Badaude

Occupy Christmas

I visited Tent City University at Saint Paul's, Occupy LSX last monday to work on the sketchbook kept by occupiers and visitors. 

Look here and here for a description of the workshops I've been doing there.

Here are a few of them. The rest can be found on our Flickr page.

It was raining heavily on the day the camp's eviction procedure began at the Royal Courts of Justice. 

...but people still turned up

...and drew 

...(thank you).

As I left, I passed Paternoster Square, locking up for the night...

Happy Christmas, Occupy London!

Five-Minute Academy - How to Wrap a Trombone

(or any awkward Christmas gift)

The purpose of gift-wrapping a Christmas present is to decoratively disguise what is inside from the recipient.  If you decide to give a cuddly rhinoceros, a double-handled vase or indeed a trombone, you could run into difficulties.

Fig 1: Take your trombone, tape, gift-wrap and ribbon.

Fig 2: Collapse the trombone as much as possible. Discover the wrap will not fit when folded conventionally. Give up hope or go to Fig 3 or Fig 6

Fig 3: Work out that the wrap could fit the trombone when placed diagonally.  Get your hopes up: it looks like this might really work.

Fig 4: Wrestle the trombone into the paper with the aid of the tape and ribbons. Attempt to tie the ribbons decoratively. If this is not possible, just attempt to tie them securely.

Fig 5: Go out to the shop for another piece of gift-wrap. Tape it over the end. It doesn’t match. But no one will notice.

Fig 6: Alternatively, if you happen to have some flowers handy, take a long strip of gift-wrap and fold it around the end of the trombone. Bunch decoratively . Place the flowers into the horn of the trombone.

 

Five Minute Academy - How to Decorate a Christmas Tree

Do you actually need a lesson in how to decorate your Christmas Tree? You would be surprised how many people fail to observe these essential rules.

Fig 1: First choose your tree. If buying after 20^th December you will have to choose between fig 1a and 1c. (nb: if you still haven't bought one, check that date and worry).

Fig 2: Install in pot/holder. If this makes the tree too tall for your room, try one of these solutions.

Fig 3: Check lights. Put them on the tree first.

Fig 4: Unpack and untangle the treasured decorations you stored away so carefully last year.

Fig 5: Apply fake snow to tree until spray nozzle blocks (anything between 3-10 seconds). Immerse nozzle in water; prick with safety pin; repeat. Eventually attempt to make your own fake snow from shaving foam.

Fig 6: Admire your Tree. Anything missing? Attempt to fix star/angel/fairy/whatever to the top of the tree. You should have done this first. If you knock the whole thing flying, return to Fig 2.

I.M. George Whitman: December 12, 1913 – December 14, 2011

I was asked to write a memorial of George Whitman, owner of legendary Paris bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. You can find it here.

Living in Occupied Times

As you might have noticed I've been doing some work around Occupy LSX. I've also been keeping a visual diary. This piece was in the Occupied Times last week.

I'll be doing a drawing workshop today at Tent City University, Monday 19th December at 3pm. If you'd like to drop by on the day the Occupy LSX St Paul's camp's eviction ruling will be decided, please do.

Perec in Peckham

I spent last Wednesday night talking about Georges Perec in an (allegedly) ex-crack den in Peckham with sawn off logs for seating, outdoor composting lavatories and excellent whisky-based cocktails.

This is my co-speaker, Karl Whitney, enjoying the 'bar' while we watched The White Review's editors, no mean roadies, drill a projector shelf into a ceiling beam.

 

Did we offer to help? No - we were too busy worrying about our talks discussing the finer points of Oulipo.

The Peckham Hotel was actually a lot nicer than this photo seems to show: in fact Karl is sitting in front of a roaring fire burning what looked like the missing floorboards from the rooms upstairs. 

This was the first time I'd seen Karl since I met him in the Place Saint Sulpice to record some street noise outside Cafe de la Mairie, working around Perec's essay, Tentative d'epuisement d'un Lieu Parisien. 

(Karl's not on the above pic but Perec is - the drawing was a private commission I did at the same time as the recording). 

I used the sounds as the basis for an audio-visual piece, working with David Bramwell (sound), Lauren Elkin (photos) Isabelle Carreira (montage), Sofia Saldanha (voice) and writer, Deborah Levy, who generously contributed a piece of writing to the project in response to Perec's work.

Karl paid tribute to Perec's translator, Gilbert Adair, who died this week, and gave and excellent explanation of Perec's use of the grid system in his lifelong Lieux project.

I talked mostly about Espèces d'Espaces/Species of Spaces - Perec on the describing and repurposing space (there's my photo of Paternoster Square again)

As is usual in my talks there were props (slightly mouldy tangerines which weren't actually used in the end), games and mild humiliation.

Thanks so much to everyone who helped set up and who came. Great evening! We must do it again sometime.

Incidentally I'll be doing another drawing workshop at Tent City University on Monday 19th December at 3pm. If you'd like to drop by on the day the Occupy LSX St Paul's camp's eviction ruling will be decided, please do.

 

Tate Christmas Prize Draw!

If you buy a copy of my book, London Walks! from the Tate shop before Christmas you might find your copy contains this original illustration I did of the Vorticists exhibition inside the front cover.

More details in the Tate email (sign up for it here). The winner will be randomly selected on 20th December.

I'm visiting the Tate on Friday and will be signing more copies for the online shop so I hope everyone else who buys a copy will at least get my now trademark 'diseased London pigeon'... 

 

 

 

Five-Minute Academy - How to Attend an Office Party

Your company schedules an office party in order to reward and recognize employees, to provide an opportunity for team building among co-workers, and to promote co-workers getting to know each other informally. Make sure that all these goals are achieved with minimum embarrassment to your company. Unless that’s not your goal, of course.

Fig 1: Is it your departmental party? If not, they probably don’t care, though going to an office party at an entirely different office is not generally a good idea.

Fig 2: What is the dress code? Take care not to mix up the options illustrated (see fig 1).

Fig 3: Eating vs drinking. You probably don’t want to eat the office sausage rolls: without the ballast of sausage rolls, you probably shouldn’t drink the office punch.

Fig 4: Mind your language: expunge these remarks from conversation, especially with your boss.

Fig 5:  Dancing: is consequent upon the results of Fig 3.

Fig 6: A special warning: none of these objects should ever be introduced into the environment of an office party. 

 

 

Occupy Sketchbooks

I turned up at the excellent Tent City University at Occupy LSX this Wednesday to host drawing workshop. Just so I don't have to explain my take on the drawing + Occupy thing again, look here. 

Lots of my workshop ended up being about this crazy 'installation' I discovered in Paternoster sqare.

(read the notes on the drawing below to see what it actually is)

The workshop was well attended by people from the camp and visitors, including a guy who wandered in half-way through, demanded 'social justice', and seemed a little annoyed that I couldn't provide it for him then and there. 

We focused on the low-key, everyday realities of the camp, drawing parts of our neighbors, what we had for breakfast (both warm-up exercises really, but I particularly like the second one because it starts to combine observational 'life-drawing' with what I'd call 'applied life-drawing': involving memory, circumstances, emotions - plus this exercise gets diagrammatic which I like too).

We went on to draw any one thing that had particularly drawn us to the St Pauls camp.

People took away sketchbooks and, I hope, will keep on drawing.

I'll be back on 19th for a follow-up workshop. If you didn't come to the first one (or if you did) you're equally welcome. 

And if you have a drawing of Occupy London and would like to add it to the Flickr account where I've posted more of the Occupy sketchbooks, please send it to me at badaude at aol dot com. 

 

 

Five-Minute Academy - How to Grow a Beard

This was published by Metro last week: if you're in any major city in the UK, you'll find a fresh Five Minute Academy in your Metro today.

Fig 1: Check your gender. If you are female, you may find growing a beard more difficult.

Fig 2: To avoid humorous comments during growth, consider beginning to grow a beard on holiday. If you have to stay at work, request a cubicle.

Fig 3: Stop shaving. Wait for hair to grow (approx six weeks for a decent growth). Stick with it. Beards may appear patchy at first.

Fig 4 (a & b): Colour. Sad but true, you may find that your beard growth is a different colour to your hair. Two common problems are illustrated here.

Fig 5: Decide where your beard begins and ends. If you are particularly hairy, follow the line where chin meets neck to prevent the illusion of an endless beard. Perhaps invest in some sort of grooming tool.

Fig 6: Now you have your beard, consider styling options. Try to tread the narrow line between the over-groomed and the shaggy. Shampoo regularly. Blow-drying is not usually considered necessary. With care, your beard can last you a lifetime.