Alexandra Bircken

Crossings (detail)

Alexandra Bircken is showing new work at Herald Street Gallery, Bethnal Green, London E2 until 15th March. Check their website for opening times.

Kirsty Hall

Kirsty Hall is exhibiting Pin Ritual at Prick Your Finger in Bethnal Green until Saturday. You can join Kirsty for a Pin Performance on Saturday 28th February between 1 and 3pm.

Kirsty's art can be described as the 'museum of everyday'. Capturing the traces left behind by events and exposing hidden stories are central concerns. Working obsessively with huge numbers of small, common objects like pins or matches, she makes art that explores fragility, repetition and loss.

Prick Your Finger

Prick Your Finger, 260 Globe Road. Bethnal Green, London E2. A lovely shop and gallery for all things knitted and crocheted run by Rachael Mathews and Louise Harries. Their current show until Saturday is by Kirsty Hall.

Mark Clarke

Hildegard of Bingen, (detail) 2008

Clarke's Cabinets of Cures: Blood, Mermaids and Madness continues at the Wellcome Collection until 5th April. Artist Mark Clarke was commissioned by the Wellcome Collection to create an installation inspired by Sir Henry Wellcome's Medicine Man gallery. 'I wanted to produce something that was enchanting and beautiful that goes against prevailing cynicism but at the same time still addresses the provacative subject matter involved in the struggle against sickness and disease.'

Thankyou to Selvedge magazine for their review which inspired me to go and see the show.

Wellcome Collection

Postcards produced by the Wellcome Collection 183 Euston Road, London NW1 from the exhibition War and Medicine. I missed this exhibition which ended a couple of weeks ago - you can still buy the book. The Wellcome Collection has a permanent display of unusual artifacts including a short film, The Phantom Museum by The Quay Brothers and a great bookshop.

Tricky

Hell is around the corner.

A is for bicycle

Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green

Mosaic Bicycle

Mosaic Bicycle, originally uploaded by Feltbug.

1. stay-caps, 2. white, 3. Untitled, 4. leaning bicycle, 5. Untitled, 6. Another Bicycle Bridge, 7. The Anatomy of a Bicycle Lane, 8. bicycles, 9. Ski bike, 10. Skirt Guard, 11. Custom Painted Bicycle, 12. bicycle for two, 13. abandoned bicycle, 14. 023_bicycle, 15. that bicycle became my trusted companion, 16. bicycle, 17. bicycle card, 18. life. cycle., 19. Sir Pendleton and the Kogswell, 20. Soft right on wet leaves, 21. Beflowered bicycles, 22. waiting, 23. I wanna bicycle too!, 24. I want to ride my bicycle, 25. Cycles Humbert, 26. Bicycle tools, 27. Bicycle Boy, 28. manhattan bicycles, 29. bicycle, 30. bicycle

Here is a selection of photographs and artwork by some of my lovely friends on flickr with a bicycle related theme. Click on the image to go to flickr. Thankyou to all the artists for sharing their pictures.

Bicycle love

Here are some links to get you in the mood and on your bike! Thankyou to Joffy for the splendid snapshot! Bicycle print dress from Beyond Retro.

Great footage of a cycling musician from The Swiss Lounge.

Lots of links to chic bicycle blogs from Crust Station.

Dutch bicycles and accessories from Bobbin Bicycles in London.

Mosaic Valentine

Mosaic Valentine, originally uploaded by Feltbug.

1. exhibition, 2. heart, 3. Heart, 4. Heart Heads, 5. Heart, 6. mixed feelings - journal30, 7. I Heart Wifealiciousness, 8. replacement of the heart (detail), 9. heart lines, 10. Open heart operation, 11. i heart recycling (d2d: 4/2), 12. Triumph of a heart, 13. surgery heart, 14. The More I Want You, 15. all heart, 16. artwork for the Poldr &Przewalski's Horses' split, 17. Got Heart, 18. Aran (detail) 3, 19. heartattack2_420, 20. Alter Book Project, 21. 009020803 work in progress, 22. insanity, 23. BARBE SAINT JOHN -Love Tattooed on My Heart Necklace, 24. heart, 25. rhythm, 26. Zera: Environmental Indicators: Wounded Heart (Detail), 27. The Heart, 28. My Heart on a Table, 29. oxygen pathways of the human heart coeur, 30. Bleeding Hearts Necklace

Here are some beautiful hearts sourced from my contacts and also The Art of Anatomy group on flickr. Click on the image or the titles to go to the page of the featured artists.

Snow

Antony Hegarty

Void, 2007, ink on paper 20.8x13cms

Antony Hegarty is showing recent work at Isis Gallery, 20 Hanway Street, London W1 until 28th February.

"I have drawn and made things since I was a kid. The visual world is a place I can dream in solitude. I think about the present and how can I reach out to gather the past and the future and draw them towards me. I try to follow the lines, tracing the invisible. Sometimes it's a simple matter of bringing something into focus, or drawing forward the spirit I imagine lies hidden inside a thing. Other times, it's finding the flamingo that lives inside the shadow of my heart. Or I could try to cry a circle for the green eye light of a sea horse."

The Crying Light is Antony and the Johnsons latest musical release. Listen to the new single Epilepsy is Dancing.

Mosaic Monday

Mosaic Monday, originally uploaded by Feltbug.

Here is a selection of photographs and artwork by some of my lovely friends on flickr. Click on the image to go to flickr where you can find the featured artists. Thankyou to all the artists for sharing their pictures. Mosaic Monday is late this week - there have been some problems with uploading from flickr to blogger but it seems to be working again.

Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray designed this book cover. The Mayor's tongue by Nathaniel Rich. Beautiful.

The House of Illustration

At the Dulwich Picture Gallery I saw a catalogue for a previous exhibition, organised in conjunction with The House of Illustration, What Are You Like? , taken from a Victorian game of describing yourself with images of your favourite things. The House of Illustration is a work in progress - it was set up by artist and illustrator, Quentin Blake in 2002 and it will be a museum of illustration, both British and International opening in Kings Cross in 2011. You can read more on their website.

Illuminations

I just made it to this exhibition of work by Saul Steinberg which ends this Sunday - it was wonderful - very inspiring, funny, clever, witty, inventive, poignant. So many ideas. I loved it!

It is on at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Admission fee £9

Bicycles.

A collage for a friend, made from thrifted bits and pieces, the chopper bicycle is from a card designed by Kim Jenkins.

Casting shadows

There was a beautiful light walking home through the snow, past the cemetery last week. It reminded me of watching Werner Herzog's Nosferatu.

Werner Herzog was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award at BBC4's world cinema awards recently. There was a short season of his films on BBC4 including Nosferatu and the magical Enigma of Kasper Hauser.

Dancing On Your Grave

The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs present an evening of "toe tapping epitaphs, spectral harmonies and bone rattling banjoleles" in Dancing On Your Grave at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London from the 10th until the 22nd February.

Maria Ikonomopoulou

Originally from Greece and now living and working in Rotterdam Maria Ikonomopoulou is showing new work at Art Rotterdam this weekend. The art fair ends tomorrow.

Irana Douer

Looking in the window of Rough Trade Records recently I spotted a CD with artwork by fabulous Argentinian artist Irana Douer. I have got to know Irana's work through her flickr page. The CD is The Silence of Love by Headless Heroes and it is as good as its cover suggests!

Irana Douer is showing Hidden Treasures at Rare Device in San Francisco until 3rd March.

Hunky Dory

David Bowie portraits by Geoff MacCormack at the Rockarchive Gallery, 289 Kings Road, London SW3 until 6th February.

Zoe Rubens

love handle, originally uploaded by zoerubens.

Zoe Rubens makes beautiful sculptures, they have a quality of drawing about them which I love even though they are 3 dimensional. Zoe has an exhibition at the Bar du Marche restaurant, 19 Berwick Street, Soho, London W1 until the end of March. Click on the image to go to her flickr page for more pictures or you can visit her website here.

Mosaic Monday

Mosaic Monday, originally uploaded by Feltbug.

1. Looking Closely, 2. new drawings., 3. 8, 4. my paper underwear, 5. doodle draw diary filler-upper, 6. more ink play, 7. Letter From The Grave part 4, 8. gato negro 006, 9. Untitled, 10. Best for You, 11. Aqua Zitter Man3, 12. Untitled, 13. Chair, 14. 008101303 ciática [exvoto / votive offering], 15. ima monster ima monster, 16. rotten finger, 17. monster bunny petunia closeup, 18. Traumf (31), 19. Untitled, 20. You Are Doing This_020209, 21. type #1 – textile design, 22. 2 go mad, 23. 090120, 24. correct things, 25. Love Tattoo, 26. celtic, 27. En, 28. Priceless, 29. my doll4, 30. my doll3

Here is a selection of photographs and artwork by some of my lovely friends on flickr. Click on the image to go to flickr or you can click on the titles to go to the page of the featured artist. Thankyou to all the artists for sharing their pictures.

Saul Steinberg

Girl in bathtub by Saul Steinberg 1949

Saul Steinberg was an American artist whose magic lit up the pages and covers of The New Yorker for six decades. The Dulwich Picture Gallery in London is holding a retrospective which features more than a hundred drawings, collages and sculptural assemblages by the artist. The exhibition continues until 15 February and there is an entrance fee of £9.

C.W.Stoneking

Songs to fall in love with by Australian bluesman C.W.Stoneking.

2.30am

I was mesmerised by a silent night of snowfall and this elusive fox. It has been 18 years since we saw this much snow in London.