Fiona McLees

Martin Parr 1952-2025 | Magnum Photos Magnum Photos

Announcement from Magnum today.

Unseen Gwen John book now available to pre-order! blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

Art history is too important to be the preserve of the privileged The subject is endangered at A level just as it couldn’t be more essential or universal. Helen Barrett makes the case for its survival in British schools

In a world saturated with images, learning to think about what we see is vitally important. ‘Letting art history become endangered and drift further into elite status is not only unfair, it’s also perilous,’ writes Helen Barrett

Oh thank you - I’ll move onto that later…

Cover art for Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden

Music in the studio today - forgive me but I only previously knew “It’s My Life” - but this is amazing. And perfect sounds to work to.

No but that sounds wonderful! Will add it to my book list…

The ancient Curley Oak, truncated and split, still has great presence, and in its hollow wide trunk I found not only acorns but also cockle shells - maybe gifts from those who admire it?

A squat and wide leafless oak is dwarfed by conifers. It must once have been very grand. It lives on but has lost and major branches it once had, instead little slender twigs emerge from one side.

A hollowed out trunk of an oak tree, still upright and with disproportionately small, slender branches. Covered in moss and lichen.

Reputed to be the oldest oak in Wales, this is the Curley Oak in Wentwood Forest. Once part of the hunting grounds for Chepstow Castle, the oak is now a remnant of the native forest, surrounded today by conifers planted in the 1950s and 1960s as the deciduous trees were felled during WWII.

A white mug, printed with ‘Elaine Paige’ numerous times in various fonts. It sits on a perspex shelf. It has been filled with a golden beaded garland, which overflows out from it

The mystery ‘Elaine Paige’ mug has been given its own plinth on the wall in our tea room, and has now also been Christmassed

It’s another driveway on the right - it’s in the middle of the two of them, the photo is taken from the pavement

A squat brick pillar topped by an arrowhead cap. Half has been left as raw grey concrete, the other half very carefully painted white

One of my favourite kind of gate post finials - an arrowhead cap carefully half-painted for the house on one side only. Is this a very British approach? Slightly passive-aggressive vibes, but I always admire the crisp neatness of such a division.

Front of a little stone terraced cottage, with green wooden door and window frames

Here’s the outside of the cottage he was born in, Georgetown, Merthyr Tydfil

Winter announcement: Please, please cut the stitch at the bottom of your coat vents. It’s too frustrating for the people walking behind you.

Harder to fit that on a clock!

Of Myfanwy fame? Don’t know about Gwahoddiad!

A photo of the face of a grandfather clock. There are little simple boat scenes painted around the face. Lettering beneath the dial is a tad amateurish and poorly spaced (and spelled), reading: “Powell&Davies MERTHYRTYDYIL”

Disappointed clock with the cutest lettering / misspelling. An endearing inhabitant of Joseph Parry’s cottage, Merthyr Tydfil

It’s like the counterpart to Whiteread, almost - floating rather than solid, but equally inaccessible, and lost

A view inside a corridor constructed of fine mesh fabric in different colours, with architectural details and fittings carefully stitched and shaped

Do Ho Suh at Tate Modern (exhibition just closed). A perfect approach to translating insubstantial memories of space into ethereal structures that can be experienced but not interacted with. Brought to mind many lost spaces from my own life

Ah not that I know of! But will find out…

Yes, the perceived authenticity of these places intrigues me. The Paolozzi studio in Edinburgh is an intriguing fabrication of real objects in a gallery space

And they were very much billed as “recreations” - but it was like they couldn’t commit to going the whole way so ended up in this weird intermediary space

Here’s part of it. The graphic didn’t even extend all the way to the floor!

Oh that lecture sounds fascinating

The Francis Bacon one was also crazy. A giant wall graphic of a photo of his studio, in front of which a combination of replica detritus bits and bobs were loosely scattered and a few genuine brushes in perspex boxes. So many levels of real / replica

Did you see the Artists’ Studio exhibition at Whitechapel a few years ago? There were some recreations in that, some exceedingly odd fabrications - sitting very uncomfortably between replica/ installation/ set dressing. The Factory was perhaps the oddest, with framed photos mounted on foiled walls

Oh that’s cool! No I hadn’t seen that before!

I’m fascinated by artist studio museums and am working my way (slowly) through a list of those in the UK. This announcement from the Gagosian (Paris) reads like catnip to me: “Filmmaker Wes Anderson Re-Creates the Legendary New York Studio of Artist Joseph Cornell” gagosian.com/media/galler...

“When the mind swings by a grass-blade
an ant's forefoot shall save you” - was trying to remember this piece of Ezra Pound, and in doing so ended up reading this. My mind feels very small against Clive James’ observations but I enjoyed the read very much: www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

A print out showing a grid of images featured details from different Gwen John watercolours and paintings, next to a chapter heading “Colour”

Proofing some pages from a forthcoming book about Gwen John! Focusing largely upon her technique, materials, and working processes, this is a snippet of the chapter on Colour

A drawing of Dot Cotton by Egon Schiele on the wall of Croydon University Hospital

Obviously hospitals can be stressful places so it is good that the walls contain works of art which can calm worried visi… WHAT THE FUCK