Back in January I painted this, the first painting in a very long time. It’s obviously inspired by my book club here in London, Camden Girls Book Club, where I’ve made a handful of friends and it is relaxing, nice night out.

I tried to make the girls anonymous, but my husband figured out who was who within 5 seconds. Oh well!

If you’re in the London area and interested in joining us, we usually meet the first Monday of the month at Drink, Shop & Do, but I think in April and May we will be meeting the 2nd Monday due to upcoming holidays. For more information on the book club, please visit our website.

Happy International Women’s Day! To celebrate, here’s a post about my favourite female artists, some of who are involved in human rights.

Yoko Ono

I can’t say I love all her work, but I love the fact that she does whatever she wants to do and she doesn’t care what people think. I saw two of her exhibits last year – “To The Light” at the Serpentine Gallery in London’s Hyde Park, and then “Grapefruit” at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The exhibits were very similar but I enjoyed them both, for being uniquely out there and engaging with the audience (at both exhibits you could contribute you own wishes for the world on the wish tree)

Since the 1960s, she’s also been a human rights activist. She displays her wish for world peace through some of her work such as the Imagine Peace tower, which is in Reykjavik, Iceland. You can view the live webcam from the tower here.

Stella Vine

To be honest, I don’t know much about Stella Vine except I love everything I’ve seen of hers and I find her work to be really inspiring. One thing I do know is she contributed some of her work towards a women’s rights exhibit for Amnesty International, which is awesome. She’s having her first London show in 6 years on May 25th! Location TBA.

Elizabeth Peyton

I think her and I have very similar tastes in music and pop culture, which is what attracts me to her work. She’s famous for her paintings of Britpop legends such as Jarvis Cocker and Liam Gallagher. She also has done portraits of other rock stars such as the White Stripes, David Bowie, Kurt Cobain and Pete Doherty. I saw Peyton’s “Live Forever” exhibit at New York’s New Museum a few years ago, and it was brilliant.

If you’d like to celebrate International Women’s Day, here’s a list of events going on in the UK. xx

Going back to about 2007, I lived in New York City and had a friend named Marie. She had moved to the West Village from Chicago, was an artist and loved most things in the New York underground LGBT performing arts scene. She had a cat called The Count, who was loved by all. He had a certain magic about him that makes you think he was human in a past life.

This is a painting I did of Marie and The Count back then. Last time I saw it, it was hanging up in Marie’s apartment.

Everytime I see the movie Shortbus (Marie is in it) or think of the West Village, I think of her and that cat.

xoxox

While I was in the office the other day I noticed a brand new mural being painted just outside my window. It turns out it was the well-known French street artist Thierry Noir, who is known for having painted parts of what’s left of the Berlin Wall.

You can also see a mushroom by Christiaan Nagel in the forefront!

I was excited about seeing Theirry’s finished work when I returned to the office – only to find it had already been destroyed by some graffiti. Plus, the Christiaan Nagel mushroom was gone. I really don’t understand why people want to ruin a piece of work as soon as it’s finished, or steal something like a giant fake mushroom. So, this is what it looks like at the moment:

However, I’d like to say that I found out Thierry did another mural, in collaboration with the London street artist, Stik, that’s right around the corner, MUCH more accessible to vandalism (which is why it’s confusing the other one was ruined instead) and I really love it. I hope it actually stays this way.

In other news: I just bought a set of watercolour paints! I haven’t done any watercolour for years, so I don’t know how long it’ll be before I’m brave enough to post any of them, but we’ll see!