A Guide to London...

I sat on London's Circle line from 5am till gone midnight, photographing the seat in front of me at every stop. Interestingly not a single person questioned me, nor tried to stop me, nor moved to an empty seat elsewhere in the carriage – personally I would have!

The experiment provided me with many a disgusted look and amusing pose. Maybe I can produce a guide book to the everyday performances displayed on London's stage...

The Lyrics of Our Time

'When you become totally egoless, you can disappear into your own self.' Alan Aldridge

The brief was to select an artist/designer on show at the Design Museum last year, and produce a sculpture that expressed nothing more than their creative process – using a budget of no more than £5.

I chose the work of Alan Aldridge, which has come to epitomise the psychedelic era of the creative arena throughout the 60–70s. For those who are not familiar with his work – Aldridge famously illustrated the Beatles lyrics and developed book covers for Penguin.

After looking past the bombardment of colour and surreal imagery that chacterised his work, I discovered that the designer completed all of his illustrations – without exception – working from the bottom right-hand-corner of the page up to the top-left. This relentless process became the focus of my sculpture. 

Using two copies of the 'The London Paper' (a daily free-sheet projecting the 'lyrics' of our time) backed on to white card; I worked with the corners featured amongst the spread-layouts – text columns, images and headlines – to produce a swarm of abstract fin-like structures that flowed with the Aldridge diagonal. On completing the 36-pages of the newspaper, I paneled them from cover to back using the same diagonal principle to create this 249x177cm sculpture – presenting the flow of direction used to produce each of his psychedelic masterpieces – exchanging the importance of his style for his process.

Snow City

The snow that buried London today forced the city to a halt. Public transport ceased and my dissertation hand-in deadline was extended due to the University closure. With no means of leaving the borough, Kennington park was filled with locals. The competition to build the most impressive sculpture was fierce and my snow-rolling efforts just didn't cut it. In a city that hasn't had snow for almost 20 years I question where the hell these Londoners acquired such talent?

Photo: Becky Lyddon