and there will be unicorns

My good friend Tom Lacey sings songs in a band most days. On the inbetwen days he draws pictures for other bands as well as his own. He’s finally got part-way to getting his act together and started a blog to showcase his blossoming portfolio of excellent work. Go Commision him. Just don’t let him get drunk in your parents house. He’ll sick on your mum’s bare feet. True story.

It’s been a fair while since I’ve been on Moki’s site, partly due to resentment of her talent and partly as it was thoroughly confusing to navigate through… which I think was the point. I always ended up spending far too long stumbling across and gawping at one incredible image after another. She’s now got a new site though, on which I have again spent far too long. I’m not normally one for being emotionally moved beyond the feeling of ‘that’s really nice’ by images, but Moki’s work never ceases to stir my cold, dead heart like only music has done before.

Ukulele’s and top-gun cuteness. U900, I salute you.

Two exciting things happened today. Firstly, I passed my driving test, and therefore segued, finally, into full adulthood. Secondly, my copy of Nick White’s book arrived. Nick used to live down the road from me in London and I was always jealous of both his illustrative talents and his bootsale-tat collection. It’s excellent to see him doing so well, and by the looks of the photo’s of his recent exhibition on the Nobrow blog he can really pull a crowd these days.

The publishing peoples at Nobrow have spared no expense in the printing and, as such, the book smells excellent, like the heady scent of the inlay for Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘in The Aeroplane Over the Sea’. It’s full of good pretty too. I am especially fond of the Miss America image which reminded me of Nicolas Lampert’s ‘meatscapes’. I’m just a born sucker for collages involving vintage meat photos.

I have come to realise that posting stuff about myself all the time, may inadvertently tar me with the hefty and loathsome brush of narcissism. So I’m taking all the mirrors out of my studio and making an effort to showcase the talents of people I’ve discovered or know that make me cry, ‘oh, you shit’, out of sheer jealousy. So ,to start, here is the work of Nacho Gil. I don’t know if his site comes across as mysterious or arrogant, but there’s nothing on there apart from a series of animal images of which this is one.

As you can see, his work is ruddy bloody simple, confident and above all, excellent…very reminiscent of another of my favourites, Siggi Eggertsson.