Oh Comely magazine issue 19, mar/apr 14

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issue nineteen MAR/APR 2014

A spoonfuL of coloUr lionel shriver on how to be happy the alchemy of light through hand-blown glass tie-dye swirls and bleach-splashed jeans the man who hears colour and a slice of medieval pie

this magazine will make you smile and post a package to a perfect stranger fire clay pots on a beachside bonfire cook a spiced medieval feast tie dye everything

oh comely

keep your curiosity sacred editors liz bennett, des tan

deputy editor rosanna durham fashion liz seabrook film jason ward editorial maggie crow, olivia wilson, tamara vos music linnéa enström features assistant fab gorjian thanks megan conery, julia konopka, kirsty lee words annie atkins, hannah bailey, benjamin brill, laura cronk, stephanie georgopulos, lisa jarmin, ellie phillips, nix ruberry, susan schorn, ava szajna-hopgood, kirsty smith, victoria watts, sophie wright pictures carl bigmore, joanna boyle, alice burnfield, toby coulson, yang du, fiona essex, lauren field, anthony gerace, india hobson, steve kennedy, jane lee, harriet lee-merrion, amyisla mccombie, nicole miles, lúa ocaña, martina paukova, moon ribas, leroy sankes, alexander schneider, katarina smuraga, florence stadelmann, jamie stoker advertising emily knowles, emily.knowles@royalacademy.org.uk feedback and lost property, info@ohcomely.co.uk submissions, words@ohcomely.co.uk or pictures@ohcomely.co.uk oh comely, issue nineteen, mar/apr 2014. Published by Adeline Media Ltd six times a year.

Third Floor, 116 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6RD. 020 7831 8645.

Printed in the UK by The Manson Group.

Cover portrait, Jaimy Gail, by Leroy Sankes. On the back cover is a coloured pencil test doodle by Rosanna. www.ohcomely.co.uk Contents © 2014 Adeline Media Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission from the publishers, although conscientious and beleaguered fair users can relax and have a cup of tea. The views expressed in oh comely are not necessarily those of the contributors, editors or publishers, or the authors’ mothers.

ISSN 2043-9857.

The photos above and on the previous spread are from the series Devil Fool, by Spanish photographer LĂşa OcaĂąa.

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c o n te n t s it’s nice to see you here

20 the tenderness of stones marion fayolle’s illustrations are surreal, personal and utterly uncompromising 27 the colourful march of time bombay bicycle club’s new album cover

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30 a hundred years by the sea british sea power recorded a wordless soundtrack to seaside documentary through the decades

36 stained glass, stitching and sculpture a peer inside three artists’ studios 46 every man a rembrandt! the unerring craft of paint by numbers 48 in the shower with janet leigh escaping hitchcock’s iconic murder 52 ’chin up’ doesn’t cut it talking honestly about mental health through good weeks and bad

32 I pick something to be outraged about and then I write a book lionel shriver and the secret to happiness

56 you and I and the silence nils frahm’s intimate and intricate music is shaped by his listeners

58 there must be more to life than this making collage from squares, squares, squares

70 my little eye neil harbisson sees in black and white, but his sixth sense tells a different story

64 mister david’s bright yellow mixing colours with manchester’s oldest paint maker

72 a rose-tinted spectacle will coloured glasses make the world more magical?

68 watching the football up at the marshes the freezing fields and their gift of a tribe

78 ask better questions colour tricks by neuroscience’s best-known conjurer

82 head-to-toe tie dye

92 all you need is a good coat warm wraps for cold days

four ways to add a twist of colour to your wardrobe 90 washing strangers’ hair

98 what really happened in arizona I hired an imaginary hitman

they’ve all passed through my hands: the gossiper, the businesswoman and the silent stranger

100 I see the handwriting of the photographer this issue’s cover model on sitting for portraits

104 a proper newe booke of cokerye feasts and fancies like the middle ages never ended

122 what happens when you introduce 1,500 strangers to each other? boxes of surprises from our november care package project

108 tea-cup rainbow we lined up your hot drinks into a colour chart 110 which one of you is the oldest? sisters, brothers, and their stories 116 spores, phonebook, a strong stomach all your living room need is a mushroom farm

124 the post-it note liberation front you’ve stolen too many packs; now what?

126 colourful daydreams one and two I ate too much battenberg and dreamed of a pink and yellow cake shop 128 what’s your favourite colour? a colour wheel made out of the answers

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special deliveries a handmade book and postcards that made us smile send post to oh comely magazine: third floor, 116 high holborn, wc1v 6rd

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what we listened to songs that made this issue and illustrations by amyisla mccombie

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what we ate there was no snow this winter, so we made our own

Making your craft remarkable? It’s quite an art.

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some people who helped make this issue their stories about siblings and artistic journeys susan schorn, martial artist

steve kennedy, filmmaker

Susan explains how she’d beat Psycho’s Norman Bates in a shower fight, page 48.

Steve photographed Lionel Shriver in the jungles of Bali, page 32.

Tell us something about yourself and your work. I’m a 46-year-old mother of two who still isn’t entirely certain how she acquired black belts in Kyokushin and Seido karate. My writing focusses on conflict, in part because I’m a habitually belligerent person, but also because I am acutely aware of the impact violence— especially violence against women—has on individuals, families, and society.

Tell us about yourself and your work.

I co-founded and work with a group of people called Planetary Collective. We are currently working on our first feature documentary film in which we explore our shared cosmic origins, the state of the planet, and the future of life on Earth.

What do you love about being a martial artist? Martial arts training gives me a safe place to explore my physical power without endangering myself or others. It has taught me that the use of force can be incredibly healthy and healing, because while your beliefs and feelings and actions can be influenced by other people, your body is entirely yours. Experiencing what it’s truly capable of can give you a new perspective on yourself.

What’s your favourite colour and why?

I’m not a fan of bright hues or, God forbid, pastels, but green is my go-to colour when I’m not getting dressed for work. To me green symbolises growth and vigour and renewal, the outdoors, and things that go on being alive even when you’re not paying attention to them.

Susan’s book is out, Smile at Strangers And Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly.

What do you love about being a filmmaker? In the last few years I have met and spoken to some genuinely incredible human beings; I savour the opportunity to bring their ideas and stories to the world through film.

Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Tell us about a moment with one of them. I have two older brothers. When I was about ten, one of them told me that if I knocked on a door for long enough there was a statistical possibility, however small, that my hand might go through the door. It was my first lick of the madness of quantum physics.

You’ve been travelling the world for years. Tell us about something you found along the way. I’ve found that everywhere we’ve been, people tell us the weather has changed, that it never used to be like this.

I also once found a scorpion in my trousers after I’d already put them on. www.planetarycollective.com

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tamara vos, writer

amyisla mccombie, illustrator

Tamara grew mushrooms in a phonebook, and ate the results against her better judgement, page 116.

Amyisla invented patterns filled with a troupe of slapdash characters playing with coloured paint on page 9.

Tell us a little about yourself. Two years ago I spontaneously convinced my boyfriend to cycle from Portsmouth to the Himalayas with me. With no maps, no planning and several cheat train rides, we got as far as Turkey before we sold our bikes and relocated to London. Now, I write, serve steaks, explore the city and grow tomatoes on a window sill, waiting for my next impulse.

Tell us a little about your work. I graduated from Falmouth University and since then have been a freelance illustrator based between London and Cornwall.

My work is the result of lots of things that inspire me, and stories I hear.

What do you love most about writing?

Once a week, I go to the theatre to write reviews. It’s bliss to sit in the dark for two hours with undisturbed and heightened concentration. That is unless it’s a terrible play and sitting still is suddenly hell.

This issue we told stories about siblings.

Do you have any brothers or sisters? I have two younger sisters. When we were small we played a lot of make-believe, and we were always the same characters.

The middle one was the mother, I was the daughter, and the youngest was always a dog. She used to spend hours on all fours, drinking from a bowl on the floor and panting with her tongue out.

It used to drive my mum crazy when she ate her dinner without hands and woofed. That sister walks around the normal way now, thank God.

Could you talk about your use of humour, especially in the colourthemed patterns you’ve created for this issue? The reason I chose to use the people covering themselves in paint and getting paint everywhere is because that is me. I can’t do a piece of artwork without covering my hands, t-shirt, and even face most of the time, in paint. I wanted to depict the relationship I have with colour and that is messy, just like these characters I created.

Do you mix your own colours when painting? Yes, I always mix my own colours. I like pastel colours in my work, so there’s a lot of white going on in my palette. Peachy salmon is my favourite colour, I use it too much!

Do you have any brothers or sisters? My parents have a pug, does that count? He constantly gets very excited and bites his own foot. cargocollective.com/amyisla

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five quarters of an orange curated by olivia wilson

bright things that turn the world sunny side up

to win something in a lurid shade of tangerine, marmalade or mandarin, pop an email to free@ohcomely.co.uk by the end of march

TrashN2Tees make unique upcycled jewellery. These earrings are made from t-shirt shards and super snazzy they are too. trashn2tees.com Orange in colour but ethically green, this cherry wood bowl is made from timber that has fallen naturally. folksy.com/shops/InspiredToMake Curl up and get comfy with this cushion by Blueberry Park in the cutest coral shade. blueberry-park.co.uk Write down your secrets in these mini leather journals made by Bound

by Hand. There are two up for grabs. boundbyhand.co.uk Veja are our favourites. These orange sneakers in a size 6 would make for happy feet and happy faces. veja-store.com Smell citrusy fresh and clean with this soap from Scottish Fine Soaps. We have four sweet-smelling tins to give away. scottishfinesoaps.com

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black eyewear makes glasses with jazz musicians in mind Despite its name, Black Eyewear has one of the most colourful ranges of glasses around, all inspired by original styles from the 40s, 50s and 60s. We asked founder Robert Roope, whose private collection of vintage glasses reaches into the thousands just how many pairs he actually wears. (Five or six, depending on his mood.)

Tell us the story of Black Eyewear. I’ve had an optician’s shop since 1979. Over the years I noticed that when we’d phone up frame manufacturers to order a frame, they had often run out of the black ones. Damn it! I thought, I am going to make a small collection of frames that are all going to be black and nothing else. Eventually I had to introduce other colours, as people were asking for them.

In fact, we decided that having a range of colours available to try on was something missing from other opticians’ stores. Colour can really bring out your face, so we can get it a lot closer to what makes you feel good.

Each of your models is named after a jazz musician. How did this come about? I looked across the room at a picture that I love of all the great jazz musicians, taken in 1950s Harlem, and I realised that they were wearing similar models to those I was passionate about. So I thought: I am going to dedicate every model to one of those guys. They might never have worn glasses, but if they had ever come into my shop, this is the model that I reckon, listening to their music and knowing a bit about their character, they would choose.

The characteristics of the music and the musician inspire the model. For example, I designed a very big, chunky frame for Cannonball Adderley, because he was a very big, chunky guy with powerful, chunky music.

I make a prototype from bits and pieces. I file it, sellotape it, use bits of plasticine, I make this a bit bigger or that bit smaller; I literally sculpt it. Then I work with a frame maker and we build the final product together.

Black Eyewear / www.blackeyewear.com

Make Something Beautiful Be inspired by our collections on a hands-on practical workshop.

AW12 – Headpiece by Emma Yeo, photography by Haze at HZV Studio

Avant-garde Millinery Contemporary Calligraphy Life Painting Food Photography Fashion Illustration

FIND OUT MORE www.vam.ac.uk/workshops Victoria and Albert Museum

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rowena brown’s ceramic houses were first baked on the beach Rowena Brown of Rowboat London won our best-in-show rosette at the Made London design and craft fair for her range of calmlycoloured ceramic houses. She told us that people are drawn to them because the scale reminds them of childhood.

When, why and how did you start to make your dear little houses? I spend time in the Hebrides every summer with friends and family. One of our annual traditions has become doing a firing on the beach, where everyone makes something small out of clay.

We dig a hole in the sand, line it with pebbles and layer the clay objects with driftwood and dried seaweed and make a fire.

After spending the evening around the fire cooking our food and watching the sun go down, we douse the fire with seawater. In the morning we dig up the ceramics and see what colours and effects the fire has made.

At the very first firing we did some years ago, I made some very small buildings and used as my inspiration the Hebridean croft houses I saw around me. Out of all the work I had made up to that point, it was these tiny smokeblackened dwellings that captured people’s imagination the most.

Your colour choices are quietly beautiful and seem very considered. Can you tell us about this process? I paint the houses whichever colour I feel like at the time. Then, after a firing, I will have a table top covered in houses that I arrange and rearrange until I have colours and shapes that sit perfectly together. This process takes at least a day and sometimes several days.

Do you have any houses in your home, and whereabouts do they live? I have a constantly-changing row of houses on a shelf in the hallway, just above eye level.

Rowboat London / www.rowboatlondon.co.uk

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the tenderness of stones interview and translation sophie wright

marion fayolle’s surreal illustrations offer no nostalgia and demand no empathy

Top and bottom: small figures from L’Homme En Pièces.

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Marion Fayolle is a French illustrator. In her world, parents water their children like plants, a lover takes a bath in her boyfriend’s head and bodies break in two under the strains of relationships. She is one of the cofounders of the French illustration magazine Nyctalope and author of several books.

You’ve said that you like to write with pictures—what is the relationship between words and pictures in your work? My first book, L’Homme En Pièces (In Pieces), is completely mute. The characters move just like words: in a line and on a white background. They are like fixed units that have the same regularity as font.

I start with an image that is like the first word of a sentence, and then I animate it.

This lets me make stories that are very visual and surreal, where my characters are free to express themselves physically. I enjoy playing with language too, like illustrating wordplay in a very literal way. In L’Homme En Pièces, the ’blended family’ is a family that has literally been cut in two then remade from different bits and pieces.

You’ve spoken about how making your latest book, La Tendresse Des Pierres (The

Tenderness of Stones), was almost like preparing a piece of theatre. Tell us about your idea of the ’spectacle littéraire’ (literary performance). For La Tendresse Des Pierres, I started by writing the text. I wrote a set of small chapters, like you would write a novel, without much dialogue. For the layout of the pictures, it was like staging a play. My characters are like actors or dancers. They all walk around barefoot and are always the same scale. You watch them from a distance, like you would watch a show. Their bodies speak more than their faces. I wanted to choreograph these pictures to explore the text, finding new ways of expressing what words alone could never say.

The book revolves around a delicate theme, a personal story of illness. Can you tell us how this project came about? Was it difficult to create something imaginary when it was based on real facts? It tells the story of my father’s illness, the ways in which it shattered our family life and my relationship with his strong character. It took a long time to summon the courage to start the project and throw myself into such an ambitious and dangerous book. I was worried that it would fall into the easy trap of an

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autobiographical tale that obliges the reader to feel empathy. Treating the subject with a mock naivety and a surreal edge allowed me some distance.

There seems to be a dialogue between childlike naivety and more adult themes in your work. Do you have a different approach when you make your children’s books? I like it when there is a mismatch between subject and style. You think it’s going to be a really sweet story and actually it could turn out to be much darker. I love when there are surprises and contradictions between what we see and what is being said.

You do have to change your ideas a bit when you address kids. But for me, it’s really important to keep these contrasts. I like the kinds of transformations that are surprising and unsettling. Le Tableau (The Painting) is an impossible love story between a man and a woman in a painting. Children will read the story one way, adults in another. There is a story, but there are also things that exist beyond it.

In Pieces has been published in English

by Nobrow Press. Marion Fayolle / cargocollective.com/marionfayolle.

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This spread and next: pages from The Tenderness of Stones. The text above translates, �Oddly enough, it was when I started this book that the disease came back. I was in the middle of drawing the outlines of his sickly lung on the very first pages when the men in white told us that he was in relapse. I felt like I had made his tumour return. When my page was white, Dad was in remission. I started my drawing and the disease came back to life.�

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�His transformation had allowed him to seize complete control over us. He had become a hot-headed and demanding king. His regime was more or less a dictatorship. Under his command, he had two devoted servants ready to do anything to please him.�

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the colourful march of time words linnéa enström

bombay bicycle club’s album cover revives victorian animation

A running deer, dancing couples, flowers blooming. Phenakistoscopes were early one-person cinemas, decorated wheels that animate motion if spun around. The cover art of So Long, See You Tomorrow, indie quartet Bombay Bicycle Club’s fourth album, draws on the repetitive nature of the phenakistoscope. The wheel tells a story, but will always return to the same point, forever trapped in a circle.

Inspired by the stop-motion images of nineteenth-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge and designed by award-winning studio La Boca, the colourful cover illuminates the themes and musical

structure of the album. The joyful melodies, invigorated by highflying vocals and off-beat rhythms, are in themselves a series of loops interlinked by one great loop.

Bass player Ed Nash said, “It’s based on the idea of trying to change but eventually returning to the starting point. The man and woman appear to walk away from each other yet remain in the same place, while the sunset and sunrise give an added dimension of time. We wanted to visualise the underlying theme of repetition that runs through the album.” So Long, See You Tomorrow is out now.

We think that happiness is some little oasis where you sit around sipping piña coladas. That is not happiness. It is getting up in the morning and not having enough time to do everything, having too many emails, and something in the day that excites you and you don’t know what’s going to happen.

It’s about uncertainty, engagement, direction and motion. It is not a position, it is a tra jectory.”

Lionel Shriver, page 32

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coralie, by anthony gerace

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a hundred years by the sea words linnéa enström, portrait jamie stoker

british sea power recorded an almost wordless soundtrack for archive footage of britain’s coastline

Many bands seek to break the mould. British Sea Power refuse to even settle in with their own name. ”On the last album I wanted to become Galactic Sea Power or Universal Sea Power to stop being so British. I got fed up because everyone would always go on about how quirky and English we are,” says frontman Jan Scott Wilkinson as we sit down for a pint and a chat at a Greenwich pub ahead of the band’s performance on board seventeenth-century clipper ship the Cutty Sark. ”I wanted to go in the opposite direction. Go off on a space journey and dress up in silver, but it was probably impossible and a bad idea.”

Then why compose the soundtrack to From the Sea to the Land Beyond, a documentary about the British seaside? Penny Woolcock’s film, comprising mesmeric footage from the BFI National Film archive, chronicles life by the British coast through modern history, and the gradual transformation and decline of what were once majestic holiday destinations. We meet the stocky shape of a bearded captain at the helm, soldiers attacked by gunfire on a faraway beach during the war and excited 1980s Brits boarding cheap flights to escape the rain and wind of Brighton seafront. British Sea Power’s intensifying tones carry these scenes, the music entwining with the incessant murmur of grey waves against rocky shores.

The band was asked to create the soundtrack to a film that was yet to be made and Scott remained sceptical, worrying that the project might confirm the quaint stereotypes manufactured by the press. ”I thought

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it might be one of those things when you’re looking at history and the recent past and it being all nostalgic and rose-tinted.”

Instead, From the Sea to the Land Beyond tells a story devoid of explicit plot lines or defined objective, permitting the mind to wander freely among loading ships and smiling sailors. ”The first time I watched it— after spending the first ten minutes worrying whether the music would be rubbish—I started relaxing. By the end of it I was as relaxed as if I had had a real break. In most TV programmes and films, there’s a voice or subtitles telling you what to think or mediating a story. This film is just pictures, music, a few lyrics, and it’s like having a little dream.”

The haunting music seems connected to the historical images, to the sea itself and its people, echoing the lives of men and women that have worked, lived and played along the water’s edge. ”We wanted to keep them as real people,” Scott says. ”Since it’s in black and white and they look a bit funny and they’ve got different clothes on, it’s easy to think about them in a certain way. Some of it is very rough; you see people running up a beach and getting shot down. It’s not an action movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. They are just normal people, really scared and getting shot. We wanted to reflect that, but at the same time not react to events too strongly, so that viewers can settle in and make their own minds up about it.”

But then British Sea Power have always been comfortable with ambiguity, espousing semi-professionalism as a catch-phrase:

”Professional like you mean it; semi-professional as in we don’t want to be too boring.” They are unafraid to mix in the odd stupid idea. ”We haven’t done that well in Europe and I think it’s because we’re too confusing. They like serious artists who know what they’re doing!” Once, while on tour in Germany the band’s manager went out for a stroll and happened to meet some people in chain mail with swords, who he promptly placed on stage during the entire British Sea Power set. Scott describes it as like something from The Lord of the Rings. ”Being massive isn’t really us and instead the band’s become more of a long distance endurance,” he chuckles. What did he envision British Sea Power to be when they first started out? ”I thought we would sell millions of records and enliven the world of music and art,” he laughs. ”I had crazy ideas.”

Scott, hunched over an almost empty pint glass as darkness descends outside, is adamant to try out what he calls stupid ideas and never submit to a generic rock band formula, aspiring to realise some of those drunken and irrational plans discussed over empty cans and cigarette butts on early Saturday mornings.

Writing a soundtrack to a film about British seaside was a move so in keeping with the band’s image that it could have made the clichés come true. Instead British Sea Power have created a mature album that strays from their previous work. When I hear it, I see waves coming.

From the Sea to the Land Beyond is out now.

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I pick something to be outraged about and then I write a book words victoria watts, portraits steve kennedy

a chance meeting with the mischief and wisdom of lionel shriver

”I’m wilful and regimented and I don’t quite trust myself so I have rules that I follow.” These were the words that announced Lionel Shriver’s talk at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali. It reinforces her image as a strict, somewhat frightening woman, famous not only for her macabre novels but also her personal routine. She eats only one meal a day and exercises for around two hours. It’s rare to see a photo of her smiling, and interviewers repeatedly favour the word ’stern’ to describe her. So when I was offered the opportunity to speak with Shriver, I met the prospect with curiosity and a dose of fear. She certainly didn’t sound easy.

I attended her public talks at the festival—an event that had turned my temporary home of hippy Ubud into a tropical playground for the literati.

Immediately, an omission from every interview I had read was obvious.

Shriver wasn’t so much stern as she was mischievous, offering even the strongest of her opinions with a cheeky glance towards the audience, ever aware of the pot she was stirring. ”What makes you angry?” asked the interviewer, to which she quickly replied in a dry monotone, ”Everything.

Can’t you tell? I’m into serial fury. I pick something to be mad about and then I write a book, and then I pick something else. Right now I’m mad about economics. I love to be outraged.”

Before economics, Shriver was mad about obesity, the subject of her latest novel, Big Brother. Her own brother, Greg, had died from complications of obesity in 2009. The inspiration for the novel was a moment in hospital where she found out her brother could be a candidate for gastric bypass surgery, so long as there was someone to look after him in New York. ”I had this image flash through my head,” she said, speaking with honesty and tenderness. ”My husband and I have a house in Brooklyn, and I have a very mobile life. I had to ask myself, ’Is this what I’m being called to do?’ And my heart fell, because I wasn’t sure I was up for it.

My brother may have been a genius, but he was also very difficult.” Two

days later she got a call to say her brother had died. ”So I got out of it.

And I never really had to answer the question as to whether or not I would be willing to make that kind of sacrifice on my older brother’s behalf. That’s where the book comes from. It’s asking, and trying to answer, that question.”

I met Shriver later that day in the gardens of the festival grounds. She looked sprightly and relaxed as she puffed on an elaborate e-cigarette and carefully pondered each question. I asked her if writing Big Brother had been a catharsis for any guilt surrounding Greg’s death. ”I think guilt is the wrong word,” she said. ”I’m more realistic than that. I don’t believe I could control what my brother ate, and there were a lot of other tragic sides to his life that were either accidents or he brought on himself, and I couldn’t control those either. What I feel is sorrow. He was a fine person, he was brilliant, and it upsets me the way he ended up and that he died so young, but I don’t feel that’s my responsibility.”

Shriver’s vulnerability, coupled with the glint in her eye and the sight of what seemed an absent smile, made her stock characterisation seem misleading. ”This whole ’scary’ thing is ridiculous,” she agreed. ”I’ve been more than surprised. And it’s not only scary, it’s also ’stern’. This is a word that keeps following me around the world and I don’t understand it.

You’d think I was snapping journalists’ heads off all the time. I’m just making them tea.”

One topic I knew not to push was her personal routine, in particular her exercise and sleeping habits (she goes to bed around 3 am and wakes at 11 am). Questioned on it the night before, she had declared the topic dull and complained: ”This is what gets done to writers: it’s not enough that we write interesting books, we have to be performing bears. You have to pull out things about your life that make you so fascinating, and actually there’s nothing fascinating about my schedule.”

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Her exasperation gave a glimpse of why the word stern is sometimes chosen to describe her.

But Shriver’s discipline is interesting, because it’s something so many of us find difficult. It is also freighted with contradictions: she bemoans that we live in an era that ”idolises housekeeping of the body,” but she herself maintains time-consuming routines in the pursuit of health and has written a book that highlights the dangers of obesity. All of this felt especially pertinent in Ubud, a place famous for its alternative health scene. The town is filled with health devotees from around the world who define themselves by their diet. Having reached my own saturation point with health evangelism, I suspected Shriver would also find it quite trying.

Her stance was simply, she explained, a push against the way our culture is tediously absorbed in a contemplation of our own bodies: ”I tend to push the other way, especially in public events. But in my personal life, I made the determination a long time ago that I was going to give the maintenance of ’my little house’ time and effort. It makes me feel better in every way. It gives me energy more than it costs me energy. I don’t regard that as some kind of moral achievement, it’s just a little tidiness.”

Lionel has twelve novels to her name and awards including the Orange Prize, but it hasn’t been an easy path. She was published six times before having any notable success and was close to calling it quits when We Need to Talk About Kevin finally won her fame. It was a reward that surprised her with its flatness: ”Having the kind of profile that I’ve always coveted is a much milder emotional experience than I had anticipated.

This whole thing of having arrived somewhere and getting something is bafflingly quiet and even a little disturbing, because it doesn’t have that natural forward movement of striving for something that you want. ”The only way that I know to deal with that is to resort to the nature of the profession itself. With every single book, you’re sent back to ’go’,

and you can strive your little heart out. I think, if anything, writing books gets harder. If it’s not getting harder, you’re not paying attention and you’re starting to manufacture the same thing over and over again. It becomes more and more challenging and that rescues me from any self-satisfaction and stasis.”

This echoes Shriver’s comments from the night before that one of the happiest times of her life was as a struggling writer in Belfast, a city she called home for twelve years before moving to London, where she still lives with her jazz musician husband. ”Happiness is not a static state,” she said. “We’ve misconceived of it completely. We think that there is some little oasis waiting where you sit around dabbling your feet in the pond sipping piña coladas. That is not happiness. It is getting up in the morning and not having enough time to do everything, having too many emails, and something in the day that excites you and you don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s about uncertainty, engagement, direction and motion, and it is not standing still. That is a whole Western problem—how we talk about the H-word. We think it is some sort of position we can achieve. It is not a position, it is a trajectory.”

And as Shriver sits in front of me, toned and tanned, and surrounded by tropical gardens, she looks like her trajectory is suiting her well. In so far as ’stern’ means opinionated, she is certainly that, but if you take the definition ’of an unpleasantly serious character’, it’s a description that doesn’t fit. However, so long as Shriver continues to tackle the topics she does and create such complex characters, she is likely to tickle the rage of her critics. As she said herself: ”I was bad as a kid and I’m still bad as a grown-up. I don’t consciously go seeking to offend people, but I am interested in whatever it is that we’re not admitting to, in what we don’t say. I think despite our confessional culture and the fact we can now say ’fuck’ in public, we’re hiding as much as we ever did. And that’s where fiction is useful.”

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Philippa Martin reworks leftover shards of glass into jewellery.

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stained glass, stitching and s c ul p t u re photos fiona essex, interviews rosanna durham

t h re e s t u d i o v i s i t s Work is always in-progress at studio. Photographer Fiona Essex visited three women artists and designers, each with very different ambitions and audiences, to document the rooms at the centre of their creative practice.

Philippa Martin is a stained glass artist working from home in Redhill, Surrey. She takes commissions for ecclesiastical and domestic glass work.

When did you start work as a stained glass artist? I always wanted to be an artist, ever since I was tiny, and it didn’t happen, and I had to go

and earn a living. When I was 31, and my children were all at school, I went to a careers office. There was a young man standing behind a screen and he said, ”What can I do for you?” and I was very rude, and said, ”I don’t think a lot.” And he said, ”Well, what would you do if you didn’t have any responsibilities?” I named all the responsibilities that I had: sick elderly parents, husband, children, house and all these things that meant I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. And he said, ”What would you do?” ”I would go to art school,” I said. ”Well, you’ve got one on your doorstep,” he said. And I did. I went to Reigate Art School for five years, which was a great struggle.

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Sketches of a window commemorating a local headteacher for a church in Haverfordwest, Wales.

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Could you describe the power of stained glass and the effect it has on people? Stained glass doesn’t exist without light behind it. It’s the power of light that transforms the window. I am sitting there looking at the glass that I’ve cut out, and because it’s blown it moves—it’s not flat like your rolled glass. It absolutely has moved. It changes hugely in the weather and with the light. The window I did at St Nicholas, Cranleigh, somebody went inside in a storm and they said that the window was

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actually moving. It is a powerful medium. In medieval times, churches treated stained glass window as very important; it is fundamentally a Christian way of teaching the history of the religion. People tend to look up in churches and at windows. It’s very powerful, this looking up. That is very necessary when you look at the window. The best ones, you don’t see all in one go. You can stand and watch and they evolve. You go back and have another look.

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Alice Browne is a painter making abstract and loosely representative work from a studio space in Hackney, London.

What mental attitude do you have while painting? It helps to be quite relaxed and inquisitive. If I’m feeling negative or impatient things don’t work so well but then each layer moves the painting onwards, so a bit of struggle can still be productive.

What’s the story of your studio? I moved into my studio building, a brick warehouse built in 1910, in Hackney Wick in east London. I love being on the edge of London, by the canal and next to the Olympic park, which for the most part has been a building site.

How many cups of tea does the average studio day demand? I tend to go through a daily rota, starting with chamomile to calm me down and then breakfast tea, Earl Grey and peppermint in the afternoon.

Stretching canvas tends to require coffee.

Alice Browne / www.alicebrowne.com

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Donna Wilson is a knitwear designer running a large studio in east London.

Can you describe your curious knitted creatures? Who makes them?

They’re unconventional, odd creatures, the way I see animals: a squirrel or a dog through my eyes. The creatures are all made by out-workers across the country, and you can tell who has made each one. There’s one lady in Orkney who makes Cyril the Squirrel. She’s been working for us from the very beginning, and she counted up how many Cyrils

she has made, and in the last six years she has done 1,500 of them. It’s amazing that she actually kept note of them all.

When did you first encounter knitting? Did you see it as an art, or something utilitarian? My grandmother used to teach my sister and I, and she taught us to crochet as well. But I didn’t see it as anything that useful back then. I thought of it as old-fashioned, but at the same time I was quite intrigued by it because you were creating something from nothing. But then when I went to Gray’s School of Art; we were taught knitting on a machine and I instantly took to that.

Donna Wilson / donnawilson.com

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Above: an unusual pin-cushion. Right: stitching the pie chart patchwork blanket.

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every man a rembrandt! illustration jane lee, words liz ann bennett

painting by numbers promises a beautiful painting first time and every time One of the most-hung artists in the world has an unfamiliar name: Dan Robbins, the designer behind the paint by numbers craze that swept 50s America. As a child in 90s Britain, I was also popping open tiny plastic pots and painting within the lines. It was no-strings art: the compulsive pleasure of creating something that looked right (well, sort of ), with none of the agonising uncertainty of a blank page.

The kits provoked the ire of critics. It was not just the regulated approach and the twee paintings of landscapes, horses and kittens, but in particular the claim, made by painters and producers alike, that the resulting works were in fact art.

A disgruntled reader of American Artist magazine wrote to the title, ”I don’t know what America is coming to when thousands of people, many of them adults, are willing to be regimented into brushing paint on a jigsaw miscellany of dictated shapes and all by rote. Can’t you rescue some of these souls—or should I say morons?”

In fact, Robbins claimed that the idea was inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci himself, who would assign numbered portions of his artworks for his students to complete. Every man may not be Rembrandt, as the first kits’ tagline proclaimed, but he could be Rembrandt’s apprentice.

jane lee’s sample colour palette: 1

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in the shower with janet leigh words susan schorn. illustrations harriet lee-merrion

I’d escape from hitchcock’s nightmare shaken but unscathed

One October, when my son was twelve, he was invited by a friend to a popular haunted house attraction, where people pay money to be scared witless by amateur actors. I no longer frequent haunted houses; I have a very unpredictable startle reflex and my liability insurance is already hanging by a thread. But I sent my son off to this one under the assumption that he’d be having a mildly terrifying PG-13 experience.

In retrospect, I think the friend’s parents could have chosen the haunted house a bit more carefully. Because my son came home and excitedly told me all about his favourite part of the evening’s entertainment: the torture-and-murder room.

At a certain point in the tour, he explained, the visitors had been locked in a room where an actress was chained to a Rube Goldberg-esque killing machine. A timer on the apparatus was counting down to the moment when she would be ’shot’. As the actress screamed and struggled and implored the audience to help her, an actor playing her captor, equipped with a mask and machete, tormented his ’victim’. After a prolonged buildup, the clock ran down, the device went off, and the actress was ’killed’ in front of the viewers. Then the actor playing the murderer walked over to the paying customers waiting to exit the room, and sidled along the line, menacing each of them individually with his machete.

I was silent as I listened to the boy describing this spectacle, not sure which was worse: that he might be traumatised from witnessing such a horrific scene or that he might not have found it disturbing at all—that he might even have enjoyed it, the way the haunted house’s proprietors expected him to.

As it turned out, my son was eager to share this nightmarish experience with me because of what happened after the ’murder’. When the fiend with the machete had worked his way along the line of spectators to where my son stood, and loomed over him, breathing heavily, the boy looked up at him, shrugged, and said with the clear-eyed sincerity of the not-yet-shaving, ”I didn’t see anything.”

If I was unsure how to react to the first part of his story, I was paralysed by this. Because, okay, my kid appeared to have entirely missed the

appalling misogyny and sociopathic violence of the whole ordeal. Nor was he concerned with the ethical implications of mimicking murder for entertainment. On the other hand—and I don’t think I’m responding entirely as a proud parent here—his response was hilarious.

And this was why he’d had such a good time: because his comment made the actor playing the murderer laugh. And then everyone in the room laughed, and the actor broke character further by giving my son a high five, which was a big deal, the boy explained, because audience members were strictly forbidden to touch the actors in the haunted house.

We had a mother-son de-briefing after that, wherein we discussed the uncomfortable truth underlying his quip; namely that in real life we’re often shamefully quick to deny violence if we think it’ll save our skins or help us avoid uncomfortable situations. And I told my son too that this is one reason I don’t frequent haunted houses. I think watching pretend violence from a safe distance is a bad habit; it makes it easier for us to say, ”I didn’t see anything,” when we’re confronted with real-life violence we’d prefer not to see.

Still, it was hard to argue with his results in this case. His remark cleverly exploded the frame around the spectacle of violence he was enmeshed in—in fact, he punctured the profit-based bubble of fear for everyone in the room with him. One innocuous sentence, exposing the absurdity of the whole ”let’s watch a murder for fun!” premise. Not bad for a twelveyear-old in a situation that violated every moral code since Hesiod.

He’s almost seventeen now, a prime age for all things risky, scary and dumb, but I notice he’s indifferent to the movies being rolled out for Halloween. I’ve seen some of the ads; there’s one called Mischief Night, which features a blind girl being terrorised by someone trying to kill her and her family. I don’t know much else about the plot, but there is quite a bit of screaming in the trailer. And Haunter, which features a dead girl, semi-eternally trapped in a creepy old house along with a bunch of other dead girls who were all murdered by the same serial killer. It also has screaming. I Spit On Your Grave 2 is a sequel to the film of like title released a few years ago. Contents: girl, kidnapping, rape, brutality, screaming.

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Plenty of people, male and female alike, will go to see these movies and I guess they’ll enjoy them. I will avoid them even more assiduously than my son does. Oh, I can tolerate the gore and the boredom. The problem is that I like fights; I like planning them and analysing them and even participating in them. Whereas I’m not a fan of slaughter, and where self-defence is concerned, I am a woman of action. So sitting around watching poorly-plotted violence is just about the furthest thing from a good time I can conceive of. And the resulting frustration plays hell with whatever aesthetic experience the director has in mind.

When I watch Psycho, for instance, the shock of Janet Leigh’s character being murdered is lost on me because all I can think about is what I’d be doing if I were in that shower stall, to wit: grabbing the knife. Yes, I know my hands would be slippery, and I wouldn’t have much traction on the wet tile, and I might be bleeding rather heavily, but I could still grapple the wrists and forearms of the knife-wielder. I’d try to use the shower curtain too—maybe pulling it in front of me and stuffing it in the attacker’s face to distract him, or using it to trap and wrap up the knife.

Although I wouldn’t do any of this in an average knife fight (running is always my favourite defence), a shower stall is one of those rare locations where your only real option is to lean into the fight. I’m convinced that with a vigorous defensive response, I could emerge from that shower intact—bloodied and gibbering in shock, maybe, but alive.

And then I’d need to deal with the repercussions of the theft that had brought me to the Bates Motel initially, plus my killing of Norman Bates in self-defence. So by the time the rest of the audience is wincing at all the blood sluicing down the shower drain, my mind is already six or seven miles away from the motel in a speeding car, contemplating false identities and looking for the Mexican border.

I hate to criticise Hitchcock; he made a great film. I would have done it differently, is all.

It’s the same with all the classic horror films: as soon as the butchery begins, I go off-script, and I can never quite come back to the story the filmmaker wants to tell me. Scream? I’d hang up the damn phone. Texas

Chainsaw Massacre? Listen, I live in Texas. If I run out of gas, I’m walking back to the highway. And I will—this is no exaggeration—sit in the theatre and ignore what’s happening on the screen for the next ninety minutes while I imagine myself walking down a dirt road toward safety.

All of this may say more about my sketchy attention span or my tendency to micromanage than it does about society at large. But I just can’t stomach the horror genre’s basic premise that women are blank slates upon which violent fates are written. It feels disempowering and icky and exploitative, which is why my brain declines to remain engaged after a certain point and insists upon laying its own divergent narrative track right out of the theatre.

Scaring ourselves is fun; it’s cathartic. That’s why we have Halloween in the first place. But when you look at the fascination with terror and violence in our popular culture, doesn’t it seem like we’re overdoing it? I meet a lot of people—women, especially—who perceive the entire world as one big horror movie. Whether they patronise haunted houses or not, they’ve absorbed the basic lesson: women are there for bad things to happen to. And their assumptions about what their own role would be in a violent situation are similarly bleak. They envision themselves in the shower with Janet Leigh, slipping and screaming, and they can’t imagine stepping out alive.

When I picture myself in that shower, assessing my options, visualising far-fetched counter-attacks, I may be a weirdo, but I’m at least affirming the possibility that I could escape. If we spend too much time passively watching violence, even imaginary violence, I worry that we might be training ourselves, little by little, to stay in there and bleed.

If you see Mischief Night or Haunter, you might take a moment to step outside the dramatic frame and think about how you see yourself in relation to the violence onscreen. Helpless victim? Impotent bystander?

Perpetrator? (Don’t lie; you know you’ve thought about it.) See if you can come up with a few good improvised weapons while you’re at it.

I’ll be staying home. I want to be able to say, with a clear conscience, ”I didn’t see anything.”

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The founder of Let’s Go Mental, Jessica Ann Spires, left, back at the group’s first meeting place with Ava Szajna-Hopgood.

‘chin up’ doesn’t cut it words ava sza jna-hopgood, portrait carl bigmore

through good weeks and bad, a group of people meet in a south london pub to talk honestly about mental health

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To walk past us in the pub, you could mistake us for a book group, or maybe some kind of ineffective study session. But we’re Let’s Go Mental, a group of young adults meeting in South London to talk about our experiences with mental health. We meet in a pub every two weeks and have a discussion for about an hour. There are optional drinks afterwards, and never, ever, any ice breakers.

At our first meeting, I knew just five people by name. The organiser, Jessica, stuck with the most simple, natural way to start the meeting: tell us your name and why you’re here. It’s the scariest leap of faith for everyone that comes along, but once you’ve said it, it somehow gets easier.

I’d never admitted to anyone face-to-face that I have obsessivecompulsive disorder. But as the rest of the circle explained why they were there, I learnt that I was sat with people of all sorts: those who had never been to therapy and, like me, are self-diagnosed, and others whose entire lives have been spent explaining behaviour, absences, rehab stints. The aim of LGM is to form a network for people that want to talk about what they are going through with someone that can understand. The type of person that gets when “chin up” won’t cut it.

As LGM enters its second year in action, I met up with Jessica Ann Spires, the group’s founder, back in our first meeting place in Peckham.

The name Let’s Go Mental often makes people do a double-take. Why did you call it that? I used to feel there was so much pressure to go out and have a good time, and I never felt comfortable saying, ”Sorry guys, I don’t feel that great today.” So I wanted to call it something that would emphasise the tension between the perceived lifestyle of a young adult, and the actual reality of living with a mental health issue.

Before starting LGM, I thought of the idea of a support group as a really forced experience, so I started thinking about creating one myself. I planned to research all these groups and try a few, but one weekend I got so impatient and had drunk about ten black coffees, so I decided to put my idea for LGM up on Facebook to see if anyone else was interested.

It was the first time I’d admitted to anyone outside of my immediate friendship group that I had suffered from a mental health issue, let alone the nigh-on total strangers on Facebook. The next day I woke up and was like, ”Oh my God; the next person that googles me, it’s going to all

come up.” But after that initial paranoia, I realised that if anyone doesn’t want to know me because I set up a mental health group then they can forget about it, and I was really happy.

The first meeting was also the first time I’d ever said in public that I was suffering from a mental health issue. I think that is a good step to make, because it’s saying that it’s okay to talk about it a pub, and that you don’t have to be at the end of your tether to talk about how you’re really feeling. That was the barrier that I wanted to get over; I wanted everyone of a certain age group—from 20 to 25 or so—to just talk about it freely because I don’t think you can sometimes. You can go to a therapist or talk to your friends about things, but there’s rarely the feeling that, ”This person really gets me.” It’s a unique angle peer-led groups bring: you’re sharing your experiences with people who have been through similar things.

These things can be going on inside someone for years without talking about it. But when you start getting to know someone through their mental health, you learn about them in a totally different way. When you start off on that footing, it allows you to be so much more open from the outset. I was, and am, a very sociable, outgoing person, and I’m not the stereotypical person that has depression. I went to an arts university and I work in fashion, so standing up and saying, ”Hey, I had these problems,”—that opens up a whole new dialogue with certain types of people.

The pressure to be ridiculously highly functional became very apparent across the group. So many members of LGM manage careers and irregular shifts and the rest of their daily lives, along with their mental health and issues that are always present. It struck me that a lot of people hadn’t ever talked on a regular basis about what they were going through. That’s the thing, it is so hard. I got to the level where I was functioning pretty much normally, and I had started a new job. I was meeting new people and going through the decision of, ”Do I tell these people?” The idea behind LGM was basically that we would have a continuing dialogue. Whether you were feeling amazing or whether you were feeling totally crap and not having a great time, you’d keep those conversations going. Talking about stuff when you don’t feel that bad and drawing on those experiences is really good for getting some perspective on it.

Let’s Go Mental / twitter.com/LGMsouthlondon

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you and I and the silence words maggie crow, portrait alexander schneider

nils frahm’s intimate music tells stories without words

The word intimate is double-sided. It connotes warm familiarity, comfort and closeness. In the same breath it evokes the vulnerability that comes with earning that closeness, with sharing those things that we guard most carefully. It is not a word to throw around. And yet it’s one that always seems to come up when speaking about Nils Frahm. The Berlin-based musician is a jazz pianist by training, but since 2009 he has been composing evocative music that you wish could make up the soundtrack to your life.

His 2011 album, Felt, was so titled because of the layer of fabric that he laid on top of the strings of his piano so he wouldn’t bother his neighbours with late-night playing. Obsessed with sound and the intricacies of producing it, Frahm set up microphones inside the muted piano, and he liked what he heard. Felt is meticulously produced, laden and expectant, taking the listener into a private world. It makes you aware of the hammer of each keystroke, and to want to breathe in time.

But it is the listening silence of a live audience that finesses Frahm’s craft. He is sincere and unassuming about how much his work owes to the listener. ”When you know that people are listening, you can challenge them more,” he says. From playing the piano with toilet brushes, to subtle shifts in dynamism and emotional valence, his live show is a masterclass of performance. His latest album, Spaces, attempts to encapsulate that experience by assembling recordings of his live shows in different venues across the world. ”It’s the concert that I could never have played because it’s too perfect for that,” Frahm explains, ”but I want to remember that I have played a show like this. This album was the show I played.”

Throughout the two-year process, his music was evolving. Rather than playing a tight set-list over and over again, Frahm prefers to improvise. ”The basic structure is set, but there is still so much space between you can fill out with spontaneous ideas. That is something I really enjoy about music: these empty spots in between.”

Is the way that he fills these spots influenced by the crowd, by the venue, by his mood? ”Yes, and that keeps me thrilled about trying to

develop the song. The music needs to be flexible so that I can play it every day as if I were playing it for the first time. The audience can feel when something is played with honesty, or if it’s played out of obligation.” In some sense, he sees Spaces as a collaboration between him and his listeners. ”Of course, I’m not deaf. When people applaud really excitedly about something I know it was good and that I should probably work on it more. The album is kind of a present for all the people who came to these hundreds of shows and helped me to make this album.”

Just over a year ago, Frahm broke his thumb in an accident and was unable to perform for a number of months. While he was recovering, he made and released the album Screws, a twenty-nine minute record played with nine fingers that he made available for download. Instead of payment, he asked fans to re-work the music and to post their creations onto the website. ”That was so fun to watch,” he tells me, ”Every day there would be new songs on the homepage and pictures and little poems. I was feeling down because of my accident and I couldn’t really make music, but my head was in a good spot doing this project. That helped me to recover and to find strength and energy.” Does he enjoy listening to the remixes that his fans post? ”Oh man, that’s so delightful! It’s almost too much, you know. All the work people put into that. Hundreds of people who devoted their Sunday evenings to reshape my ideas and bring their own ideas into it.”

There is a playful reciprocity to Nils, an endless fascination with surprising the audience and being surprised by them. As he puts it, he sees himself as ”a story-teller without words,” using his music to lead the audience through emotional highs and lows, and to play with their expectations, both musically and visually. ”I like to put people in a state where they don’t know what’s going to happen next, because they get curious like little kids. Then they’re in this mindset where they really open up. If they experience a little goofball on the stage playing with toilet brushes on the piano, they have their mouth open. They don’t really get it. And that’s beautiful and that’s wonderful.”

Why is your collage series titled, There Must Be More to Life Than This? “Pure boredom and stress.

I moved to London and quickly realised how hostile the market over here can be, so I turned to making these rigorous and repetitive things as a way to evade the fear. I’d be sitting at the kitchen table cutting out tiny squares for hours at a time, thinking, ‘All I want is to take my girlfriend out for dinner, to grab a drink, to buy a book. Anything but cutting out these stupid squares. There must be more to life than this.’”

Anthony Gerace, page 58

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george, reverend of the church of christ aladura, by toby coulson “I moved to a small street in north London about two years ago and was struck by the diversity of people living and working there, so I set out to do a portrait project to celebrate this. George is one of the first people I photographed. He was very welcoming and had an amazing calm, almost serene, presence to him.�

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there must be more to life than this collages anthony gerace, interview rosanna durham

anthony gerace makes collages of identical squares, always with the same phrase in mind

Anthony Gerace is a photographer and collage artist. He moved to London in 2012 and found himself collaging in the evenings, working on a series of square-cut pieces called There Must Be More to Life Than This. The title is both a question and a demand. In a city sometimes known to be indifferent to the newcomer, Anthony’s work in collage was the shadow practice of photography and graphic design he was pursuing during the day. Requiring nothing more than glue and paper, collage work uses the dexterity of the human hand. A form of image-making that is private, analogue and small scale, it is a suitable companion for the travelling artist.

When did you first start collaging? I began making collages in high school because I discovered punk and zine culture and loved it. Before this I just wrote poetry, but after I saw the way a zine could look and how that affected me, I started laying out my poems on top of images taken from National Geographic and comic books, and slowly began adding other elements, until finally I became more interested in the imagery than the words.

At university, I befriended a group of Toronto artists called Team Macho.

In my conversations with Jacob Whibley, then a member of the group, he helped steer me into what I think good collage is: non-objective, abstract, about the surface as a conceptual element. That summer I spent with them was one of the best I’ve ever had.

In a previous conversation, you suggested that you felt collage has become a mainstream medium, moving away from its roots as a subversive up-ending of printed paper. The medium is in a weird feedback loop at the moment: people want to make collages, but popular collage—I’m thinking of people like Mark Weaver and John Stezaker—is based on a single, heroic image. So no one really gets that the medium is intrinsically about surface and not about, ”Hey, this naked woman from a 60s issue of Playboy would sure look good with balloons over her breasts and a radio for a head.” That kind of collage is reductive and almost impossible to do well at this point.

I don’t like looking at contemporary collage, with exceptions like Jacob Whibley, Valerie Roybal, Matthew Partridge, John Gall, people who seem to be more interested in what the substrate says about history, rather

than the easy irony that pictures from the 50s now connote. I do have an interest in collage of the past, although less and less the more I make collages. I think it’s amazing that Hannah Hoch is getting her due at the Whitechapel Gallery at the moment, I think Kurt Schwitters was an interesting guy, I love the politics involved in their actions and the actions of their contemporaries. I really like John Stezaker’s work but I’m finding it harder to look at it now that everyone is taking him as the template for ’successful collagist’, whatever that means.

Introduce this series, and how you developed its manner of collaging.

There Must Be More to Life Than This has been an ongoing concern for about four years now. I think it came from simply realising that the width of a really small ruler that I had was the same as three squares in the notebooks I was using at the time. Super boring, I know. But I began doing them at a time when I didn’t take photographs and when my collage practice was firmly rooted in everything I complained about above, and using such an uncompromising structure made me reassess what I got from the medium.

It wasn’t long after this that I became interested in colour as a subject and started doing colour studies full time. I think that the series developed alongside that—knowing that a damaged square was better than completely cleanliness, for instance—and then when I moved to London I really focussed on them and found that, because they’re all based on a single image, the juxtapositional elements that make so many collages so similar was missing, and in their place was a cognitive dissonance over what was left out of the final image.

Why the title, There Must Be More to Life Than This? Pure boredom and stress. I moved to London without a job and quickly realised how hostile the market over here can be, so I turned to making these very rigorous and quite repetitive things as a way to evade the fear that was with me all the time back then. I had no money. I’d be sitting at the kitchen table—at that point my bedroom was too small to fit a desk inside— cutting out tiny squares for hours at a time, thinking, ”All I want is to take my girlfriend out for dinner, to grab a drink, to buy a book. Anything but cutting out these stupid squares. There must be more to life than this.”

Anthony Gerace / a-gerace.com

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mister david’s bright yellow words olivia wilson, portrait india hobson

the proprietor of manchester’s historic paint manufacturer talks about mixing and naming colours

If you once painted a bedroom in a brilliant shade of blood red, you will know that choosing wall colours is a difficult art. It’s a gamble on intuition about what colour you’d like to see each and every day for years to come. No wonder there are so many rooms in warm off-whites.

David Mottershead’s job is helping people pick. He is the founder of Little Greene, an independent British paint manufacturer located on one of the most ancient industrial sites for the making of paints, a small hamlet on the outskirts of Manchester. A sculptor and painter as well as a chemist, colour-mixing for him is both an art and a science.

Little Greene is a modern company with an old name. What’s its history? The chemistry of colour is very much related to the history of pharmaceuticals. So the centres for the invention of pharmaceuticals— Manchester in England and the Ruhr in Germany—were also the key inventors of colour from about 1830 through to about 1950. Little Greene has a history on this site that goes back to 1770. The original site was used for the importation of log wood from Honduras, Jamaica and Brazil and then these woods were ground up. Dyes extracted from them were used to dye silk and cotton. At that time it was called the Little Greene Dye Works.

We were right there, part of the history of the invention of colour, making dyes or paints since that time on and off. It’s a bit like a local pub: it has burnt down about six times, had about twenty different owners and several different managers, but it is still the same pub.

So do you see yourselves as inventors of colour? Oh no, we are quite historically biassed; we believe that there aren’t many new colours, only new ways of looking at colours.

There aren’t many new colours, what do you mean by that? Have we reached the limits of colour production chemically? No, actually

it is because the pigments that have been invented have reached the limit of the visible spectrum. So you can make colours in the infrared or ultraviolet spectrum—and there are people interested to do so—but they are no good for interiors because you can’t see them!

Of course! What is the process of making paint, then? I have a romantic notion of the very basic mixing of natural materials to make pigments, but it must be much more scientific? The creation of the colours is not at all scientific. Myself and one or two others look at trends in fashion and couture. It is the job of fashion houses to change the minds of people about which colours you can wear. Ten years ago no one would have worn orange; now orange is very popular because Chanel, Balenciaga or suchlike have put it on their catwalks. Interiors follow quite quickly behind couture, so we take those colours and make them work for interiors.

Working with colours for interiors is a much more serious job in some ways. You can buy an orange jumper and put it in your wardrobe, whereas if you paint your kitchen orange, you look at it every day. Paint is also not so easy to choose, as it is a little more abstract. A little chip on a piece of paper, or even a sample on a wall—it scares people. People really are frightened about choosing a colour, so our idea is always to make the colour choice as simple as possible.

We start making samples of colour, formulating them just by hand. We mix them up, we brush them out and see whether we like them or not; add a little green into that colour, or a little more blue or make it darker or make it lighter and that’s how it goes. When we’ve got the colour we think is correct, we might find that it is a very complicated formula—the more complex the pigmentation the more interesting the colour!—so we might simplify it a little to make it more reliable in production. We have to make a formula that will be reproduced time after time, in the same beauty of colour that we first imagined.

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Above: rolls of wallpaper samples at Little Greene HQ in Manchester. Right: colour scales and the office plant.

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Naming colours sounds fun. Can you tell us a bit about that? It is fun!

When we made the very first collection back in about 2000 or 1999, we literally had hundreds of colours round the house painted on A3 sheets and we started naming them from our own fancy. We wanted good colour names that would give people insight into what we were thinking, names which people think they sort of know about, but don’t quite understand.

We ended up with two colours we hadn’t named, one was a bright yellow and the other was a delicate shade of pink, so I got Mister David (the yellow) and my wife got Julie’s Dream (the pink). There is no right or wrong with colours, you can name them anything, but what we’ve learnt is that the most successful colours have good names, names that make you think about why they are named that way. We’ve tried hard to do that without being pompous or priggish about it and that is quite a difficult line to draw.

What is your relationship with colour? Do you prefer brighter or more muted palettes? If I’m sculpting, I love Purbeck stone. I love the warm greys of the stone from the Isle of Purbeck; they are just fabulous. I went to California a few years ago and brought back some serpentine, which is a glassy, green rock. I’ve yet to cut it. It’s sitting in my garage and I think all the time I must get round to cutting into it, but somehow it has become a bit of a holy cow.

Little Greene / www.littlegreene.com

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watching the football up at the marshes words benjamin brill, illustration nicole miles

each sunday, the men in blue and yellow play against the cold mud and their own tired knees

Every Sunday, while everyone else is still in bed catching up with MasterChef on their laptops, the men go up the Marshes. In concrete changing rooms, they bang off the last of last week’s dried mud from their boots, and put on shapeless socks and shorts, and shiny shirts with estate agents’ names on the front. They strap their dodgy thighs and check their hair in the mirror, their studs chattering out of time on the concrete as they trot out towards pitches numbered and marked with white paint to spend the next hour and a bit shouting things like ”line it!” and ”bring it!” and ”run it!” at all the other men who are wearing shirts with the same estate agent’s name on.

There must be thousands of them, up there at the Marshes every Sunday, stretching right across the grass as far as you can see. They clump together in tribes of red and blue and yellow, and as the ball pins around them, they shout and swear, and swear and shout as though nothing—not life, not death, not MasterChef—could possibly matter more.

It’s quite a sight, but even when it’s sunny, hardly anyone goes up to watch the men as they run about in the mud. A few girlfriends maybe, shivering inside those inflatable jackets you get, and keeping an eye on their kids as they scuttle ceaselessly up and down the touchline with a spare ball at their feet. And maybe an old fella in more shades of grey and beige than you knew existed, limping about with a shooting chair, and yesterday’s stubble.

But for the men, for an hour and a bit every Sunday, this is all that exists. Up at the Marshes, underneath huge heavy skies, where the air is so thick with bad language and the smell of mud and Deep Heat that you can almost feel it sticking to the hair in your nostrils.

Pretty much all the different breeds of men will be up there, running about in the mud. The six-foot-something ones with muscles and square jaws that make you realise you’re still a boy even when you’re 32. The overweight ones who smell of too much beer and pork and banter, panting and pulling faces and willing themselves to go just a little bit faster, as they crash ankle deep through the treacly mud. The new dads with tired eyes and shot knees, on their heels and nervous as the ball loops towards them, and they wonder for a moment how long they’ve got until Sundays turn into a cycle of out-of-town shopping centres and weekend television.

In a few years’ time, maybe they’ll think about those Sunday mornings up at the Marshes as they drive past the empty pitches on their way back from the out of town shopping centre. And maybe they’ll tell their children about the goals that they scored, and get them to shake hands with all these grey jowly men in golf clothes and corduroy, who must have been one of the toughest centre halves ever to play in the Maccabi League. And their children will try to imagine a time when their dad and these men had square jaws and muscles and wore shiny shirts with an estate agent’s name on the front, rather than golf clothes and corduroy.

In years to come, maybe they’ll start to see less of each other—at weddings or at funerals, in synagogues or in hospitals. And as they see less of each other, I guess they’ll have less to say. Or maybe they just won’t know how to say it. So maybe they’ll find comfort in the familiar, and remind each other of the goals that they scored, of the games that they played, and of the team that they had. Of those Sunday mornings under heavy skies, and a world that was theirs alone.

When I was little, I was the one who scuttled up and down the touchline with a spare ball. The one who listened and dreamed as his dad told him stories about men and the goals they’d scored. And as I got older, I played. A bit. Muddying an oversized shirt for the seconds over at Wigton Moor rec. Shivering as a substitute, up at Bedquilts in the February ice. But I was always too clumsy and too shy to ever really make a go of it. So now I have no team, no tribe. Sometimes I go up the Marshes on a Sunday, and watch the men running about in the mud, and think about the things I will miss.

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my little eye words tamara vos, portrait moon ribas

neil harbisson was born seeing only black and white, but now he hears in colour

The artist Neil Harbisson was born with achromatopsia, a rare condition that allows him to see only in black and white, but this hasn’t prevented him from living a colourful life. Instead, he experiences the spectrum in a unique way. Neil wears an antenna on his head, known as an eyeborg, that picks up colours and plays a note for each, translating colour into sound. A fruit bowl is a medley of notes, a flashing traffic light a steady bleep and a trip through the supermarket a virtual concerto.

was like? Did you always know that you could only see in black and white? From zero to eleven, I just thought I had normal colour blindness; I thought that I was confusing colours, but I didn’t know that I couldn’t see them. At eleven I was told that I couldn’t see colour at all, so from then on I had all these colour personifications, a system where different people represented a different colour. So if someone said, ”That table is blue,” I would think of the person that to me was blue. That was my way of having a sense of colour.

The seamlessness of his sixth sense ultimately led him to declare, ”I don’t feel that I’m using technology, I don’t feel that I’m wearing technology, I feel that I am technology.” In 2010, he founded the Cyborg Foundation, which campaigns for the rights of cyborgs: humans with cybernetic extensions such as his own. He also gives regular colour concerts, where he ’plays’ the colours of the audience, or takes a musical composition and transposes it into art.

The discovery was a shock, but it was also logical. And it started a curiosity in me: I began wondering what colour was. I thought that I could see it before, but actually I couldn’t. And that curiosity kept growing.

I spoke to Neil on a rainy afternoon, a glitchy Skype conversation connecting us from London to Barcelona. He talked earnestly about his past, work and unique outlook on life, all the while with his sensory antenna peering out, picking up colours that I would never hear.

You’ve been wearing the eyeborg for almost ten years. Do you ever take it off? No, never. In the shower, I just move the antenna. The eyeborg is waterproof, but my aim is to make it submergible, so that I can go underwater and listen to the colours of the ocean.

Going back to when you didn’t have this device and were living completely without colour, can you talk me through what that

I studied music composition in England, and there was a talk about cybernetics that I attended by Adam Montandon. He opened a world to me because he spoke about how we could use technology to extend our senses. I thought that maybe I could collaborate with him, so I asked. He thought he could create something for me. We decided that sound would be the best way of perceiving colour. The first eyeborg was a 5kg computer with headphones.

What was it like when you first put the eyeborg on? The first time, it was just this camera in my hand, the headphones and the 5kg computer, and I listened to the colours around me. The first thing I listened to was the Windows logo, which just happened to be there.

Adam told me: this is the sound of red, this is the sound of blue, and I memorised the first four colours. Then I went around the school and I listened to a wall, and it sounded like red. I said, ”Is this red?”

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and everyone said yes, and that was the first time I could tell a colour without asking. It was a big moment. My feeling was that this would be the beginning of my new life.

How difficult was it to integrate the technology into your life? For the first five weeks I had strong headaches. I was using headphones so my ears were blocked, and I also had backache because of the 5kg computer. But after five weeks it just became normal. The biggest mistake was to use headphones, because I was blocking one of my senses. Using bone conduction means I have a new sense, hearing through the bone; audio sounds come through air, and visual sounds come through the occipital bone at the back of my skull, through a vibration that creates a note. I can be in a very noisy room, but I can still hear colour perfectly. At the moment I’m collaborating with doctors because I want to have the antenna inside the bone.

It’s an on-going process to make it better; that’s the good thing about having a cybernetic part. You can always continue extending colour perception—there are so many colours we can’t see. Right now I can hear near-infrared and near-ultraviolet, but I want to extend that to middle-infrared and middle-ultraviolet, and continue.

A number of animals see infrared, so you could argue that it’s a natural quality to possess. Exactly. I feel that all the senses that we are developing—or that I have in my case—are very, very normal. A lot of species see infrared and ultraviolet, and hearing through bone conduction is normal in dolphins. Being able to see ultraviolet can be good for your health, as it’s a dangerous colour that damages your skin.

We can learn a lot from animals, and if we could perceive as much as they do we would have a better understanding of the world. I think that we should all have this desire, because there’s so much we could perceive and we don’t.

We can be superhuman. Or just more animalistic. What we consider superhuman is very normal within animal species.

How is it to wear the eyeborg in public life? It’s an obvious physical thing, on your head—do people react negatively to it? They either laugh at it because they find it funny to see someone with an antenna, or ask what it is, or don’t allow me into places because they think that I’m filming or doing something illegal. It does create uncomfortable situations. Maybe ten years ago people tended to think it was a light or a microphone, but now they think I’m filming.

You’ve spoken before about dreaming in colour. How did that happen? I just woke up and I realised that I’d been hearing colours in my dream, which didn’t make sense because the chip doesn’t work at night without light. This was a big moment, because it meant that my brain was recreating the sound of the software just as if it was something natural. I felt a strong union between the software and my brain, between cybernetics and my organism, and that is when I felt cyborg.

You must be asked this all the time, but what is your favourite colour?

Infrared. It’s the only colour I can perceive without light. It’s the lowest sound, and very unexpected as I never know when I’ll perceive it.

Neil Harbisson / eyeborg.wix.com/neil-harbisson

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a rose-tinted spectacl e words liz ann bennett

wil l c o l o u r f ul g l a s s e s m a ke th e m und a n e m a g i c a l ?

How far can a confident smile take you? Will wearing red glasses make you see red? We decided to test both questions at once by donning the frames that eBay terms ”Fashion Retro Vintage Clear Lens Frame Wayfarer Fancy Dress Nerd Geek Glasses” and ”round John Lennon hippie hippy sunglasses assorted colours” respectively.

Tinted lenses are a serious prescription for many, said to aid in conditions as diverse as dyslexia, autism and headaches. It’s a mysterious and still-

controversial treatment that involves subtle colourful calibration and frames as tasteful as you’d expect for your varifocals.

These, however, were one-quid plastic things purchased off the internet.

Our Fashion Retro Vintage clear lenses were treated with a heavy coat of glass paint, which was apt to lump and slide off into the frames, making these colourful spectacles more an accessory to laughter than to fashion.

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the maths teacher

I’m in charge of a cohort of teenage boys and seeing the world in green had, well, very little impact on my day. The glasses though, were a hit. Once the first student has plucked up the courage to question your fashion sense, the rest will all clamour to try on the frames. And the more you deny those eager little teenage grimaces, the more they want to wear them. Suddenly my specs were looking pretty cool.

I also wore them to my Guides meeting where I did let the girls try them on (girls tend to be a bit cleaner). The world was tinged with pink once I lost the green from the lenses and my brain had to re-calibrate back to the full rainbow. I like it better that way.

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the commuter

These elicited some funny looks on the escalator descending to the depths of the London Underground. Soon after hearing someone giggle in my face, I decided to keep my head down and get home as soon as possible.

I sat opposite a line of seriouslooking blokes in crumpled suits and loosened ties, fresh from a long day at the office. They avoided making eye contact, despite my best attempts to eyeball them on the thirty-minute train ride. Once home, it was commented that I looked like a mafia member recovering from a bad hangover. I resolved not to wear the glasses again, so popped them in my jacket pocket where the frames promptly snapped.

Keen to revenge my commuter train humiliation, I photographed them on my brown poodle, Della.

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the tennis player

I wanted to do something active whilst wearing my purple specs, and so I found myself on a tennis court, drawing surprisingly few stares. The wise words of a conman came to mind: �Do something ridiculous with enough confidence and no one will bat an eyelid.� I must say, they did nothing for my technique. It made me realise how important contrast is. The usual bright neon of the ball was neutralised, and everything from my friend to the white lines was less visible. At least this time I had an excuse for playing poorly.

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the florist

When I happened to use a red towel in the morning, I decided not to just wear red glasses but have a completely red day. I wore a red jumper, and my brightest red lipstick, choose the reddest apple in the basket and made myself a tomato salad for lunch.

Unfortunately when I got to work, it was quiet and I spent much of the day in the office with the very important task of sorting. By the time someone did come in, I’d taken them off in frustration.

My ability to sort out vases into colour families proved rather inhibited with everything tinted an aggressive shade of red and using a step ladder to reach those on the very top shelves felt much more precarious. I began wearing them feeling full of fun and silly in a good way, but by the end I was quite literally seeing red.

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the home decorator

I’ve been lobbying for a room in our house to be painted yellow for a while now, but my husband says that yellow is linked to madness and frustration. Maybe yellow tinted glasses would give me my fix. I thought it might feel like I was in a 1970s photograph—all mellow and slightly sepia toned.

It did not. It felt as though my eyes were being held open while someone poured stimulants into them. After half an hour, I’d had enough. It felt like the world was shouting at me. I shall stick to duck egg blue after all.

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Above and facing page: some of Beau Lotto’s colour illusions. The squares that appear blue in the left image and those that appear yellow in the right image are in fact both grey, as you will see if you cover the rest of the image.

ask better questions words fab gorjian

beau lotto explains why colour does not exist

California. I’ve heard it’s sunny, confident, alive with ideas, but I’ve never been there. Though after meeting Beau Lotto, I feel like I have. Talking with him is like driving through a bright town where something’s always happening, and I’ve never heard someone use the word ’play’ so many times in a conversation.

His house-cum-office in Oxford is washed with colour and light, which suits a neuroscientist specialising in perception and the way our brains process the fireworks display of everyday life. You may have seen his TED talk full of baffling illusions, or watched the experiments at his lab, Lottolab, on BBC’s Horizon. He has a pet wolf, for heaven’s sake.

One thing that’s always interested me about Beau is that he sees no separation between science and art, two sides of human endeavour that are sadly wary of each other. ”What is science at its core? I think it’s a way of being. But science is usually taught as just a method, a craft.

Kids are taught to run well-known experiments whose outcomes they already know. People hate uncertainty, and expect only answers from science, making us oracles. But actually it’s not about answers. It’s about asking good questions. And to ask a good question you first have to say, ’I don’t know.’”

We’re sitting beneath glass in white light. There’s a long garden outside.

Where the wolf lives, I’m told. What makes a good question? ”For me, it’s one that challenges our assumptions. But what’s hard is recognising what our assumptions are, since most are inherited. And so a good scientist, and a good artist, is one who challenges our assumptions. This brings us to play, because play is the only endeavour where stepping into uncertainty is a good thing.” Ah. So science is like play. ”Actually I’d suggest it literally is play. If you add rules to play, you get a game. If you add rules to science, you get an experiment. So experiments are games.”

But curing the world of its fear of uncertainty is ambitious, no matter how positive you are. How many of us know someone who’s had their work rejected because it presents risks? How many of us are those people? Lottolab has just teamed up with branding maestros Purpose to create a new venture called Beautiful Mind. Together, they want to show businesses and organisations the benefit and joy of the unknown. ”Everyone hates uncertainty, in particular organisations. But

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In the left-hand image, the two central tiles that appear white and black respectively are in fact the same shade, as are the upper and lower sides of the shape in the right-hand image.

organisations are there because we put them there to decrease our own uncertainty. Look, there are two sides to innovation: efficiency and creativity. At the moment, organisations are only exploring efficiency.

Now, efficiency is hugely important; the critter who can do the same job for less energy always wins. But just as important is creativity. The problem is that creativity is assumed to be messy, chaotic, inefficient, right? That’s where we come in.” Here I have an image of a boardroom of suited bigwigs out of their comfy chairs, playing and being silly like they were kids. ”We want to show them that new solutions only come from questions, from openness and uncertainty.”

It was in the 1950s that advertisers first started consulting scientists to help them improve their effectiveness. Beautiful Mind can’t help but remind me of the likes of the infamous Ernest Dichter and his Institute for Motivational Research, whose techniques are still used to manipulate us today. When I ask him if he’s conscious of leaving a similar legacy, Beau doesn’t hesitate. ”We’re about creating something positive. Sure, new tools can be manipulated but, most of the time, advertisers are only reading pop science. We are the real scientists pop-sci books are referring to, and we want to collaborate with companies to create mechanisms to get people to an idea. So instead of saying, “Just Do It,” so you buy the shoes, we create the shoes that help you just do it.” His response feels sincere, but I’m not entirely convinced Beau has given this interpretation of his work real consideration. Perhaps it’s his irrepressible positivity; it seems to me that ’real’ science could also be used to manipulate—just as Dichter and many of his contemporaries were indeed also scientists.

It’s easy to see why the glorious world of colour is Beau’s speciality, as it has the power to take us down the rabbit-hole of uncertainty like little else. My first contact with his work was at his TED talk, where he showed a cube made of lots of coloured squares, whose particular colours I thought I’d identified. Then, Beau revealed that my eyes were completely mistaken.

You can try it out for yourself in the illustrations above. ”Colour doesn’t exist,” he tells me, ”which shows that the brain is constantly making it up.” So if there’s no colour, what is there? What does an apple look like? ”We can objectively measure an apple with instruments, but that doesn’t tell us what it looks like, and so that

information by itself is meaningless. An apple to an ant is not the same as an apple to us. Context is everything. When we look, we add meaning. Then we see that meaning. For example, a hill can look steeper if I have a backpack on, because what I’m seeing is the meaning of the hill, not that it’s forty degrees.”

If you’d discovered that, for instance, certain colours can change your perception of time itself, surely you’d design every aspect of your own home to optimise your creativity and mood? He agrees, ”People don’t put enough thought into how they create their spaces. And we know of course that space, light, colour, texture, have a profound subconscious effect on how we’re thinking and behaving. For example, I could put you in a large space, and your ideas would get larger. Put you in a small space, your ideas become more defined.” And do these cognitive tricks help? ”Yes, in dealing with the unexpected. I respond in a more playful way rather than in a stressed way. So now a problem means opportunity, whereas before it meant restraint.”

Then I forget that context is everything, and ask a question that elicits a chuckle. ”I don’t have a favourite colour, it depends on context!” I persist: you’re in the park, sunny day, your favourite drink in your hand... ”It’s not going to be an easy answer. It’s got to do with the relationships between the colours because no perception of colour exists in isolation. My favourite would be a colour palette. You know, what’s interesting in nature is that no colours clash, because we’ve evolved to see nature as normal.

So what people are really saying when they say, ’That’s nice,’ is, ’That’s natural.’ Colours clash when colours that wouldn’t normally exist together are put together, but what’s cool is that we can decide that those clashes work. Culture can change what we like by defining the context.”

There’s that word again. Context never seemed so important as it did to me on the coach home from Oxford that evening. Looking at the leaves of late autumn, how each is full of oranges, reds, pinks, browns, and the fact that these colours represent a concept: trees in autumn.

If we didn’t make that association, would we find that warm palette so beautiful? Thankfully, none of the many answers to that question can stop me staring.

Beau Lotto / www.lottolab.org

Eventually I learned how to wash any head. How intimate it is; I could see pimples that had been scratched raw by way of invisibility, I could see scars, I could see patches of grey coming in like rain clouds. I could see their faces lose shape as they let go, as they became clean.

Stephanie Georgopulos, page 90

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a portrait from the collection ‘daydreamers,’ by yang du

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head-to-toe tie dye photos liz seabrook words and dyeing hannah bailey | neon stash

i t o n l y ta ke s f i ve t o t wi s t , t i e a n d s wi r l

When people ask to buy tie-dyed clothes from Tie Dye High Five, Hannah Bailey’s tie dye shop, she sells them a kit instead. ”Buying is cheating, because you can create it yourself,” she says, ”any tie dye that you’ve seen anywhere.” Tie dyeing is dressmaking’s grungy little sister: you can make something unique and wearable with minutes, rather than months, of practice.

Hannah began to tie dye five years ago, when she moved to London and found the colours of the city a little dull. ”I come from the snowboarding world, and it used to be all about wearing bright, clashing colours on the slopes and standing out against the snowy background. I’ve always been a brightly-coloured person with what I wear: pink leggings and a bright green t-shirt.”

With this head-to-heel outfit of tie-dyed fabric, Hannah brings out tie dye’s more subtle side, straying from primary shades and ”the hippy five-colour swirl.” This is tie dye that can pass in the street as a delicate pattern. And if it goes wrong? ”Tie dye is not supposed to last forever, it’s supposed to fade. Then you go, ’Oh that’s faded, I’ll re-tie dye it.’”

You will need: an excellent selection of dyes bleach (jeans only) rubber gloves elastic bands

a few bottles with a squeezy nib a washing-up bowl salt plastic bags and a plastic sheet

The dyes we used were Dylon’s 50g packs in Sunshine Yellow, Bahama Blue, Ocean Blue, Tropical Green and Antique Grey. Bottles with squeezy nibs can be found in most art and craft shops. For all these, you’ll need to work somewhere well-ventilated and wear rubber gloves when handling dyes and bleach.

Tie Dye High Five / www.tiedyehighfive.com

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scarf: muji / coat: monki

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the crumple coat One. Soak your coat in a salt solution, following the instructions on your dye packet.

Two. Prepare the dyes in squeezy bottles according to the instructions on the packet. We used a ¼ of a sachet each of Dylon’s Antique Grey and Dylon’s Tropical Green, each of which we mixed with 100ml of warm water. Shake it up well.

Three. Remove the jacket from the salt solution and wring out any excess water. Place on a plastic sheet or large bucket. Shape the material into a flat circle (not a ball), tightly crumpling it in places. The tighter the crumples, the better!

Four. Cover the crumpled circle fully in the lightest dye colour first, Tropical Green. Flip over and do the same with the other side.

Five. Open the crumple out. Carefully recrumple it, exposing as much white fabric as possible. Grab your second colour—Antique Grey for us.

Apply the dye, flip and repeat.

Six. Have a little peek in the creases of your coat to see if there’s much white remaining; if there are, cover them. Maintaining the crumple, place your garment into a plastic bag. Leave somewhere warm.

Seven. After 24 hours, remove your coat from the bag and rinse thoroughly until the water runs clear. Hang to dry, and get ready to wear.

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the subtly stripey scarf One. Soak your scarf in a salt solution, following the instructions on the dye packet.

Two. Prepare the dye in a squeezy bottle according to the instructions on the packet. We used a ¼ of a sachet of Dylon’s Ocean Blue, which we mixed with 100ml of warm water. Give the bottle a good shake.

Three. Squeeze out any excess water from your scarf, leaving it damp.

Lay out it on a flat surface and accordion fold it lengthways; it’s a bit fiddly, but it doesn’t need to be perfect!

Four. Secure it into segments with evenly-spaced elastic bands. The closer together they are, the more stripes you get. Grab your squeezy bottle of dye and carefully cover alternate segments with dye. Make sure you get in to the creases, but keep the colour inside the segments.

Five. Leaving the elastic bands in place, pop your scarf in a plastic bag.

Make sure the stripes don’t touch the plain segments. Close up the bag and put it in the airing cupboard or somewhere else cosy for 24 hours while the dye makes itself at home.

Six. 24 hours later, remove your scarf from its warm spot, rinse it with cold water until the water runs clear. Take off the elastic bands, leave it to dry and admire your creation.

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the swirly pocket tee One. Prepare a small square of fabric. Ours is about 20 x 20cm. It can be plain, or if you’re a dab hand at embroidery, go wild! Emma Ruth Hughes did ours.

Two. Soak your patch in a salt solution according to your dye packet instructions, then wring out. Prepare the dyes in squeezy bottles to the instructions on the packet. We used a ¼ of a sachet of Dylon’s Bahama Blue and a ¼ of Dylon’s Sunflower Yellow, each mixed with 100ml of warm water. Shake it up well.

Three. Pinching the centre of your patch, twist the fabric around into a tight whorl. This will be a bit fiddly. The key thing is to keep it tight. As with all tie dye, it doesn’t have to be super neat!

Four. Secure your swirl with two elastic bands, crossing length- and widthways to cut your patch into quarters.

Five. Carefully squeeze your first dye—Sunflower yellow for us—into two diagonally-opposing quarters, making sure you get right into the creases. Grab your other dye, our beautiful Bahama Blue, and do the same with the quarters that are still white. Place in a freezer bag and leave for 24 hours in a warm place.

Six. After 24 hours, unfold and rinse thoroughly until the water runs clear and leave to dry. Your patch is ready to sew onto your chosen t-shirt.

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embroidery: emma ruth hughes

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the bleached black jean We were naughty on this one and did a few quick splashes of neat bleach to intensify the effect. This will weaken the fibres in your denim, so be careful and only leave it on for a couple of minutes tops. Bleach is a bit of an unknown quantity—you never really know what you’ll get.

One. Pull on a pair of rubber gloves, and dilute the bleach with water in a washing up bowl. The stronger it’s kept, the stronger its effect, but it could damage the fabric of your jeans. One part bleach to ten parts water is a good place to start.

Two. Prepare your jeans. We applied strips of duct tape around the bands that we wanted to keep black, and to cut off the dip dye from the bottom.

Three. Dip the bottoms of the jeans into the solution, and leave to soak for approximately 40 minutes.

Four. Upon returning, you should see that the bleach has started to work in removing the black, most likely revealing orange!

Five. Wearing gloves, take a sponge and dip it into the solution and dab it wherever you want. If you’re only doing a dip dye, just use the sponge to fade the dip up the legs, so it’s less severe. If you want to be more precise you can use a paintbrush. Layer it up so it’s really soaked with bleachy water.

Six. Let the bleach soak in for another 40 minutes in a well-ventilated area.

Seven. Rinse thoroughly and chuck in the washing machine.

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jeans: dr denim at urban outfitters / table: danny quanstrom

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washing strangers’ hair words stephanie georgopulos, photo lauren field

everyone’s face becomes the same when their head is in your hands

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I began washing hair when I was sixteen. Don’t get me wrong, I did other things — I swept, and I took people’s money and put it in the cash register; sometimes I stood next to a hair stylist and held a lock of hair in place while she searched for the perfect bobby pin. But, mostly, hair washing was my gig and I liked it that way.

That’s the way you make tips, after all, and that’s the way you get to explain yourself to clients. Because when the weekly perm comes in for a touch-up or the young businessman stops by for a trim and sees you dusting shelves and sweeping up and washing towels, they form an opinion of you. And maybe when you’re a teenager it’s just that you have a good work ethic, but when you get to be a bit older, people become less generous with their assumptions. Maybe they think you don’t take yourself seriously; definitely they think they’re brighter than you — you with the fingertips stained with dye and the single dollar bills spilling from your apron. They think they’re brighter than the hairdressers who are learned in chemistry and they think they’re brighter than the salon owner because she wears plastic gloves to perform part of her job. Of course they think they’re better than you, wash girl. That’s why it’s nice to have a chance to explain yourself.

You can adjust their head in the sink just so, and once you have determined if the water temperature is too hot or too cold, they will say hello and ask you polite questions and you can explain that you’re home from college and earning extra money for the holidays and this is your major and here’s what you plan on doing with it and you’ve also had several internships and here are some arbitrary facts about politics-theatre-sociology thrown in for good measure. They will be happy to hear you have ambitions beyond washing strangers’ hair and they will tip you and, the next time you see each other, they will ask you how your studies are coming along.

Of course, you shouldn’t begin to explain yourself without provocation; some people would prefer that you listen to them talk about their daughters-in-law or their retirement parties or their grandchildren. That can be nice, if you are interested in gossip about people you do not know, which I usually am. Others prefer silence. For some people, the only quiet time of their day is spent with you; their busy busy heads quite literally in your hands as your fingers spiral their way over every inch of scalp.

This is simple enough to learn; we intuitively know when someone prefers his own silence to the sound of another person.

What isn’t as easy to learn is the actual washing part, because some heads fit into the sink better than others. Some people instinctively crane their necks upward when talking about things that excite them, twisting to make eye contact, and the hose sprays out into the open air and gets everything wet. When people are afraid to relax, their necks tense and refuse to rest in the space created specifically for them; when these clients rise from the chair, their backs are damp, little half-moons of sink water staining their shirts. And don’t get me started on hair dye; as soon as hair dye is involved, you are scrubbing ears and cleaning hairlines, and your charge refuses to leave the sink area until all traces of inauthenticity have been removed from his skin.

Eventually I learned how to wash any head. How intimate it is; I could see things they didn’t even know about. I could see pimples that had been scratched raw by way of invisibility, I could see scars, I could see patches of grey coming in like rain clouds — blacks and blues, bruises and bumps. I could see their faces lose shape as I brought them pleasure, as they let go, as they became clean. I was very good at this by the time I stopped working in salons for good about three years ago.

Would it be strange to tell you that I miss it? I’d become very good at the whole thing, the intuitiveness and listening and touching. I’d become good at working with the difficult ones, the ones who didn’t quite fit in the sink, but needed my attention and expertise all the same. I became good at it all, and some days it feels like it’s going to waste. So once in a while I ask whomever I’m dating at the time, when we’re in the shower together, if I can wash his hair. And he’ll allow me to lather and scrub and massage — but the rinsing part, the part where I’d gently lean the head back and take special care to protect the eyes; each one always takes this step into his own hands, and each one does it the same way. Their heads tilt forward, the water passes through soapy strands of hair, and shampoo stings their eyes like it’s no big deal. Every time this happens, I can’t believe what I’m seeing; it’s like they feel nothing.

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coat and felt hat: american apparel / dress: rokit / dr martens boots: beyond retro / socks: falke

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all you need is a good coat

photos liz seabrook styling alice burnfield hair and make up alice oliver model monika rohanova | milk

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jumper: ba&sh / denim dress: rokit / fur stole: beyond retro

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denim jacket: beyond retro / plaid shirt-dress: ganni / black wool jumper: ba&sh

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coat: maison scotch / jumper: ganni / lace skirt: shao yen / hat: samsøe & samsøe

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jumper: ganni / skirt: mint vintage / coat: zara

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what really happened in arizona words annie atkins, photo lauren field

if you invent an imaginary hitman, be sure not to fall in love

After the sudden end of my relationship I took the worst side of my personality—the side with my temper, each of my insecurities, and my propensity for being swallowed whole by emotion—and I locked her in the trunk of the car and drove her over the state border into Arizona, where a tall man named Emmett Marking shot her in the head and left her for dead.

I’d arranged to meet Emmett in a diner in Nevada, in a small town called Boulder City near the border. I like the way Americans name all their towns ’cities,’ even when all they have in them is a junk shop and a hardware store. This means I must be from a city of 300 people in rural north Wales, I thought, nervously sitting up at the counter with a strawberry shake and trying not to draw attention to myself.

When Emmett arrived he walked right up to me and said, ”Where’s the client?” just like that, like he really didn’t care who heard him. ”In the trunk of my car,” I said, handing him the case of money that he opened right there and then, counting out the dollars like he didn’t care who saw him.

We drove in silence, across the Hoover Dam and into Arizona, and when we pulled over I popped open the trunk and Emmett seemed caught off guard all of a sudden.

He was shocked, I think, to see that the ’client’—lying knocked out—looked exactly like me. Same hair, same clothing, same face, same frame, same thin white skin made for small northern islands and the constant threat of rain. ”This is her?” he asked, dumbfounded, and both his posture and the pitch of his voice changed, making him seem a little frightened. I was relieved that he was showing a pathetic human side because, as I’d written his character in the silence of the car, I’d briefly considered having to fall in love with him. Be careful, ladies, of being a woman who is attracted to confidence. One day you may end up falling for an imaginary hitman.

Emmett composed himself, threw the body over his shoulder, and walked off with her behind the boulders. I waited at the car. I was curious, of course, but who wants to see something that looks exactly like you get shot in the head, even if it is only the very worst parts of your personality?

The car was too hot to sit in, so I stood in the sun and kicked the sand around for a while. The road was empty and stretched from one horizon to the other and I wondered what was taking so long. I spotted a lizard sitting on a rock and I lay down on the ground and got close to it, really close, right up to its face. I was just about to reach out my hand and catch it when a gunshot sounded out behind me. The lizard darted off and I knew it was all over. I got up, dusted off my shirt and jeans, and felt better.

On the drive back to Nevada, Emmett twisted and fidgeted in the passenger seat and started to irritate me. ”So, she was your twin sister or something?” he said, eventually.

I was quiet for a moment, just staring straight out at the road in front of me, then I said, ”Yes, something like that,” and I turned up the radio so he wouldn’t keep on talking to me.

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I see the handwriting of the photographer portraits leroy sankes, interview rosanna durham

jaimy gail on synaesthesia and the experience of sitting for portraits Leroy Sankes is the photographer who took this issue’s cover portrait.

Based in the Netherlands, he shot fellow photographer Jaimy Gail in the studio over Christmas. We asked Jaimy about her experience in front of the camera.

Tell us about yourself and your work. I was born and raised in Amsterdam. I study photography, because I love to visualise my own thoughts in images. I like to play with clichés about the individual and blow them up. Identity, disconnection and the standards of beauty are themes I work with. With photography, I am able to make very small changes that can turn an image upside down. My last project was about androgyny. The boundary between male and female interests me.

I recently found out that I have synaesthesia: I see colours associated with certain words, numbers or combinations. It’s in my head all the time. I have always hated my date of birth, for example, the 10th of February 1992. It is blue and yellow, which doesn’t combine or fit for me.

And I remember the colour I associate with a person more easily than I remember their face.

What’s it like having your portrait taken? Do you enjoy being photographed? Because I am a photographer, I always love it when someone takes a photo of me. I never see myself in the result, but try to see it as an image in itself. In every photo, I see the handwriting of the photographer; it’s more important than me looking pretty.

Leroy Sankes / leroysankes.com

I’ve always been suspicious of people who use proper bookmarks; I mostly read either in long, slothful stretches, or in fevered gasps at bus stops and whilst friends use pub toilets.

Jason Ward, page 124

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untitled, by katarina smuraga

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An illuminated manuscript from a collection of prayers made around 1410, titled Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. You can see a salt cellar in the shape of a gold ship on the far right, next to the Duke of Berry.

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a proper newe booke of cokerye words liz ann bennett, recipe testing nix ruberry

how to party like it’s 1545

The earliest meals I remember are full roast dinners and freezer-section breadcrumbed things with mash and beans. Then come stir fries, tagines and pasta dishes. It seems my mother’s cookbook shelf swelled in size in the 90s just as the Tesco World Food aisle did the same.

sotiltees (subtleties) took on a performative element. Elaborate sugar sculptures shaped into miniature models of real-life castles were served, as well as trick foods. You might bite into an apple, for instance, only to find that it was a look-alike made of meat pâté.

My experience fits well the much-told journey of British food culture: a hearty and comforting cuisine whose unfussy flavours reached a nadir of spam hash and Coronation chicken in the 50s, after the Second World War was trailed by almost a decade of rationing. In 1957, spaghetti was still sufficiently exotic for the BBC to pull off the spaghetti tree April Fool’s hoax. (When hundreds wrote in asking how to cultivate their own tree, the broadcaster advised them to ”place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”) The redemption that followed this took the form of increasing international variety, and a return to quality local ingredients cooked to showcase their natural flavours.

Feast entertainments reveal a cruel, or at least callous, sense of humour.

Those nursery-rhyme blackbirds baked live in a pie are part of an actual dish. The Cook’s and Confectioner’s Dictionary, published in 1723, describes the by-then antiquated practice. The birds fly out and extinguish the candles in their panic, causing ”a diverting Hurley-Burley amongst the Guests in the Dark!” Frogs were an alternative: the effects promise to be uproarious either way. As Robert May notes gleefully in a prefix to his 1660 cookbook, The Accomplisht Cook, ”When, first lifting the lid off one pie, out slip some frogs! Which made the ladies to skip and shriek!”

The intriguing thing about late medieval food is how little it has in common with any of this. The fourteenth-century recipe collection, Forme of Cury (Forms of Cookery), and other documents contain dishes that resemble neither bland stodge, nor timeless simple cooking, nor of course today’s voracious repurposing of Cantonese, Italian and Bangladeshi-labelled-as-Indian. Instead, the flavours and practices they reveal have passed out of our traditions leaving only traces behind.

The restraining force that also shaped the menu was the regular fasting imposed by the Catholic church, whose regulations were particularly strict during Lent: no products from land animal whatsoever. The Lenten diet was achieved with much use of almond milk, grumbling, and loopholes. To today’s less ritualistic mindset, such loopholes sound hilarious. For instance, beavers, which were very plentiful in Wales, were helpfully reclassified as fish and goose re-packaged by sellers as ’barnacle goose’, an invented sea creature. The Ember Day tart over the page is for such an occasion. You will notice it does contain eggs— Ember Day fasts took places for three days in the same week four times a year, and were not as strict as Lenten ones.

The approach to food is aromatic and ingenious, peppered with dishes as subtle as a pimped-out Mercedes and similarly wheeled out for the simple joy of showing off: the king’s palace sculpted from sugar, roasted birds given a life-like pose by hidden wire. The written records preserve the meals the rich wished to celebrate, not the fare of every day. So we are talking feast food here—the poor subsisted mostly on vegetables, which were considered not very good for you and positively dangerous unless boiled for a long time.

A rummage through the nobleman’s pantry reveals surprising inclusions and omissions. No potatoes or tomatoes: these weren’t brought over from the Americas until the late sixteenth century. Even then, potatoes were regarded with suspicion until the eighteenth century, and it took some supportive editorials in The Times, among other things, to convince a wary populace. On the other hand, the rich had access to a great range of spices from China and India: caraway, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger and saffron. Cumin is an interesting case. I assumed it first arrived here in the twentieth century, but in fact it was introduced to Britain by the Romans, and was widespread until caraway’s more popular flavour pushed it off the menu in the late Middle Ages. Dates, raisins and figs were frequently added to sweet and savoury dishes alike.

The most elaborate banquets were occasions with no obvious analogues in today’s society. They were vehicles of the most spectacular conspicuous consumption, the main way for the aristocracy to assert their status above the turnip-fed majority. A glance at the sixteenthcentury tome, A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye, seems to indicate that the main item consumed was meat. One sample menu from it reads like an animal species list: pig’s feet, roasted rooster, pigeon pie, baked venison... Out of sixteen dishes, twelve are meat. Dishes known as

Tucking into medieval savouries, the hint of sweetness is disconcerting.

The past is a foreign country, and comes with culture shocks. Tasting the heavy fruitiness and spiced edge of medieval dishes reminds me of something though: everything tastes like Christmas. I like to imagine that the flavours of classics like mince pies are those that have fallen straight through time more or less unchanged. It’s as if the most sentimental occasion of the year provided somewhere for ancient recipes to cling on.

So where did the rest go? Britain has always been difficult soil for an interesting food culture. A land bridge with Europe existed until 6500 BC, too recent for the island to develop more than a handful of endemic species. Prior to this, successive glaciations had swept many species back onto the mainland. With similar ruthlessness, the comparatively early industrialisation of British food production obliterated many regional specialities. These days, France has 170 regional specialities registered for geographic protection with the EU and Italy 193, but Britain a mere 33 (2010 figures), a list heavy on animal products: Arbroath smokies, Swaledale cheese, Gloucestershire Old Spot pork. The final blow was the World Wars. The social upheaval disrupted the expertise of cooks in the kitchens of the rich. By the time rationing ended in 1954, a generation had grown up without access to ingredients as common as lemon and garlic. No wonder 1950s food was ripe for parody by Monty Python as, ”Spam, egg, Spam, Spam, bacon and Spam.”

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ember day tart This is a tart for a meat-free fast day. Medieval recipes did not give a precise formula for the cook to follow, but rather an idea of the dish.

The original of this recipe is recorded in the fourteenth-century kitchen guide Forme of Cury as follows. You will notice it specifies no amounts or cooking times.

Tart in ymbre day. Take and perboile oynouns & erbis & presse out þe water & hewe hem smale. Take grene chese & bray it in a morter, and temper it vp with ayren [eggs]. Do þerto butter, safroun & salt, & raisouns corauns, & a litel sugar with powdour douce, & bake it in a trap [pastry], & serue it forth. (Source: Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century).

You will need: 325g ready-made shortcrust pastry 35g butter, melted ½ tsp salt a pinch of saffron (optional) 6 eggs, beaten 1 small onion, coarsely chopped

200g ricotta 75g dates, chopped 2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped ½ tsp dried mint ¼ tsp ginger a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg One. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Two. Line a 22cm flan dish with pastry. Cover the pastry with baking paper, and fill with ceramic baking beans (or dried beans set aside for this purpose). Bake for 10 minutes, then remove the paper and beans and bake for another 10.

Three. While the pastry is cooking, place the onions in boiling water and cook until just tender, then drain. Grind the saffron with the salt, and mix with the melted butter.

Four. Beat the eggs, and combine with the saffron butter, onions and all remaining ingredients. Pour the mixture into the pastry case.

Five. Bake for 40-60 minutes, until an inserted knife comes out clean.

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grete pye There is some evidence that medieval pastry cases were intended to be eaten, but their primary purpose was as a cooking container. Large chunks of pre-cooked meat were baked inside, and guests would break open the top of the pie and pick out the pieces they wanted. We’ve strayed from the purpose of pastry-as-container by giving this recipe only a pastry lid, which allows the inside a proper sauce. The original, developed from fifteenth-century sources by Daniel Myers of the invaluable medievalcookery.com, contained both beef and chicken. This recipe has been further adapted by the addition of onion and garlic.

Authentically, you should serve this with a meat jelly or a swede stew.

Or make some anachronistic roast potatoes instead—it’s your dinner.

You will need: 210g ready-made puff or shortcrust pastry 750g chicken wings, or other pieces 1 onion 3 cloves of garlic 500ml chicken stock 6 cloves, whole

1/2 tsp mace 1/2 tsp cinnamon a pinch of saffron (optional) butter for frying salt and pepper to taste 3 hard-boiled eggs

45g dates, chopped 25g prunes, chopped

25g sultanas 1 egg, beaten

One. Fry the onion and garlic in butter on a medium heat for a couple of minutes, then add the chicken pieces and fry until lightly browned.

Two. Add the chicken stock and the spices and bring to the boil. Boil for 10 minutes, then reduce to a simmer, cover and leave to cook for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. It will take longer for chicken pieces larger than wings to cook through, so make sure you check the inside for bright pink uncooked chicken before taking off the hob.

Three. Meanwhile, hard-boil three eggs, peel and cut in half. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Four. When the chicken is done, pour off about 200ml of the cooking liquid. Add everything that remains into an oven-proof dish about 24cm across.

Five. Roll out the pastry to cover the top, and brush with beaten egg.

Six. Bake in the oven until the pastry is golden brown, 30-40 minutes.

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tea-cup rainbow words tamara vos

a colour chart made by you Do you start your day with a breakfast tea or rocket-fuel coffee? Does a peppermint tea accompany your afternoon? Do you creep into bed with a cup of milk, or send yourself sleep with a hot toddy?

There’s a long line of mugs that see us through the day, and a long line of drinks that fill them; we wanted to collect the browns and beiges, the greens and ambers, and celebrate the rainbows in our teacups.

We asked you to send in a birds-eye-view photo of your cuppa, and in response we had a virtual tidal wave of hot drinks from places as far and wide as Lithuania, Vietnam, and Skelmorlie in Scotland.

Photos: Amber, Ylva Bengtsson, Liv Bossuyt, Becca Bryers, Rhiannon Clark, Amy Collier, Chi Khanh Dang, Jorja Ellison, Lynn Hall, Hamidah, Beth Hodgkinson, Sophie Hoyle, Ju-Hsuan Hsu, Catherine Jennings Genevieve Jodouin, Nicola Humphreys, Marija Meskovaite, Damara Peraino, Melissa Reid, Carolyn Storey, Ben Terzza, Kim Tillyer, Armando Tranquille, Kate Wierenga, Chen Yu.

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which one of you is the oldest? photos florence stadelmann

writers tell stories about brothers and sisters

my brother, aged four words maggie crow

I looked up from where I was lounging on the couch, with a fan blowing directly at my face, toward the door to the back yard. My mom was dragging my little brother inside and he was fighting her. ”You get to your room!” She roared. ”No!” He stomped his four-year-old foot as my mom reached down to grab him and carry him up the stairs. He started crying and I heard his door slam in a feeble act of defiance. My mom briskly walked to her own room and closed the door.

This kind of scene was not unusual in our house, but there was something different in my mother’s voice this time: an edge, a worry that expressed itself through the slightest strain against her vocal cords.

I turned off the fan and listened for movement upstairs. Jake’s cries were already subsiding. He seemed to learn more quickly than the rest of us that being grounded wasn’t much of a punishment. Soon enough he would be playing with his toys, lining up his animals in row after row in an eternal march to somewhere. The house was still.

I stood up to investigate.

I padded out barefoot to the back yard, where the heat hit me like wave. As I waited for my eyes to adjust to the sunlight, I felt the backs of my knees grow damp, never to evaporate in the saturated air. I wiped at them, fruitlessly, and looked around, but nothing seemed to be out of place. There was the usual sense of tidy abandonment, our bikes aligned along the side of the deck, the dog’s leash attached to a post, lying limp in his absence. I stepped forward, toward the cherry tree and the back fence. In the far right corner, my dad had built a playset, with a rope swing and a plastic yellow slide. I was too old for it that summer, preferring to spend my time nestled up in the cherry tree with a book. Walking toward the playset I noticed a small pile of twigs, heaped haphazardly at the bottom of the slide. In the garden, among the overgrown rhubarb, was the barbeque lighter. Mystery solved.

I picked up the lighter and clicked the trigger, watching the flame spring to life and the hazy shimmer it produced in the hot air. I clicked a few more times, then dropped my hand to my side, kicking the pile of sticks as I turned to go back toward the house.

I think of that day often, about how nothing happened. The summer had been so hot; the grass was scorched and dry. I think of how easy it would have been for the slightest gust of wind, a phone call for my mother, to change the course of the afternoon. As a child, you think that by playing with fire you are learning to master it, that one day it will yield to you. It takes so little to learn that it won’t.

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my sister, jo words ellie phillips

If family legend is to be believed then I crashed-landed on the planet with a colicky scream that lasted precisely six months, while my three-year-old sister remained a perfect picture of calm and placidity. In photographs she is a pale child—stick slender, with straight brown hair, long thin eyes and endless legs—where I’m chubby, with curly coal black hair and eyes like saucers.

When people said I was cute, Jo would call me ”podge” and tell embarrassing stories about me; how I weed in Dad’s shoe, how my favourite colour was ”wed,” how I liked the same books read over and over again. Some stories were true. Some were not.

From this end I can see that all were perfectly harmless toddler fodder, but then it felt spiteful. The complexity of sibling relationships began: I worshipped Jo and I hated her too. Jo was by turns thrilled and horrified by my existence.

Not only was my sister taller and older than me, she was also cleverer. Our endless dolly games involving every toy in the cupboard, ceased abruptly as Mum would yell at us to clear up and my sister would disappear to the toilet for the next hour. I would be left in a sea of Barbies, Sindys, Lego and bricks, doggedly clearing up and wondering when Jo would emerge to help me. I believed every thing that she told me; that rheumatism was when you got tired of a room, that the woman singing on Gimme Shelter is actually Keith Richards, that Fredastaire was one word, that the vending machines in ladies’ toilets dispensed lipsticks and powder puffs.

In high school I wanted to be my sister. People said she was sensible and confident.

She wore a bra and seemed impossibly mature. I went to my first school disco dressed from head to toe in Jo’s clothes. I felt like her all evening.

I followed my sister to the same university and then I followed her to London and lived close to her for many years, sharing friends and experiences along the way. We agreed to make room for each other’s boyfriends and, later, husbands and then we both had a child a-piece who we flung together for that same sibling closeness. But something happens when you have children; relationships get re-jigged, and the central point of the family shifts and divides. Jo and I had been part of one family but now, rather late in the day, we acknowledged that we were part of two separate families. And separate families aren’t tied together. So when we needed to, my family moved away from hers.

And there was anger. And then there wasn’t.

And now we talk on the phone sometimes and we tell each other stuff and I look forward to seeing her.

Because after all, she is still my sister. I just don’t want to be her anymore.

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sestina for a sister words laura cronk

Looking closely, I saw that the window was very clean. She must’ve just washed it. My sister is fastidious. When I watch her I don’t even realise she’s tidying up, getting every spot on the counter, making the green floor tiles gleam. She rewards herself with a cigarette each time she’s really finished something up. Each cigarette vanishes and it’s on to something else. This window is spectacular, even for her. I could reach and touch the green fields, all wet and bright. It’s absolute perfect crystal. My sister finished this and went on to another spot.

This was just a few minutes’ work. Her watch ticks loudly on her wrist. It’s an antique watch, a gift from her long-gone lover. He gave her a cigarette case too, engraved with birds. He gave it to her at the little spot where they used to go. Well, it’s the only spot in town. A café with neon in the window and little tables with candles in the back. My sister has these two gifts from him. And a poem inked in green on a piece of expensive lacy paper. Green ink was an odd choice, I thought. I began to watch her closely after that, after he disappeared and left the poem. My sister held herself together. We sat and each smoked a cigarette after she read it. It was snowing. We sat by the window and smoked, though I don’t smoke, and watched the snow fall. One spot of snow stuck to grass and then more and more did, each tiny spot blew down from the sky and gathered with the others whiting out the lawn, green just a few weeks before. She sat at that window every night for a week to watch and see if he would walk up the path, stopping to stub out his cigarette by the mailbox before ringing as usual, asking for my sister.

I always get the door. It’s a deal we have. My sister gets the phone. I like to see a person if he’s going to put me on the spot.

She doesn’t mind being put on the spot so long as she can finish her cigarette if she’s started one. Our old rattly green phone rings and she goes to it without a thought, checking her watch as she answers, newspaper clutched in her hand from wiping down the window.

This time the phone is him. Her cigarette falls and her watch hangs heavy on her wrist. The spot where she stands goes dark. I pull the window Shades and go to the porch; my sister stands holding that receiver so cold and such an awful green.

A sestina is a fixed form of verse composed of six stanzas of six lines each, and usually a three-line stanza to finish.

The words that end each line in the first stanza must also end each line of the following stanzas.

Sestina for a Sister has been included in The Incredible Sestina Anthology, out now, and was first published on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

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spores, phonebook, a strong stomach words tamara vos

all you need to start a mushroom farm in your living room Given the right damp home—straw, sawdust, paper—mushrooms will grow out of practically anything. In fact, we’d heard it was a good way to use up leftover phonebooks.

All you need is some spores, available on the internet for a quid per pack, and the strength of mind to have something festering away in the corner of your room for several weeks.

First I sterilised the book with a quick spin in the microwave, then scattered the spores between the damp pages, tied it all up in a plastic bag, punched a few air holes and voila! The mushroom emporium was ready.

After a few days, a fluffy white mould began spreading from the pages, and before long the whole phonebook was enveloped with the stuff.

And then: nothing. For three long weeks we watched a fur-covered book that apparently had no aspiration to become anything else. Then, as though the mould wasn’t disgusting enough, little pink nubbins began pushing their way through the holes, which provoked an uproar of, ”Oh how fascinating,” and, ”That’s utterly disgusting,” from the office.

Over a week they grew into recognisable shapes, and there we had it: the bag was sporting oyster mushrooms in a fetching shade of pink.

Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, the new growths took a turn for the worse. Still too small to pick, the mushrooms stopped growing, went

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dry and eventually shrivelled. Was it because the air was too dry? Too hot? Was it plain bad parenting? I put the case forward to several online forums, who in turn said that we may not have misted them enough (”Put them in your shower and wet the walls,” was one suggestion), or recommended that we look up a helpline in the phonebook itself.

There was nothing for it but to bite the bullet and eat what remained. I cut the stalks from the plastic bag and cooked mushrooms-on-toast for the office. There were only enough for one sorry slice, but that felt like a blessing in disguise: it’s quite disconcerting to know that your midmorning snack was attached only moments before to a mouldering bag.

The mushrooms were chewy, and strongly flavoured. Before I knew it my fifth of the toast was gone, along with any evidence of the past month’s fungal efforts. All that was left was the bag of mould.

If you’d like to grow your own, below are a couple of useful sources.

We’d recommend oyster mushrooms, as they are one of the easiest species. However, phonebooks are not the best start: mushrooms tend to fruit more reliably on coffee grounds or straw. If you’re happy to invest more than the 99p that we did, plenty of places will sell you a full kit with a straw-filled bag included. dietzfarm.com / mushroombox.co.uk / www.gourmetmushrooms.co.uk

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Grow on!

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chickpea relay race can you grow your kitchen cupboard into a kitchen garden?

Last summer, I absentmindedly pushed a dried chickpea into a pot of kitchen basil in the manner that a small child pokes uneaten peas down the sides of furniture. Of course, I forgot all about it. A week later, I found that the chickpea had sprouted. This provoked a frenzy of planting everything I could find in my kitchen cupboard, and soon I had a proud line of exotic little plants that, despite circumstances (British weather, months on a supermarket shelf ), had somehow come to life. Now we invite you to sprout green fingers and do the same: find out what sort of garden you can grow from your kitchen cupboard.

Have a rummage in your kitchen, and find the saddest, most neglected bag of dried pulses that you can. Get a jam jar, fill it with soil, and push a grain into the middle about an inch deep. Place on a sunny windowsill and keep well-watered. You can have a go at growing anything: chickpeas, lentils and most dried beans worked well for me.

Take a photo of your seedling, however large or small it gets, and we’ll feature it in our garden-themed summer issue alongside wildflowers and freshly-cut grass. Send in pictures to chickpeatree@ohcomely.co.uk by the 21st of April. Tamara Vos.

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home from home places to go, people to see

2 er Ov 00 to bi

hi ex rs

Olympia Central, London 13th – 16th March 2014

Buy tickets at: www.theknittingandstitchingshow.com/spring UPPER STREET EVENTS

Knitting – Sewing – Dressmaking – Quilting – Crochet – Cross Stitch – Interiors – Textile Art – Crafts For more information and to book tickets call: 0844 848 0159

Fabrics supplied by Fabrics Galore

audrey grace

knitting and stitching show

www.audreygraceshop.com

www.theknittingandstitchingshow.com/spring

What’s your story? Audrey Grace, inspired by Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, is an online boutique specialising in up-and-coming designers and unique vintage. We embody feminine, girly charm through fashion. What’s your mission? Being inspired by timeless, classic style. Recommend us something special. A sparkly vintage gold playsuit, or the pink ballerina dress made by Hayley Grundmann.

What’s the story? A unique formula of inspiration, learning and shopping, appealing to anyone with a love of crafts. What’s your mission? People learning new skills and finding inspiration.

Recommend us something special. Our Knitting and Stitching Homestyle Theatre, Inspiration Station and returning features including The Dressmaking Studio and Learning Curve Programme.

This Modern Love Bespoke Bridesmaid Dresses

www.thismodernlovebridal.com this modern love

duke of uke

www.thismodernlovebridal.com

www.dukeofuke.co.uk

What’s the story? Elegant, bespoke bridesmaid dresses designed and made in London using fabrics such as chiffon and corded lace.

Prices from £75. What’s your motto? Beautiful dresses made with beautiful fabrics, all made to measure. Recommend us something special. Visit my London studio at The Papered Parlour to browse the collection and discuss your designs over tea and cake!

What’s for sale? An array of ukuleles from inexpensive starters (priced from £20) to finely-crafted instruments. Find us on Facebook to learn about our group lessons and femme night, Felt Plectrum. What’s your motto? London’s favourite ukulele and banjo emporium. Recommend us something special. Oh comely readers get 10% off Kala and Lanikai ukuleles and a FREE guitar lesson with every guitar sale!

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what happens when you introduce 1,500 strangers to each other? words liz ann bennett

some boxes from oh comely’s november care package project

We never intended to match up 1,500 strangers. But, in the bleak days of November, we couldn’t think of anything nicer than a box of surprise winter goodies arriving in the post.

The rules of our November Care Package Project were simple: stick your name down to receive the address of a stranger, prepare them a package, and wait for your own to arrive in turn.

After some frantic, excited box-making in the office on posting day, we marvelled at the boxes that began appearing online: the artistic, the elegant and the fantastically over-the-top. Not every box arrived: some fell prey to early babies, jobs abroad or inbox malfunction. When you match up 1,500 strangers, you have to be prepared for 1,500 strange things to happen.

In the spirit of sharing stories, here are a few boxes given and received.

Boxes: Rhona Boat, Juno Doran, Lucy Jones, Jenkay, Gillian Lawtie, Maureen du Preez, Melissa Reid, Clair Rossiter, Helen Wilson.

A big thank you to everyone who took part. We’d love to do this again some time; keep an eye on ohcomely.co.uk/blog.

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the post-it note liberation front words jason ward, photo tamara vos

I stole enough post-it notes to write a memoir, then I had to use them up

I suppose I’m a criminal now. After years of cautious adherence to this country’s judicial system, I have stepped outside the law and committed a theft. A few weeks ago, at work, I visited the stationery cupboard and left with a dozen pads of post-it notes. I’d only needed one, but they came as a pack and I didn’t have the time to separate them. As I walked away, the pads stowed confidently under my arm, no one seemed to care, or even notice. It was the perfect crime.

My office-supply misdemeanour sprung from the desire to structure my life through to-do lists. As I’ve lost every notebook I’ve ever owned, a pad of disposable paper was ideal, but left me with the issue of eleven superfluous pads. Traditionally, post-its aren’t used for much beyond memos and passive-aggressive messages left in fridges, which meant I had to get creative to dispose of my purloined stationery loot.

grocery shopping I’ve started leaving a pad in my food cupboard, updating it through the week. Then, I’ll wander my local supermarket with the top post-it stuck to my basket for easy reference. I was insufferably pleased with myself for developing this technique until I asked around and discovered it was common practice. Crestfallen, I felt like Captain Scott, reaching the South Pole to find that Roald Amundsen had beaten him to it, a Norwegian flag where he’d expected virgin snow.

keyboard cleaning Using post-it notes to clean computer keyboards is an old trick now categorised as a ’life hack’ by websites obsessed with that sort of thing.

The idea is to swish the sticky strip under the keys to collect lurking crumbs and lint. When I tried this, it became clear that whoever came up with the concept had never met my keyboard, which stores several bagels’ worth of crumbs. After minutes of fruitless cleaning, I abandoned the post-its and jimmied up each key individually, using cotton buds as tiny, inefficient mops. Somewhere on the internet this is probably called a life hack too, but it could be more accurately described as a bit of a pain.

bookmarks I’ve always been suspicious of people who use proper bookmarks. This is because I mostly read either in long, slothful stretches, or in fevered gasps at bus stops and whilst friends use pub toilets—situations that don’t call for cumbersome reading aids. Quite unreasonably, I believe that the marking of one’s place in a book should be the province of old train tickets, receipts, and other flotsam recovered from coat pockets.

The post-it note improves upon such detritus: intrinsically impermanent,

its low-tack adhesive makes it as unlikely to fall from your book as it is to last longer than a week.

empowerment It began when, in a moment of uncertainty, I wrote down Pete Holmes’ quote DO THINGS AND FEEL HAPPINESS as a message to myself. Since then I’ve filled an entire pad with my favourite sentences. I’m loath to call them ’inspirational,’ but that’s mostly what they are. Essentially I’ve created a Page-A-Day calendar but with my own scrawled handwriting instead of frolicsome cats or Dilbert. Stationed next to my computer, where I inevitably need it most, I unveil one whenever I feel low. From the encouraging (”YOU CAN MAKE ANYTHING BY WRITING”) to the sage (”SCAN NOT A FRIEND WITH A MICROSCOPIC GLASS”) to the obtusely aphoristic (”YOU CAN’T UN-RING A BELL”), they feel as personal and meaningful to me as the clichés on fridge magnets feel the opposite.

communication ”Hey guys,” said the toaster, ”I’ve become sentient!” It followed this with a smiley face, because it liked emoticons. Despite its lack of opposable thumbs, or any digits for that matter, it had somehow managed to write on a post-it note. My housemates were nonplussed by the astonishing development. A day passed and a second message appeared: ”Ask me about life as a toaster!” It had thoughtfully provided a pen and some post-its for the task. My housemate Ben acquiesced: ”Please get better at toasting both sides of a piece of bread. What’s your favourite colour?”

The answer was orange. Their correspondence continued cheerfully until Ben went on holiday. He eventually returned, as housemates do, but the moment had passed. The toaster’s brief experiment with sentience was over.

makeshift facial hair As the surfaces of my house became accustomed to the sticky embrace of pressure-sensitive adhesive, there was one frontier remaining: my own visage. One night, with midnight disappearing behind me, I made a beard using the final pad. Whilst it was pleasingly fulsome, something wasn’t right. Staring at my face in a mirror, I became acutely aware that there was a void in my life, one that I was attempting to fill with post-it notes. I’d already tried cycling, gardening, single malt whisky, Twitter and elaborate sandwiches, and now I had half a pad of post-its stuck to my chin. What was wrong with me? The bearded face in the mirror just stared back. Seeking comfort, I picked up another pad, peeling off the top note to reveal the one underneath. ”CORDUROY IS, IN ESSENCE, A RIDGED FORM OF VELVET,” the note said, and it was right.

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colourful daydream number one words jason ward illustration joanna boyle

an island filled with black and white animals

It begins—as my fantasies so often do—on an island in the South Pacific. For reasons best left to the imagination, I’ve been gifted a substantial amount of money, the sort of fortune that only comes from being the heir of a despot or besting a dragon. Bestowed with

ludicrous wealth, I procure an uninhabited isle where the only possible visitors will arrive via shipwreck. It’s at this point that I start calling pet shops. I have a dream, and it’s this: to fill an island with every variety of black-and-white animal in existence, like a non-allegorical Noah’s ark but better, because I don’t have to learn carpentry or grow a beard.

In this monochrome paradise I picture skunks, pandas, lemurs, blackneck goats, magpies and springer spaniels living side by side, somewhat puzzled but relatively content. There are tapirs and zebras frolicking merrily by a lagoon, separated from their natural predators by an ocean and the colour yellow, while a group of penguins look out past the palm fronds, wondering if they’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere.

A badger, rescued from the cruelties of a Conservative government, gnaws happily on a cottonwood borer beetle in his hastily-dug sett. In a nearby field cows graze in the sunshine, oblivious to what’s going on. A few guinea pigs run here and there.

There are undoubtedly better ways to spend a vast sum of money than my magnificent, deranged plan, but I can think of little that would give me greater delight than waking up, meandering around my own private islet, before having a spot of lunch and getting mauled by a white tiger in the afternoon.

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colourful daydream number two words liz seabrook illustration martina paukova

a cake shop filled with pink and yellow confectionery

I like to dissect my snacks. I started as a child with the humble five-o’clock slice of Battenberg; first you peel away the marzipan to save for last, then you pull apart the squares, eating the yellow first, then the

pink. One afternoon, mid peel, I realised the vast number of teatime delights that sport this somewhat sickly colour combination.

When Marie Antoinette announced, ”Let them eat cake,”—let food historians be silenced for the duration of this hypothesis—she insisted a small print. All the confections must be served in her favourite colourway. It was in the sweet-toothed first lady’s Versailles kitchen that many of our favourite afternoon tea snacks were invented: the French fancy, angel cake, macarons, and of course, le Battenberg.

A team of moustachioed pâtissiers would work tirelessly on new recipes to display amid the realms of other sugary treats. Bookshelves, lined with jars bearing pear drops and rhubarb and custards, stood tall over silver platters brimming with rose and lemon Turkish delight. Paysans hunched over sweet packets, painstakingly separating the pink and yellow Dolly Mixtures, Smarties and Liquorice Allsorts from the other flavours, whilst others iced Tottenham buns and lemon fingers.

Unfortunately, in a final hoorah after beheading Madame Antoinette and her husband, the angry mob, aided by the crippled paysans and the fraught pâtissiers, burnt the cake shop to the ground. As a final insult, the head pâtissier sold their recipes to a certain Monsieur Kipling, who kept the recipes in the family, until, well, you know.

what’s your favourite colour?

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we asked the people in this issue for the story behind their most-loved hue

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Grey is a warm fluffy jumper that goes with everything or the sky outside when you’re warm indoors with a cup ian of tea. Oh, and it’s prett y Scandinav , and I’m down with that. Liz Seabrook photographer

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Char treuse green. Rowena Brown, ceramic artist

FORMER STUDENT ORI SWEENEY WORKS AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER AT MR.H IN SUNNY DUBAI

I love the challenge of creating something After studying Graphic Design at Shillington College, Ori finally had the skills to get her creative ideas on to paper.

“Having worked in other jobs that I haven’t been interested in, I can really appreciate the fact that I never look at the clock while I’m designing. In fact, there aren’t enough hours in the day!

Being out in a restaurant or bar and ordering off a menu you designed, or driving past a massive billboard, and pointing it out to my friend saying, “I made that” – it’s surreal. I love that the work we create is actually used in real life.”

READ MORE OF ORI’S STORY ON OUR WEBSITE SHILLINGTONCOLLEGE.CO.UK

College of graphic design shillingtoncollege.co.uk F shillington.fb T @shillington_ LONDON • MANCHESTER • NEW YORK SYDNEY • MELBOURNE • BRISBANE