheap way to rebuild war ravaged urban areas and was used as a way to build cheap modern housing. The style was intended to cheers up war torn Britain...not exactly cheerful looking! The style became popular with graffiti artists (makes it a bit more colourful!) I suppose the smooth concrete walls were too tempting! There is a large area underneath the Festival Hall which has now been converted to an area for skaters but there is a lot of graffiti there and it is always changing, I try and take a few photos each time I go past.

I seem to have slated the Brutalist style, but it is a style of architecture that I do in fact like style, the central library in Birmingham is of the same style, they are building a new library next to it, I'm not sure what they plan to do with the current library, I hope they don't knock it down.

Here's a link to an exhibition on brutalist architecture on at the Barbican at the moment...http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/mar/07/barbican-30-years-arts-brutalism

Joy In People, catch up!

So I haven't blogged for a while about the Jeremy Deller show, so a free sunny afternoon has arrived so some outdoor blogging will begin...

...so basically I applied to volunteer at the Hayward Gallery via Twitter, got sent a massive application form to fill in and then went to an open evening held at the Royal Festival Hall (next to the Hayward) we were introduced to the 3 areas of the show that were open for volunteers then had an interview with staff from the Hayward (mine was with Andrew who is in charge of Corporate Responsibility - check him out!! Basically he's in charge of the volunteer programme amongst other things). We then had a talk with a guy who I had noticed generally mooching around drinking tea, dressed pretty cas in a rather bright orange hoodie...this guy is Jeremy Deller! I on't know what I expected/imagined but this wasn't it!! He seemed really lovely and excited about his upcoming show. He told us about the different parts of the show and why he had created them what they meant to him etc etc. We were then free to leave, I met some lovely ladies on the open evening, all from different backgrounds and jobs, so I hoped to be volunteering the same shifts as them.

Stereotypes...

Some new ideas that I am working with, trying to move my project on. I'm looking at gender stereotypes, hyperfemininty and hypermasculinity...

Living Portraits...

 Andy Warhol, Marilyn

Picasso, Weeping Woman

Roy Litchenstein, Girl with Ribbon

The men in my life!!

Assessment pieces

These are the photographs that I used for my assessment, they were blown up to A1 size. They are much more effective when bigger.

A few versions of Destiny Davis...