Crossrail portal at Royal Oak.

Alex Zapak live at the Tabernacle. Not waving but drowning.

Alex was stunning. Nicholas Roeg was in the audience and thought so too. a brilliant night.

Countess Alex Zapak

Performance artist Countess alex Zapak is putting on a free show at the Tabernacle tonight.

Elvis spotted in Powis Square, Notting Hill.

Elvis is alive and well. I spotted him in Powis Square yesterday going into the house that was used as the location in 'Performance' the cult 70's movie starring Mick Jagger and Anita Ekberg. Sorry about the picture quality but I had to move fast.

















Suspiciously Elvis is performing at the Tabernacle on July 8th. should be fun.

The girl with the horse in her hair.

Performance Artist and storyteller The Countess Alex Zapak brings her fairytail Punk to the Tabernacle on Thursday evening. She is probably as mad as a box of frogs but interesting. I have not seen her show, I have however seen videos and talked to Alex and am looking forward to this.

Notting Hill could do with an injection of Avante Garde, Dadaist creativity.


http://www.tabernaclew11.com/whats-on/gigdetails/23-jun-11-the-girl-with-the-horse-in-her-hair-part-i-fairytail-punk-tabernacle/

It is a free event. The fb page is here:
https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=220585207963199

The best smelling shop in West London.

Local chef Mark Richardson impersonating Travis Bickle at the spice shop in Blenheim Crescent W11.

ICON TACT.

Icon Tact. Bob West.

Bob writes:

It's constructed from a series of hand made faux messiahs in plaster around the edges.  An actual external solid wood frame,  The main image is on a separate board, canvas covered and slightly uplifted to sit proud of the framing device.  The main panel is a montage of bits.    There is a small upturned, hand painted postal box for jewellery in the bottom left-hand corner beside the central face; a fake looking relic on the other side made from nails and bits of gnarled leather and at the top right-hand side, obscuring the crown a little, is another applied 'thing' figure with a tin insert.   The central figure is surrounded by what are to me rather archetypical characters making hand gestures that crop up a lot in my work.   The worn down nature of the thing is a key element; lots of scratched surfaces and purposeful ageing - care worn and enticed.  The main figure has brass  'eyebrows' from an old gas mantle.  It's mostly painted in acrylic with household emulsion - although I am tempted to say 'household emotion' which has a better ring to its echoing tones.

Is it my imagination or is the figure at bottom left holding a severed head.What's that all about then?

Kate Bush - Rocket man.

How to identify a fairytail punk.

How do you identify a fairytail punk? You look at her boots of course.

There will be much more on this subject at a later date.

Who is the Fairytail punk?

This is the Fairytail punk.

more later.

Portobello Art Gallery and what's going on at the Westway Development Trust.

Portobello Art Gallery is a 'pop up'  underneath the Westway on Portobello Green (half way between Portobello Road and Ladbroke Grove). It is open until Sunday and although small contains some interesting portraits painted from photograph by Jon Cartwright . It is well worth a look if you are in the neighbourhood.

http://www.westway.org/trustnews/trustnews/11-05-23/Westway_Community_Festival_11th_-_19th_June_2011_Its_a_Celebration.aspx

Brick Heads,

Currently on show in the Tabernacle W11 gallery space.

Notting Hill Views.

Ladbroke Grove.

Portobello road 

The Cow. Westbourne Park Road.

Pigeon post.

this is a very early rough draft. Just notes really.


A song for last year's wife.

This spring

a pigeon scratched a rough nest

on the ledge outside the kitchen window

The ledge where you grew parsley and mint

and the scarlet geranium you nurtured from a cutting

taken on a drunken walk home

from outside the neighbours house.

The pots have gone

the herbs long dead

the geranium fell to the basement last winter

leaving space for the rough nest

in which a pigeon laid a solitary egg

It was not a good nest

I scolded the bird for such slapdash househusbandry

but we watched over that egg

as I fed her seeds and crumbs

and fretted with her.

On the third day

a jackdaw took the egg

there was nothing I nor the pigeon could do

a jackdaw took the egg

save make accusative stares

a jackdaw took the egg

I did not take the egg and I could not save the egg

she did not take the egg and could not save the egg.

but I think we equally cared for that egg

until we decided to blame each other for it's loss.

I have not seen the pigeon since and I have let the pigeon go

but the egg still haunts me.