One sunny day in April

I love my little research trips down to London. The early morning train ride down has become an opportunity to read a whole book without having to stop and a space to think without the usual distractions, accompanied by the rituals of a flask of instant coffee and a bagel from the stall in the station (which sadly is actually the best bagel place I’ve found in Edinburgh). Once off the train I make my way along the road to the British Library where I allow myself a brief stop at the cafe before a couple of hours in the Rare Books & Music reading room, then it’s off to The Magic Circle library until early evening, usually followed by a take away and a beer at my friend Tracy’s house and nodding off on the sofa after a long day. The next day it’s back to the British Library and then usually a mad rush to finish reading in time to catch the train back home in the afternoon. Cue return journey ritual of another book and mini bottle of wine.

Rarely on these trips do I allow myself any digression from my main purpose of the visit. The short time span doesn’t really allow for anything else. On my last visit, however, a mixture of planning and chance led to a very different kind of day and a great one it was too.

I had already planned to go and see Roxana Halls‘ exhibition Tingle Tangle at the National Theatre, and was delighted when the opportunity arose to actually meet up with her there for a chat. Since The Magic Circle was closed for the bank holiday I figured I would spend part of the day as usual at the British Library as well as meeting Roxana, but on arrival discovered the reading rooms there were also closed for the day, so I made my way to the National Theatre slightly ahead of schedule, only to find that it too was closed! For some reason it never crosses my mind that things might actually be closed on bank holidays, and I also kind of have this idea that everything in London is just open all the time, so by this time I was actually feeling quite confused and wondering if I was just going to have to spend the entire day wandering around shops I couldn’t afford to buy anything in.

Once Roxana arrived we decided just to go and have a coffee anyway, as it looked like the theatre might open later on that day, and I ended up having a thoroughly good day just chatting about art and galleries and such like. It’s actually quite rare that I get the chance to just talk about stuff with another artist like that, and it really made me realise that it’s something I need to do more often. It was a lovely sunny day on the South Bank, and two coffees and about 4 hours later we realised the theatre had finally opened its doors for the evening performances and we could get in to see the exhibition.

I’d already seen many of the pieces in the exhibition on Roxana’s website, and even although I was really excited about seeing them in real life I wasn’t quite prepared for the scale and impact of them. I have to say it’s not that often that I find a contemporary artist who’s work actually moves me but these paintings definitely did. The amount of work that has gone into their execution is staggering, not only in the actual painting of them but also all of the research, preparation, making of props etc. Pieces such as Terina the Paper Tearer and Inferna the Human Torch depict performers in an extraordinary imaginary cabaret. The accompanying photographs that are on display give some idea of the process and are a great addition to the work on show. The characters, the performers, that Roxana has created, stay with you long after leaving the exhibition, as does the final image of a burned out, bombed out city where a lone woman sets a table for tea in an exposed room, below her lie the remains of a theatre – the location perhaps of the silent cabaret. The exhibition is on until the end of May, so do go and see it if you get the chance.

It’s around us

Today I moved out of my large sunny 2nd floor studio overlooking Arthur’s Seat on one side and Portobello on the other, and moved into my new studio on the ground floor of the same building. The new studio, once all of my stuff was in, looked a bit like a store cupboard when I left it this afternoon, rather than a place I’m going to be spending a great deal of time in – but tomorrow it gets a makeover, and I’m feeling really positive about the move (which was for financial reasons) and looking on the bright side: having people around me since it’s a semi-shared space as opposed to the solitude of the old one, having doors direct to the outside world for sunny days,  and never again having to cause myself bodily harm hauling framed artworks up and down the stairs whenever I have an exhibition.

The past couple of weeks have been the usual hard work and relentless list ticking off, but a number of nice things have eased the pain. Afternoon tea at the Howard Hotel for my cousin’s 50th birthday, another trip to London and The Magic Circle for research, where I also met up with a magician friend Will Houston (who’s book has just come out) to talk magic history over lunch, the opening of a friend’s exhibition in Glasgow – FeltusFeltus, Domestic Zirkus at the Citizen’s Theatre – which is getting rave reviews and is also showing at the Whitecross Gallery in London, and my own little bit of good news: that I will be showing some pieces from the learned animals series of screenprints A Sage of the Stage, Not a Beast in a Cage at The Magic Circle Collector’s Day in May. I also got to see the invites for my show in August at the Tron Theatre which are looking good.

And something to look forward to this weekend, Hauntings: The Science of Ghosts at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, where amongst other things, stage illusionist Paul Kieve will be talking about staging ghost effects in the theatre – can’t wait!

And as if that weren’t enough, the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album comes out on Monday!