Hey folks

Just realised it’s been another month since I wrote on here. Time flies

I shot my last wedding job of the year at the weekend, a wee beauty at one of my favourite spots, Netherbyres House in Eyemouth. So there’s no excuse for me not to catch up on some of the personal work I keep threatening to make. I’ve been busy getting stuck in about lots of research and ideas...

I’ve been on a mini-retirement in the big smokes. Kinda, I did end up shooting some soundcheck and gig shots and a couple of portraits for a band my pal’s label are looking after. But mosty I danced at an old school indie disco till 4am, went for a couple of runs and filled up on my favourite things. Dear pals fed me delicious food, which is a treat cos I can’t remember the last time someone cooked for me that wasn’t catering at work or the chippy. I also cut about a bunch of exhibitions at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, The Barbican and The Royal Academy of Arts.

I loved Re/Sisters at The Barbican, a very beautiful exhibition about some really depressing things. The exhibition explores environmental and gender justice as indivisible parts of a global struggle. It starkly shows in many ways how the patriarchy and capitalism are murdering our increasingly precarious ecosystem. Mostly photography and film, the work explores how women’s understanding of our environment has often resisted capitalism through various forms of protest.

Also loved A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern. Khadija SayeI, who died in Grenfell, made the most beautiful wet plate collodion tintype self portraits using symbolic items to represent traditional Gambian spiritual practices, exploring the ideas of surrendering to a higher power for solace, of human soul and of virtue. They’re very delicate and powerful.

I also had my usual wee daunder around their collection mostly to stare at the Yves Klein blue and surrealist stuff. They’ve changed it up a bit since I was last there so good to take in some new beauty.

We also visited the Sarah Lucas exhibition at Tate Britain. There were several of her works in the Michael Clark exhibition a while back at the Dundee V&A which I felt showed off her work better. This felt like it was just loads of boob chairs. I reckon it must have been fun sitting in some cold studio in the 90s hot glue gunning fags to toilet plungers from the pound store and proclaiming they’d be at the Tate one day. Was good to see her massive tabloid pieces and wanking chairs in the flesh though. And we had a laugh at how the boob chairs have gone from being made out of cheap tights like characters try to sell you in the pub next to the Barrowland to being cast in Bronze (probs for Elton).

And I’ve always loved Marina Abramovic, particularly her performance work with Ulay. So I had stiff nips at Royal Academy wandering through the huge screens of them and thinking she’s hard as fuck for the endurances she’s put herself through physically and mentally.

The piece, Rhythm 0, is brutal. She laid out 72 objects representing pleasure and pain, from a gun to feathers, for the audience to use on her as they wished over a 6 hour performance. The photos of the audience slowly becoming more and more violent - they wrote on her skin, stripped her clothing, held a loaded gun to her neck…at the end of the 6 hours as she began to move the audience all left in a hurry.

“The experience I drew from this work was that in your own performances you can go very far, but if you leave decisions to the public, you can be killed”

— Marina Abramovic

Marina and Ulay also famously walked from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China as a performance piece that was meant to end with them marrying in the middle. Instead their relationship fell apart in the years it took to arrange, as China wasn’t open to foreigners at the time, so they did it to say goodbye to each other and didn’t speak again for 20 years. They walked 2500 km each. From the walk there were rubbings of stones and cystrals from the path, which then inspired the next period of work Marina made which focussed on the healing power of crystals and creating transitory objects. I hadn’t seen any of that type of her work before, mostly just video of performance pieces and some stills.

Not to self aggrandise but to segue into enjoying when the universe is having a right fucking laugh, it was wild to then receive a message right after seeing all of these, from a friend to say her abusive ex had once again contacted her. The police had already spoken to this guy about relentless stalking and harassment for months, but he sent her another message anyways. This time he was laying in to me for posting self portraits on the internet and hating me for basically existing. I spoke to this guy once ever, a year ago at a gig. I’d blocked several of his instagram accounts after I found out he was harassing my pal and he sent me a creepy message saying he was ‘a sensitive soul’ Aye, nice. He’s in court soon so I can’t show you just now but some of the tirade deserves it’s own t-shirt. Synchronicities and burn the witches vibes all over the gaff.

I feel like a lot of the weight of what’s happening across the world boils down to the systems we live under promoting and rewarding narcissism and entitlement, mostly in white men. Most of the art I saw came with the same messages - that there is hope for other ways of life but the patriarchy and capitalism are killing us and our planet, that peaceful protest can make a difference, that we need to build on community and spirituality which respects that we are of the earth over control, destruction and extraction for profit and political individualism. Right up my street stuff. On the train home I listened to The Other Side: A Journey Into Women, Art and the Spirit World by Jennifer Higgie, which I recommend too.

All feels like it’s leading nicely to Samhain or Noz an Anaon as my Breton ancestors would call it, when the veil between the two worlds is thinnest. A time to guard ourselves from harm and to show our respects to and learn from the dead, to celebrate the passing from harvest to winter. Light a fire and candles, let go of all the things that no longer serve us and vocalise hope for the coming year. Place gifts at the altar and let go of those who wish for us to sacrifice our true selves to feed their anger and hate.

Maybe that all reads a bit serious but then the world is burning to fuck so what you gonna do? I had a great mini retirement. There was red velvet everywhere but that’s another story. I’ve got another one coming soon.

** these are all phone snaps so don’t judge me.

I should probably also talk about some upcoming work, eh?

I’ll be joining Rowanjoy at her sample sale in Good Vibes, Leith on Saturday 25 November. Hit her up for a spot. I’ll have the last bits and bobs from our old Elopement Society online store, which is mostly candles and candlestick holders (ideal for wedding day decor or as xmas gifts). And you can ask me anything about my wedding and elopement photography work, local elopement design too.

And I might be joining my neighbours at The Drill Hall for a studio open day (but I’m in a tricky part of the building so we’ll see). Either way, I’m hoping to get my act together to have a series of prints for sale over the website soon. More about that once I’ve finished my last couple of wedding edits and got the cameras out again…

In the meantime, peace and love

x