Ace Jet 170

Staples

 

I've just found this saved as a draft. Not sure why I never published it, but here it is, a few years late…

If you dig deep into the Ace Jet Archive, practically back to the very beginning, you'll find mention of a previous trip to New York City.

Then, it was when roaming the Upper West Side that I stumbled across an old office supplies shop with amazing dusty old stationery treasure stashed at the back; old stock, unsuitable for the modern office, that hadn't moved for maybe decades.

That's where I found the small box of staples with 'Ace Jet 170’ printed on it.

Fast forward many years and a return to the city. This time the stationery shop was Midtown — Phil's Stationery. Hope it's still there. The guy in the shop claimed they were the people that supplied the staplers for Mad Men.

n SHIT

 

 

Didn't get to Lulu's. Less interested in the vintage clothing, but was a little intrigued by the 'n shit'.

 

NYFlea

 

 

My tidy haul of ephemerality.

Part way between our Styversant Heights hideout and the big city was the Dumbo Sunday Brooklyn Flea, a small, well formed market of vintage goods. A perfect way to spend a morning before heading to Central Park for a family picnic (if a Saturday works better for you, then Williamsburg is the place to wander sinfully amongst the stalls of retro nonsense).

US FDC's and old school bingo cards were a dollar a pop.

Bowne & Co.

 

Bowne & Co. Stationers is billed as New York City's oldest continuously running business, founded as it was in 1775. Luckily for us, it happens to be a print shop.

If you're at the bottom of Manhattan, maybe to catch the free ferry to Staten Island or the not free ferry to Liberty Island, then you might as well take a walk up Water Street either before or after your voyage to buy letterpress prints from the shop and/or visit the South Street Seaport Museum which Bowne & Co partners. You can explore the museum's collections of photography, printing, ephemera, ship models and scrimshaws (carvings on marine mammal ivory) and the shops (there are two actually) sell a selection of irresistible and reasonably priced print porn.

It's a great location too, as you might expect right on the water's edge so there's plenty to see.

 

Bark Face

 

 

Last week I found half a bark face during the morning dog walk, and I could not have been happier. What luck!

A Demi-Groot, was my rather obvious first thought, holding the dead wood to my face, the correct way round. Then I thought to check the underside for anything my own face didn't want to rub up against and I was struck by its moist woody beauty. Still damp from the night's precipitation my eyes beheld a proliferation of rich reddy-brown tones and I chuckled to myself, imagining the delight I had in store for Team Ace Jet, on my return.

Alas, what greeted me was apathy³.

And a new thought sprang to mind: What's to become of my shit when I'm gone?

Measure for measure

Classics. A set of Moore & Wright dividers, wrestling external calipers, naked; an instrumental coupling of precision tools.

A few years ago we were in the Riverside Museum in Glasgow. My enduring memory isn't of the tall ship parked out the back or the very clever display of bicycles suspended from the ceiling or even the stunning Zaha Hadid architecture but of a wonderful display of vintage callipers/dividers and drawing instruments.

 

RGM-89 JEGAN

 

Somewhere between The Amazing World of Gumball and Overwatch my youngest son (he's not so young any more) builds Gundam models. Back in my day it was the Spitfire and Chieftain Tank that we assembled from Airfix kits bought from that model shop up on New Street. For Seth, it’s Mecha – equally complex, but shipped over from Japan.

If you lived in Japan, these amazing model kits wouldn’t cost you too much – a few week’s pocket money maybe, depending on which side of the Bullet Train tracks you were born on. We have to stump up for shipping but they are undeniably cool, so money (and time) well spent I say.

Seth's building quite a collection now and is really into the TV show they derive from.

The models take time to construct and (forgive me for sounding predictably parentist) in our age of fast gratification, that's a very pleasing thing to witness.

They're also awesome to photograph.

Pebble, without a cause

 

I, for one, am a natural pebblist. Unshackled by geological concerns, I am drawn to the pebble like a moth to a flame by an unconscious notion. For me, it is an instinct…and not one shaped by nature or nurture.

I grew up in Birmingham. Further from the sea, can you not get on the island of Great Britain, and although we holidayed by the sea occasionally, it wasn’t common enough to stir, within the young Ace Jet, a great interest in ocean-smoothed rock fragments.

Coming ashore 14 years ago in the north eastern corner of Ireland, I found myself dwelling in quite a different environment. The sea was, and has remained, mere minutes away. More than that, it seems that the Northern Irish find it hard to pull themselves away from the sea so when occasion takes us to explore beyond our immediate area, I am encouraged by both people and the call of other places to hug the coastline.

It seems the best places here are by the sea.

It wasn’t long before my gaze turned towards the shingle, the beauty of pebbles took hold, my hand reaching down to pick up a flattened ovoid of schist, a piece of chalcedony or a quartz veined slate.

‘Hang on a minute! You said you were “unshackled by geological concerns”, now you’re all “schist” this, “quartz veined” that. What (as the kids say) the flip?!’

Ah, well kids, you see now I'm reading Clarence Ellis's The Pebble on the Beach – A Spotter's Guide, recently re-designed and re-published by Faber & Faber. I'm getting the gist of the schist.

It's a really nice read and has a lovely 'fold-off' cover that reveals the illustrated spotter's guide. You can find out more about it on the Guardian's website here. It's unapologetically über-nerdy so you'll get the longshore drift of the 'swash', the 'backwash' and the 'fetch' and so much more that I don't think you'll look at a beach the same way again.

I'll be testing that out next weekend as we head northcoastwards once more. 

 

Homage to Romek

 

Around the middle of 2017 I made one of these, just for the pleasure of sewing those lines and pinning those pins: The Marber Grid, rendered in cotton thread and map pins on a canvas board. A tribute to Romek's very clever system that brought unity to so many Penguin and Pelican covers through the 60s and 70s.

It was pretty well received on the social medias back then and again more recently when I made one for friend-from-the-internet Daniel Benneworth-Gray. So I'm now making them them to order — there are a few of them out there now, hanging on various walls.

The grid is re-created, by hand, at actual size, as the great designer intended it, i.e. Penguin and Pelican paperback size.

I've mounted mine in a 30 x 40cm Gunnabo from IKEA but they don't seem to be available now so I've switched to the Hovsta (available in dark brown, medium brown and birch). These have the necessary extra depth for the map pins and I'd be happy to supply the 'Homage' framed the same way, or you can take care of framing yourself.

There's a bit of work involved but I'm keeping my pricing as tight as a taut thread, hence: 
Framed: £75 / Unframed: £65

Happy to include UK postage and packaging in that cost but will have to charge a little extra if you're further afield – I'll let you know how much before you commit. If you'd like one email me by clicking here. We can arrange payment through PayPal (if you don't have an account it's really easy to sign up). Allow around two to three weeks for me to make your 'Homage to Romek'.

 

Map pins mark the critical grid points:

One grey thread represents the broken line on RM's original drawing.

Click each image for a closer look.

 

—
Post updated 31.12.17

Beachy

Everyone loves a pebble, don't they? In fact, I would go as far to say that if you don't like pebbles, you don't like life. You are a fool. A fool!

I will concede though that 'pebbles' is personal. My wife, for example, being of pure heart and mind chooses the whitest of white examples. Immaculately cleaned by the violent salty tumult, their chalky surfaces seem quite unnatural to me. No, the impeccable stone is not for me. Tainted by the mess of life I favour a beach gem to mirror my scarred soul.

A couple of weeks ago we were up on Northern Ireland's north coast for a few days. Man, it's a remarkable coast! And with a land-locked upbringing behind me, living so close to the craggy land edge of this island is all the more exhilarating.

In Memoriam

It's coming up to two years since my Dad died and in a way I'm more aware of his presence than ever before. Memories of Dad and tools go together like 'Spear' and 'Jackson'. As those two years have passed I've had numerous reasons to reach for one thing or another. My Dad came from the look-after-your-tools-and-they'll-look-after-you school of hard knocks, as opposed to our use-it-and-throw-it-away kindergarten of fluff.

These tools feel like they are engrained with the imprint of his hands. That bradawl and the carpenter's pincers down below go with the mallet I posted ages ago. That serious looking steal contraption below is a ratchet brace. I have no idea what I'll use it for but I'm itching to put holes in things with it.

I have a friend whose Mum died this week. That's terribly sad. Everyone's experience of loss is different so I can't imagine how he's really feeling right now. He shared a beautiful photo of her and (I hope he doesn't find the comparison offensive) it connected with what I'd already started to write here.

Whatever you believe or don't believe, I think it's a blessing that the memory of our loved ones live on not just in our minds but in the artefacts they leave behind. Photos are vivid – for me, my Dad's tools say as much about him as anything could. My friend is unlikely to feel this right now, with his Mum's passing so sharply in focus, but these things can bring great comfort as they conjure warm memories of the times we spent with those no longer here.

Houston, we have a problem…

They said it couldn’t be done. They said, it was impossible. They said that 'The Thing' could not ‘travel’ to 'The Place'; that it could not happen. It was impossible.

Even now, some claim that it did not happen. They claim that it could not have happened. But let me tell you, with complete certainty, that it did happen. I know. I was there. I saw it.

Yes…the postman really did post a commemorative 45” single from 1969 through our letterbox. A letterbox, notably, not big enough for this vintage News of the World give-away. A letterbox that measures less than the requisite 7” across, at its widest point.

So how did he do it? I here you ask. HTF? (As the younger generation might abbreviate). How was it possible to bend the laws of physics, to pervert known science – to make something so big, fit through something so not big? How?

By bending it. By fecking bending it.

 

But this was no flexidisc, oh no. This disc did not flex. Or bend. It did not bend and it did not flex. It did not fold and it did not contort. It did, what it had to do. All that it could do.

It fecking broke.

We can send a man to the moon. We can record the account of that journey and we can press that account into a disc of plastic to be played back using a turny thing and a needle. We can package that disc of plastic inside a printed account of the remarkable happenings of that time. We can slip both disc and leaflet into a printed space map depicting the journey made all those years ago. And we can stick all that stuff into a specially manufactured glossy card sleeve with a moon boot on the front.

But we can’t post all that shit through a hole smaller than it without something happening that is not supposed to happen. It's a scientific fact.

[Report Ends]

About a Buoy

For the last lots of months I’ve been immersed in the wild and wind-sweaped world of the Irish lighthouse. It’s been a challenging project, to say the least, and has involved many varied interesting things and not much time.

During the research period, I got my hands of a copy of Brown’s Signal Reminder – essential seafaring documentation. Now I can semaphore, code like a Morse, run alphabetical flags up my rigging whenever I feel like it and, crucially, harmonize my system of buoyage.

Cross

In Umbria €3, after a little accidental haggling, gets you a Nurse/Nun's vintage Red Cross ID card at the local flee-sized flee market that you accidentally pass on your way to buy your hungry family breakfast. Printed interestingness aside, the photo adds a whole other dimension to the ephemeric provocation: Who was this Nun/Nurse/Nurse-Nun? I don't know. But I do know my family is hungry so I'd better get a move on before they twig I'm taking too long.

Mortices and Markings

I've got this side project on at the moment; a writing project. It's taking me flippin' ages to be honest but it's bringing me into contact with some really interesting people. People I have to interview, about their jobs. So far, I've met a few people in the film industry, a basket maker, a theatre lighting technician, a set designer and last Friday, a joiner working on restoration projects for the National Trust. We met in his workshop. His workshop made of wood, that smells of wood and is full of tools…and wood.

Now you may remember, I have carpentry in my blood. Sawdust runs through my veins. The sight of a vintage Spear & Jackson saw or a handsome flat blade wood plane is enough to make me reach for my beechwood mortice and marking gauge. It's THAT exciting.

Designers, writers, coders; we're all making stuff. We all manipulate materials – either physical or metaphysical – chiselling away at things, dovetailing seperates into connecteds. Sawing things into sections before shaving away layers. Drilling into the undrilled. Finely sanding before waxing and polishing.

Whether it's words, pictures or commands, it's not that different to wood. Not really. It's just less natural, less grown. Manufactured material instead of harvested material. A few more steps away from the natural order of things.

I think the reason why woodwork has prevailing appeal, to me at least, is because of its proximity to nature and our more instinctive side. It's hunter gatherer stuff and once we've grown weary of the glossy mass produced world, the hand made and downright wonky, if I have anything to do with it, tuggs at our hearts.

There and brack again

Spring. And with it returns more opportunities to scratch around the shoreline for discarded bivalve mollusc casings; washed up from their brackish habitats for macroscopic scrutiny.

Re-post: Rabbet

[From July 2012]

My dad made this rabbet plane. It's for cutting rebates in wood. Rabbet/Rebate? I can't find any explanation but you have to wonder about that name? A dialectic thing? Or just because it's got that sticky-up bit and reminds you of a rabbit. Well, actually, it doesn't really does it? If it wasn't for the name, you wouldn't think, "looks like a rabbit that does" would you? I've had a dig around but no one on the internet seems to want to talk about it.

I suppose it doesn't matter really. What matters is that this beautiful piece of routed hardwood, with it's decades old construction marks and wear was used to carve grooves and recesses into machined wood. Say for, oh I don't know, perhaps for a glazing bar where it makes provision for the insertion of the pane of glass or to accommodate the edge of a cabinet's back panel or for a casement window jamb or for shiplap planking.

[Much later]

Oh, the word "rabbet" is from the Old French "rabbat" meaning "a recess into a wall".

The Weed

We were up on the north coast on Sunday, visiting Karen's friend Abigail. She has a place in Cushendall. The beach on Cushendall gets lots of sea debris and with a good few days of amazing weather, the detritus was all dried out. Ready for picking.

To the unfamiliar, most of the flotsam and jetsam looks like the dried stems of bulbous flowers. But of course those heads are seaweed roots, their dehydrated tendrils twisted into alien, slightly creepy, shapes.

There's more to freak you out on Flickr.

Storehouse meets Oomph!

We've been working with Storehouse for a few years now. A foodbank, Storehouse take in donations of none perishable food stuffs and redistribute them amongst those that need it most. It's amazing (and quite sad) to realise there are people just down the road from you that really need basic help like this. So Storehouse encourages supporters to buy a bit extra when they shop and to leave it at predetermined collection points (lots are in churches).

There's probably a foodbank near you, it's a concept that's been applied all over the place and is a great way for anyone to make a difference to the lives of people in need within your community. I suppose that's "the thing", they're in your neighbourhood. There's more specifically about Storehouse here.

My colleagure Al is the main man for Storehouse; he's designed most of the stuff we've done. So when Jack from Oomph! got in touch and asked if we had any idea for their cards it occurred to us that a major challenge with Storehouse can be getting supporters to remember, long term, to pick up something to donate.

So Al designed a card and Oomph! produced it for us. It's a great use of the format and Oomph! make it really easy to use the credit card format in new and original way.

Find out more about Oomph! here.

Dufle Minor

It was my birthday on Monday. No, please, there's no need to apologies, when you get to my ages, you know…something, something. Anyway, got some nice presents. A sea fishing rod, Iron Man on DVD, a four-pack of Cadbury's DoubleDeckers, a part-used pack of crayons that was actually given to us last month on the ferry to Scotland (special thanks to Seth for that one).

I also got a rather lovely mini Dufle — for my pocket-sized device — from super-talented/would-be-nothing-without-her Edie Sloane, aka Karen, my wife.

Loose Threads

Cotton thread is ever present in our home life. Largely because the International manufacturing hub of Karen's handmade empire is located in our dining room, with its centre of production pretty much overwhelming our dining table. A few minutes before dinner, almost everyday, the table has to be routinely cleared. And it's not uncommon to find small clumps of discarded threads here and there.

It struck me the other day that these spartan cotton nests are kind of beautiful.

Clutchers

A little shorter than normal, the Fürst 2.0 clutch pencil is my scribbling implement of choice. I used to be a propelling kind of guy; the Rotring does take some beating. But the clutch pencil comes with something, a special pleasure, that the propeller doesn't have…A lead sharpener in the end. Really! You just unscrew the shiny (so shiny!) end — not forgetting to extend the lead a little first (got to do that first!) — then for the next two to three minutes you can whittle over; to your heart's content, as they say.

And with your freshly sharpened point(s) you can return to your drawing board, with renewed vigour. A new and better world is just a few sketches away.

You can buy your own, world changing Fürst 2.0 over at Herb Lester. And while your there, check out the mighty 5.6mm beast.

Exercise

Just before Christmas, Nat in the studio, got a really nice package from the Italian paper manufacturer Fedrigoni. We all looked on enviously. But not one to let these things lie, I promptly contacted the company and they kindly sent me my own copy. Part calendar, part Woodstock paper range school exercise book style promo, the pack was design by The One Off. And it comes with a pencil and some string; it's lovely.

It's a cloud. And it's in your living room.

Yep, a "weather station with an indoor cloud function". Of course. Using data from Sweden's Met Office it brings the outdoors, inside. From those clever people that brought us the iPad powering rocking chair.

It's all here.

Ian and Michael's Secret Emporium of Vintage Delights

Last week I finished my stint guest blogging for Herb Lester. It was fun. I wrote a set of entries on peculiar corners of Belfast (and a little beyond). The last post was about the shop over the road from our studio. If you want to head down there, it's opposite Portview on the Lower Newtownards Road.

Smaller Than Expected

And it's not even real leather.

Creative partnership Asbury & Asbury have partnered with creative partnership Hat-trick Design to create, in partnership, a thoroughly disappointing piece of work. Your 2013 diary: complete with contact details of people who never call and those you owe money to; a place to note ideas you'll never follow up, a map of roads to nowhere and a page left unintentionally blank.

Lower your expectations and you may still be left wanting.

You may purchase your limited edition diary here.

Rock

It's "The World's first power generating iPad Rocking Chair", the perfect Christmas gift (if you're a bit flush) for your old man. He can rest his tired bones and power up his iPad all at the same time.

International (Dead) Man of Mystery

Just over the road from the studio the shop with no name opened last month. That's not it's real name (that's why I didn't give it initial caps) but that is what it is. I asked the owner. I asked, "What's this place called then?", "It's not called anything", he said, "it's the shop with no name", and laughed.

There's all sorts of stuff in the shop with no name; load's of old stuff. It's not quite a junk shop, the stuff is more carefully selected than that. Neither is it a collector's emporium of rare delights, it's a bit too much of a mish-mash. But it's just over the road and it's perfect for a little lunchtime distraction.

On my first visit I bought two employment cards from the seventies. They were together and were clearly connected. Husband and wife perhaps? Relieved of a couple of quid I retreated back to my desk to absorb my vintage find.

Husband and wife? Hmmm…Well she's a little older. Then close examination revealed the unexpected: Mr and Mrs Employee were actually one and the same person. Not, as I intially thought, a cross dresser. Smart young made adopts the dress sense of a middle aged lady? No, that's not fair, Mr Employee's mop top and cravat suggest a more dapper demeamor. I think our man was really a bit of a dude. And with his exotic, Trinidadian background quite the hit with the ladies.

Temporary Herbster

Truly, madly, deeply honoured to be writing this month for Herb Lester's Journal. During October I'll be offering a smattering of sneaky peeks into some of my favouraite bits of Belfast, opening up with the easily missed but highly evocative Linen Hall Library.

Dead Man's Stuff

I get my hair cut at The Best Little Hair House in Belfast. Often on a Saturday. But you don't really want to know that do you? Andrew does it usually. A wee snip here and there, leave it messy please, a little more off the front. And while he clips and cuts, we always have a nice chat about what's going on. He's got his ear to the ground. He knows stuff.

None of this is relevent to be honest except that on my way home afterwards I tend to take a sneaky peak in at the charity bookshop en route. If I'm lucky I might pick up a…Pelican (or a Penguin). Last Saturday though I picked up a whole different bundle of shit. Tucked in behind the atlases (atlas's? atli?) was a murky old folder. Interesting, I thought, what's in that then?

Well this is what was in that. 

It turns out the previous owner of the folder was a seafaring type. In fact, there he is. Perhaps recently deceased, in his earlier, very much more alive days, I imagine nothing could keep that grin on his face like setting sail for a voyage of adventure around the British Isles. My favourite thing though is that chart at the bottom there. That's Stangford Lough, which locals will know and is a very beautiful part of NI - and encompasses our favourite place, Castle Ward.

Anyway, a folder full of dead mans shit: £1. Thank you very much.

Mallet

It's become a new tradition. When I/we visit my parents in England my Dad sends me off to his shed to pilfer anything I might find useful. You may remember last year I described an earlier session. Dad's not able-bodied enough to carpent like he used to. In fact, it's quite clear that his sawing days are over. But we're not a morbid family and practicalism always comes to bear.

Not that I've been able to take just anything. After this last trip it occurred to me that you could chart how precious his tools have been to him using some arrangement of concentric circles. His most prized tools sitting closer to the centre. And with each trip he has granted me greater access to the inner circles.

This time I selected just a few items; items that held memories from the distant past. My Dad's mallet was one of them. I'm pretty sure he made it himself when he was quite a young man. It would be a typical piece for him to have made: robust; durbable; impervious to attack from heavy artillery.

I found it in a cupboard and when I saw it it felt just about as familiar an object as any I have around me every day. Even though I haven't seen it for years, it felt like meeting a friend I'd lost touch with but who "hadn't changed a bit". Well, perhaps a few more lines; a bit of wear and tear.

Dad's never really been a big talker, not on a personal level. He has always been good at talking at the telly, during the news; he says outrageous things. My point is, we've never been "close" but somehow, when I look at Dad's mallet I see him, the real him.

Beachy

Hands up who doesn't love a beach?

Thought so. Everyone loves a beach. Even in inclement weather there's much to entertain you on a beach. Karen is facinated by rock pools and we can spend hours poking around for trapped sea life: hermit crabs, shrimps, the occassional blood sucker, a sea snail here and there. Unidentifiable fish. Once, on the north coast of Ireland, we cornered an enormous jelly fish in a particularly deep and still pool, to study from a safe distance, until we set it free (being careful to avoid contact of course).

I like to comb. For small, pilferable natural phenomena.

We travelled across many miles

We've just come back from our summer holiday. Did I say "holiday"? I should have said "odyssey". To us it was an epic journey of unfeasible length. A journey through lands foreign to us (Scotland, England and Kent). By car, we travelled across many miles. By ferry, we journeyed across a vast expanse of ocean. By car, we travelled across many miles (again). In my Mum's house we had dinner, slept a bit and ate many wine gums. Then by car, we travelled across many miles (again, again). Until finally, FINALLY we reached the next stage of our journey.

And it's at this point our journey became so very strange, the account of it sounds more akin to an extract from a Jules Verne novel than a true report of an actual, real occurance. Get this: We travelled in our car, on a train, through a an enormous tube, under the very bed of the sea. And when we emerged from our subterranian experience, at the distant end of the mega-pipe, we were in…another country. A country known by some as "France".

Finally, FI-NA-LLY! France. Finally, we had reached…the next stage of our journey.

By car, we travelled across "beaucoup de milles".

 

Fungus Meets Photosynthetic Partner

May. And with it comes the urge to be out. By the sea. On rocks. Photographing lichen.

Lightweight #04

It's another one of those "can't believe I've never posted this" things. Like most of my stuff, it's not specifically special. Except it looks pretty cool, it's in perfect condition, cost me not very much and has twiddly bits.

Lightweight #03

It's time I organised my light meter entires so I've added a new category to bundle them all together. Right. What can I tell you about the Prinzlite?…

Er…

The Prinzlite. What can I tell you?

Er…

Well, nothing. Sorry. But it looks cool doesn't it?

The Fallen (2012)

Towards the end of the growing season last year we experienced a minor mini rodent problem in our greenhouse. Just a few mice. With humane traps bated with peanut butter (crunchy) and fragments of chocolate coins, one by one, the culprits were caught, jarred and re-homed in the estate that houses the Northern Ireland Assembly. 

Despite warnings to the contrary I soon had the little blighters under control and after a few weeks our unwelcome lodgers were all relocated. I'm happy to report there has been no sign of any more. Not that Karen quite believes that they've all gone. Which is the reason why she/we neglected to clear the greenhouse last year. Instead, we left much to rot and decay over the winter months.

Consequently, earlier today, I was presented with my new assignment: Clear all the shit out and make doubly sure there is nothing still living inside. Perhaps some would recoil from a task like that but not me. In fact, I jumped at the chance. Weird though it may sound to some, I find decay as beautiful as it is gross; especially when isolated and photographed against an unnnatural surface, like the galvanised steel shelves.

A little while later and it was job done, greenhouse cleared. And I can report that, without any shadow of a doubt, there is definitely nothing living inside. If you're interested, there more dead stuff here.

Stick Man, oh Stick Man

Did you see The Gruffalo's Child over Christmas? Just like last year's Gruffalo, it was beautiful. Really lovely. Slow paced, gentle, funny. As a homage, I made Stick Man with an off-cut from our Christmas tree.

So wrong. So right.

Right. I can publish this now. My Thought Collective Secret Santa gift to Nat. It was all her idea, the Secret Santa thing, then she uped and finished a few days early so I had to post her's out. Now she's got it and it's no longer a secret I can do this.

I was at a craft fair a couple of weeks before Christmas and Emma (aka acacia360) was there selling her notebooks and diaries made from recycled games and books. It was weird: I immediately liked her stuff but a little part of me was also a bit disturbed by it all. Emma cuts old stuff up! It's something I've wrestled with; I've made things myself from old stuff; pulled apart, torn, sliced, ripped. It feels kind of wrong but the results can, and in Emma's case clearly are, pretty amazing.

Merry Christmas

I decided not to send an actual, proper Christmas cards this year. Instead, I've done like everyone else and made one of these. Seems to be the new fangled thing to do nowadays. Seasonal whatsits to you and your's. I'm off to get drunk with my wife and colleagues.

Tooled Up

 

 

 

 

Nice bit of perforated hardboard there. Ideal for, say, a wall of tools. Imagine this: A whole wall, covered in perforated hardboard, proliferated with many hooks and pegs. Each hook or peg supporting a hand tool: a spirit level, micrometer, steel rule, height gauge, vernier calliper; carver clamp, warrington hammer, ball & claw pincer, insulated snipe-nose plier. Just imagine it; an entire wall of tools: Wire stripper, 6-way ferrule crimping tool, hand brace, spokeshave, threaded nut rivet kit, combination square, hand mitre saw. A threaded rod cutter. You never know when you might need a threaded rod cutter.

I mean, a vast panorama of precision-made usefulness, stretching for as far as the eye can see. A boundless vista of engineered practicalness at your fingertips. Each rigorously manufactured device designed to facilitate the expediting of a particular task. And all presented on a peg-board backed toolscape.

Fwaor!

 

Lightweight #02

A recent addition to one of my most pointless collections. I only have a handful of vintage light meters but each is a masterpiece of everyday engineering. I'm not even much of a photographer - What need do I have for a light meter? None. Which is good because full functionality is of no interest to me. No. To qualify for membership of this particular assemblage only the following criteria must be met:

a) It must be a light meter

b) It must be old(ish)

c) It must have swiddly bits

It would be fair to say that (c) is actually the most important characteristic.

Oh, the horror!

That's Christmas sorted this year and all thanks to The Ministry of Stories, We Made This and probably some other people too. Monster Supplies, online. Gruesome.

Moustache Post No.2

The 'tache certainly has come into its own over the last few years. Not so long ago it was the comical facial feature of the Village Person or the excentric balloonist; perhaps a Frenchman; the occasional retired General or shell-shocked Bombardier; the untrust-worthy salesman; Mercury.

Now, it seems it is quite acceptible to sport a substantial lip hedge in civilised society without fear of ridicule. Sestament to this State of the Internation is Cicanda's new gift book, The Inspirational Moustache.

Northern Rock

We got a week on the North Coast just before the kids went back to school. It was epic. Somehow, even though we've been in NI for seven years, we haven't really spent any time up there. It's probably the most impressive part of the province. So we did all the obvious but dead exciting things: The Causeway, the Rope Bridge, White Park Bay was amazing. Nick from The Apprentice interupted our picnic at Ballintoy Harbour and we spotted basking sharks from the ferry to Rathlin.

And, predictably, I looked at rocks.

Favourite Pebble Style

We've all got one haven't we? For some, it might be the Red Nankin or White Cochin. Others might prefer the classic grey base and white lined Clonmore - the graphic designer's favourite. Then there's the Merkle, Norwegian Mulefoot and the Black. You might lean towards shape rather than colour and tone: The Kidney, the one the Germans call the Ungekochtes Brot or (the schoolboy's choice) the Flat Cap (perfect skim-fodder but if it's the one for you I guess you're not going to lob it back into the briny willy-nilly).

This is mine. The Simmental.

The Meanley Fillpot Teapot

There's only two of us, at the last count. Northern Irish members of 26 I mean. Just me and Gillian. And I'm English so I probably don't count. I shouldn't. Gillian is, of course, much better qualified than me to be a 26er. A proper, professional, skilled writer. On the other hand, I'm a charlatan. Not so much a writer as a stringer of words. Sticking them together so they hang, dangerously weak. Held together by sticky tape and Pritt Stick. Sliced with a scalpel and spray mounted in line.

That's how I managed to wriggle my way onto the writer's list for our branch of this year's 26 Treasures. Now I'm on, it's woefully clear I'll be outwritten and out outwrote by everyone else.

A bit of background: Last year, the writer's collective 26 devised 26 Treasures. Working with the V&A, 26 writers were each paired with an exhibit about which they would respond with 62 words. It's all here. This year, the project has gone regional with branches in NI, Scotland and Wales. In NI, we're being a bit awkward. We're roping in 26 artists/designers to add a different angle on the thing. So there are 26 writers (not all 26 members clearly) who each get bundled with an artist/designer and an exhibit in the Ulster Museum. The writer writes and then the artist/designer does his/her stuff.

In October, the results will be brought together in an exhibition at the museum that will form part of of the Belfast Festival at Queen's. All pretty exciting really. And I'm really pleased to be working with artist/photographer Sonya Whitefield and a self-portrait-pot by Peter Meanley.

Staring at the ground

As previously suggested, I spend a little too much time looking down. Last weekend we were camping at Castleward. Not adventurous camping. No. Cozy, easy-to-bail-out camping just an hour's drive away. OK, it was cold at night and we were in our own tent. I mean, we weren't glamping. But still, not exactly living in the wilds; Bacon and egg every morning and organic burgers for tea. A pot of espresso on the stove and a bottle of red to keep our strength up.

When we weren't huddling together for warmth, frying up a car crash breakfast or searching for the puncture in one of the air beds, we were on our bikes, heading pier-wards for a spot of crabbing. Armed with rinds for the pinchers and a picnic for us.

Beautifully textured, ancient piers.

The Art Varoom

I used to be a member of the Association of Illustrators. It was probably my last year at college, I was studying Illustration and that's what I thought I wanted to do. Illustration was, perhaps, on the wane at the time, not that I had my finger on its pulse but one thing lead to another and my career took a different fork.

Of course, fast forward a bag full of years and it feels like the art of the illustration has exploded in a barrage of creativity and styles. For the art directors that commission illustration nowadays their minds must be boggled by the options. A couple of week's ago Evgenia from the AOL sent me the latest edition of their journal Varoom!. I didn't know it existed and while a bundle of years ago I might not have taken much notice, right now, a magazine that represents the organisation makes too much sense.

Yes, OK, there's probable a pile of magazines, fanzines and journals packed full of drawings; I'm not saying this stands alone in any way. It's just that, for me personally, Varoom! is a welcome blast from the past, partly because it's the AOL and partly because it feels like an industry journal "like they used to make". I'm obviously getting old.

Special Branch

Better get this posted before we're too far into the Spring/Summer for it to be even slightly relevent; once all the leaves are out, that'll be it.

This is something I've been meaning to do for ages. Have come close a couple of times then bailed out thinking it's just too mundane even for Ace Jet. This is one of those things I imagine we all do. I mean, we all love tree tops don't we? Especially when they're leafless and the sky's a bit gloomy. Perhaps you've got a few snaps of them yourself? I keep taking them, then I figure, no one wants to see my tree top photos. Not when they've got their own to look at. So these are really just here for my reference. Feel free to move along swiftly. Sorry for wasting your time.

North did a thing for Dalton Maag once that used leafless tree tops. A type specimen book. That's what made me think, like the clouds, we all like them. For me it's their monochromatic/silhouetteness. Like they're etched and flat. Not all 3D and manychromatic, like what they really are. And then there's the thought that if you could dig them up and turn them upside down they'd look the same. Not just my thought. That's obviously not an original idea; lots of people have thought that. But still, it's interesting isn't it?…Isn't it?