Oh I do like to be beside ...

the seaside, as I was today, in Hove, visiting my co-editor on the Brangwyn book - Gillian Naylor (see above). A wonderful, wonderful, vibrant, enthusiastic design historian, great intellect, great sense of fun, great style, northern directness - she just inspires me!

The Brangwyn book (Frank Brangwyn 1867-1956) was republished last month with glitches removed. I just wish we could have revamped the index. There was a very limited budget for the first edition, and I insisted on commissioning top class art historians who were also familiar with Brangwyn's work - which took the entire budget so Corinne and I worked for free. Towards the end I mentioned an index - no money left, but you cannot have a book of that calibre without - so I set about doing it myself - gratis of course. Unfortunately, at that stage, I didn't have indexing software, had a week to complete the job and was in Oman at the time with final page layouts for all essays bar one - so there are mistakes. There was no money available for my re-editing of the 2007 publication, I still couldn't afford the requisite software, so the indexing faults remain.

Odd business - publishing - still haven't got my head around it!

music, music, music

Wonderful - Andrea emailed me today to confirm that she has booked the recording venue for Sunday 18 November and she has a full choir ready to stand on a horseshoe. Charles will be there manhandling his sooper-dooper new surround sound microphone with which to perform recording justice. Mike Westbrook will be on hand to give the young ladies a final fillip, and I'll be there as bag-handler extraordinaire. Did I lose my vocation in life, or have I just found it?

So, a sudden burst of adrenalin! Although another delay in my self imposed timetable!

Plus I've got the Dublin filming trip sorted (5-8 August) - living near the Channel I'm used to rather better deals than appear to be available Holyhead to Dublin (no point in going by air because we'd have to pay a second mortgage on the weight of the camera equipment). So it's Kent to Lincolnshire, thence to Anglesey (meeting Jeremy - great guy, long, lanky, drole, dry sense of humour - helped me massively with Bangor collection), across to Dublin where Charles has challenged me to sipping a Guinness (not exactly my tas de the unfortunately so be prepared for a GRITTED TEETH smile), mad dash round the Iveagh related sights and FB's stained glass window, back to Linolnshire etc etc.

See you in Dublin - if not before. If you spot us - we'll treat you a drink!

2 July 2007 Life Class

Listening to Andrew Marr (one of my heroes) whilst doing the housework this morning (Monday = kitchen and breakfast room) - one of his guests was Pat Barker, also from Tees-side and born in 1943 (a good vintage). She was talking about official war artists. That got me thinking (rare policy). So many writers have stated that FB was an official war artist as if it were a badge of honour. But FB wasn't.
a) he was not a propagandist

b) he would not have prostituted his art for filthy lucre, and a cause he did not believe in (or in which he did not believe)

c) he wouldn't have towed the party line, far too individual and stubborn for that!

He did, however, produce over 80 designs for posters during WW1 - but the majority of these were given freely to charitable organisations..

1 July 2007 Frustration, frustration, frustration

Or should it be rabbits, rabbits, rabbits, and a pinch and a punch. Mike thinks the music will be ready by the end of July (a capella, interweaving melodic lines with passages of dense chromatic harmony - sounds wonderful), so time to organise a recording session. All I have to do is liaise with Mike, Andrea and Charles. Poor Andrea has to co-ordinate the diaries of her eleven choir members, book the church where they usually record, and liaise with me. And we are going round in proverbial circles which reminds me why I like working alone, had my fill of committees and reinventing the camel years ago. Artist in the garret syndrome for me - actually a ground floor room with a beautiful unhindered view past my yellow flowering hypericum and yellow clambering roses across poppy filled fields! Bliss.

Sad news yesterday. Ruth Artmonsky rang to say that Brenda Rawnsley had died suddenly of a heart attack. Brenda sounded such a character and we had been hoping to film her. Ruth wrote a wonderful book and curated an exhibition about Brenda's forays into art - The School Prints. A Romantic Project (2006).