Canvas

Christmas came early this year. I just received this beautiful collographic print in the post. The sender? My artist uncle, Preben Andersen.The photo does not pay it justice as you don't get the wonderful play between print and paper so evident in real life.

I grew up in a working-class family in rural Denmark, but ours was a weird family. Everybody seemed to be creative one way or another. Some of my uncles set up their own 'beat combo' in the mid-1960s which led to much heartache among the local teenage girls. Others became more interested in visual arts and crafts: murals, collages, sculpture, pottery.. Of course my family still obsessed over football results and popular music, but there was a definite and pervasive sense of self-expression and creative exploration which I recognise in myself.

I grew up with paintings on the wall and frequent visits to galleries exhibiting works by members of my family. I inherited a big pile of art history books from my great-grandmother's brother (who had been a farm labourer as well as a painter). I recall one summer when I spent days in my great-grandmother's backyard trying to use a hammer and chisel so I could carve out a sculpture from a cheap piece of concete.

I never knew my upbringing to be different from everybody else - that is, until I started school and other kids did not make their own Christmas decorations, their mums did not knit them jumpers in mad colours, and their parents much preferred reproductions of famous paintings (Monet's water lilies, in particular) to no-name oil paintings by weird uncles. It was a rude awakening but thankfully I did not reject my unusual upbringing. I just .. well, I'm still a crafty, creative, slightly odd person, am I not?

I paint too.

Well, I used to paint. I have sold a couple of paintings over the years, never made enough decent paintings to stage a real exhibition and currently I live in a space which does not lend itself to splashing acrylic paint around. I miss it, though I know I am not particularly gifted; I just love colour - one of my first art loves was Wassily Kandinsky unsurprisingly. I am also shacked up with an art school boy who is a creative, slightly oddball and colour-obsessed man. They always say you end up marrying your father - I did not have a father but I had a huge number of creative, slightly oddball, and colour-obsessed uncles. Draw your own conclusions.

Finally, just two quick links to two of my favourite artists/paintings. I grew up with figurative art but I fell in love with abstract art very early on in my life.

• Joan Eardley. Her Two Children is at Glasgow Kelvingrove Art Gallery and it is a punch to the gut every time I see it.
• Kasimir Malevich's Suprematist paintings.

Garterstitch 100

Garterstitch100 seeks to celebrate the centenary of International Women's Day - and you as a knitter can help. The artists are hoping to make a blanket consisting of 100 million stitches. They need you to knit them a square or set up a public knitting station where knitters can come and knit. There are a myriad other ways that you can help out. I'll be lending a hand - will you?

In Edinburgh

In Copenhagen, the Nørrebro neighbourhood is my favourite. It is bohemian, multicultural and vibrant. The streets are filled with small 'ethnic' eateries catering for small immigrant groups and niche culinary interests. My taste buds really came off age when I lived there. Today we went to Edinburgh and visited Jo Jo's Danish Bakery & Cafe. As I sat there munching my tebirkes (think a croissant filled with a marzipan/butter concoction and topped with poppy seeds), it struck me: now I'm the ethnic minority with niche culinary interests.

If you are in Edinburgh or thereabouts, I thoroughly recommend Jo Jo's place. Jo's got the recipes just right and she's a lovely person too.

And then that big exhibition on Alasdair Gray and his images for his books: Gray Stuff was good stuff.

I was particular taken with the process shown in-between the works: the process of taking complete control over every little aspect of his Book.

Gray's need to take control over the visual impact shows up early (with Lanark, of course) but he gets more and more confident about his level of control as each book is published. I was sadly sad that the exhibition was not arranged strictly chronological (and I would have loved to have known how much say Gray had), but I was fascinated.

I particularly liked the collages making up the frontispieces in Lanark with marginalia written in Gray's distinct handwriting pointing out how the images should fit on the page. And, oh, the notes written about the colour scheme of The Book of Prefaces (or The Anthology of Prefaces - the mystery of its real title has not been solved nor has the 'is it/isn't it' mystery about the comma in 1982 Janine.. forgive me, I have been geeking out all day)!!

How I wish I had had access to some of this material back when I was an aspiring academic. Oh, the joy! the rapture!

Just along the street from the Alasdair Gray exhibition, the National Museum of Scotland. Neither of us had ever been, cough, and we arrived too late to see more than the first two floors (we only had three hours and we like to take our time).

The basement was particularly interesting: the pre-history and early settlements in Scotland. I'm a sucker for anything relating to the Picts.

Whilst in the basement I thought fondly of Erika and Lori who both recently referenced Andy Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy is a contemporary British artist who makes .. some call it 'land art' because his pieces tend to be site-specific and employs exclusive natural materials .. I think of his art as being peculiarly ritualistic: fire, circles, traces and marks. The National Museum has commissioned him to create installations playing with and off archaeological finds and instead of detracting from the objects, I think his works added to them. It was a pleasant surprise.

Next time we are through, we'll work our way through the second and the third floors. It's a labyrinthine museum and that is awfully appealing in its own right.

Tomorrow: another trip to Edinburgh (it's work-related) and Friday: another trip to Edinburgh (it's flight-related). Today was all about indulgence.

Fingerprints

This will require a bit of back-story, but not much. Alasdair Gray is a Glaswegian writer and artist. I once spent a lot of time looking at how he imagines and uses the Book as a material object. Somewhere in this flat I have a opus magnum which details Gray's use of paratextual elements in constructing and assembling his books (In case you care, his The Book of Prefaces really pushes these ideas to the very edge. I wouldn't call it an interesting read; it's a maddening exercise in finding a text. It's fun.)

In short: I like Alasdair Gray a great deal. In a strange and roundabout way, Gray's work in art and fiction was one of the reasons I moved to Glasgow and probably also one of the reasons why I connected with Glasgow so quickly. When you spend a significant amount of time living with your head inside books that write Glasgow, Glasgow herself becomes familiar.

I was watching BBC's The Culture show tonight. Alex Kapranos was reading a passage from Gray's Lanark whilst sitting in Óran Mór. The inside of my head was splattered across the television screen. To clarify: the frontman whose band's first album was the soundtrack to my life circa 2003-2005; the passage the very one you can find in the sidebar on this website; the novel which spawned a thousand and one things; and my local pub which just so happens to be decorated by Gray himself.

I learned that Alasdair Gray is working on a giant mural for my local underground station, Hillhead. And there is an exhibition in Edinburgh (there are two exhibitions, actually, but I'm mostly interested in the first one).

Life is very odd and very good and very bitter-sweet and very perfect sometimes. I am amazed at where my life has taken me.

Friday Linkage

Some linkage for you on a Friday night:

• Sketch to Screen - The Art of Hollywood Costume Design
• A knitted calendar - you rip out the days as they pass. Oddly poetic.
• I'm not a huge fan of television as a rule, but I love how this TV set is displayed.
• Historic Crafts currently looking at spinning, weaving and dyeing.
• The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.
• Ask A Real Musician: Five Metal Singers. A classically trained singer listens to five very distinct metal singers. A really interesting read.
• Is England the most overcrowded country in Europe? How to use statistics in a proper way.
• Heja Sverige - a really interesting editorial from a Swedish newspaper (warning: it's in Swedish and deals with Scandinavian politics!)
• "No, You Can't Pick My Brain?" - I found this via my mate Ras who works as pro photographer in Seattle and who is fed up with a certain kind of people asking for a certain kind of advice. I can really relate to both Ras and the brain-picked article writer. And I now identify as a popcorn machine. Pop. Pop.

Self-Stitched September round-up: the Haematite scarf/shawl worn yesterday. My Millbrook cardigan was worn today. It's rather warm in Glasgow at the moment which makes SSS extra interesting..

PS We went to the Joseph Beuys exhibition today. I didn't like it much - I thought it was simultaneously too masculine and too infantile and too tied to Beuys' own myth-making. We then went upstairs to Aspects of Scottish Art 1860-1910 and whilst some of the art was too chocolate-box for me, I enjoyed it more than I did Beuys. You can try to lead this girl to Fluxus, but she does like her early 20th C art. Sigh.

DK: Knit

DK: Knit is an exhibition of contemporary knitwear design by graduates from the Kolding School of Design currently on display at the Danish Cultural Institute in Edinburgh. Being both of the knitterly and the Danish persuasion, I thought I might as well check it out. Unsurprisingly, most of the pieces are machine-knitted and at a fairly fine gauge. Some pieces explore garment construction (like the piece shown left), other pieces explore the idea of "fabric". One particular piece resembles a big pink bath sponge plunged on the floor - I can admire the skill in its construction whilst at the same time reject its aesthetic, can't I? - whilst another piece looks like an upmarket version of IKEA curtains (and uses the same stitch pattern as the Summit Shawl).

My favourite pieces are the ones which add twists to so-called classic knitting: items that acknowledge their debt to generations past whilst still trying to pave the way forward.

Hans-Christian Madsen has two pieces included in the DK: Knit exhibition and I really liked both. My favourite was the pullover shown right: a traditional Icelandic yoked sweater in subtle colours - but when you get closer, you can see that the colourwork yoke incorporates unusual materials.The surface is broken up - but by texture rather than colour.

Katarina i Geil also draws upon knitting traditions - most obviously from her native Faroe Islands - but uses cables in a really organic, free-flowing way. I am also impressed by her use of embellishment and contrasting texture. One piece is handknitted(?) in rustic wool with clever crochet ornaments in silk. Sadly my photos has not turned out well nor does she have any web presence, so you will have take me at my word.

For a handknitter, DK:Knit is not the most inspiring exhibition. I can see some possibilities in the play with surface textures, but I think fashion students will find it more worthwhile. I did enjoy my chat with the friendly staff and I was alerted to a new Danish bakery in Edinburgh. Mmm, tebirkes!

The knitterly content continues tomorrow..

Yes, there is more. Oh yes, there is more.