Young Guns

JSBS is all about promoting comtemporary photography and publishes zines as well as other larger collaborative publications. You can browse the mags and find out about their latest exhibitions online at www.jesuisunebandedejeunes.com

Creative Review Photography

Thomas was selected to have his work in the Creative Review Photography annual this year. Featuring several images from his photo story on female world champion boxer Katie Taylor. Tonight I'm off to the launch party and apparently all the selected works will be on display. Will report back after the event...

....Upadate: Fabulous party at the Print Space on Kingsland Road, grabbed an armful of the annuals to give out to friends. Finished off the night sitting in what felt like a Parisian coffee parlor drinking wine and talking about photography and art but mainly about boxing!

www.thomasbutlerphotographer.com

Photos copyright Thomas Butler

Douglas Coupland fashion line

Douglas Coupland has teamed up with Roots.com to launch his own fashion line, Roots x Douglas Coupland. On the Roots website there are also a set of videos to watch about the collaboration. "I've never really seen too much difference between writing or making visual art or designing furniture or clothing. It's still my brain – I'm just using different parts of it for different things, I began doing writing projects and art and design projects to explore a new way of seeing Canada. Roots is one more way of continuing this exploration. I want to present a wide-open Canadian sense of colour, adventure, communication and openness that defines our country." If you haven't heard of Coupland and his Generation X, I insist that you start you DG education right this instant! :-)

www.coupland.com

www.roots.com/douglascoupland/

The art of healing...

From top: Broadside prints from Volume IV, "You Are Not My Enemy!" (2), Senium Spectare 
(to view decline) and Kinder Gentler Machine Gun Man - Community College of Vermont Exhibit, 2006, Crumbling Democracy and He Spoke They Died by Drew Matott, Healing by Robynn Murray, Breaking Rank by Drew Cameron and Drew Matott. All copyright of the artists.

Drew Matott and Drew Cameron, the founders of Combat Paper Project say on their website, "The story of the soldier, the Marine, the men and the women and the journeys within the military service in a time of war is the basis for this project. The goal is to utilize art as a means to help veterans reconcile their personal experiences as well as broaden the traditional narrative surrounding service, honor and the military culture.

Through papermaking workshops veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beat and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences as a soldier in war.

The Combat Paper Project is based out of Green Door Studio in Burlington, VT and has traveled throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, providing veterans' workshops, exhibitions, performances and artists' talks. This project is made possible by a multifaceted collaboration between artists, art collectors, academic institutions and combat veterans."

www.combatpaper.org

Just read...

Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Absolutely amazing read. Got to see the film now.

Just read...

I recommend you all go out right now and buy a copy. Crazy good.

Reading all these...

Reading all these at the same times. Not literally at the same time with the four open at once. That would make my arms tired.

I've been reading... Harlan Coben

I read Tell No One by Harlan Coben because it was on a recommended list on Amazon. It's a thriller and I must have read the first few pages about 5 times before the day I actually sat down with the time and energy to read it. By page 6 I was completely hooked and then the day after pretty much spent all my free time till one in the morning finishing it! So, if you're feeling the need for some entertainment, any of his novels are worth a read for exciting-thriller-who-dunnit -type stories and with characters you'll like too.

Reading this.

I'll keep my review till after I've finished. Oooh the suspense.

What I'm reading now...

I'm currently reading Crocodile Soup by Julia Darling a story about Gert, a museum Egyptologist, who whilst telling us of her present troubled situation (with love and life) recounts her weird and wonderful childhood. There are mouthfuls of beautiful words in the book and it's so descriptive that it's almost like poetry. The chapters are nice and short which I always prefer as a "just one chapter before bed" type reader. It's laugh out loud funny and very clever. Not bad for a book I nicked from a holiday villa. Oh and the cover is brilliant!

Novels I have read and liked :-)

Survivor or Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin
Miss Wyoming or JPod by Douglas Coupland
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen fielding
Syrup by Max Barry
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Lovely Bones By Alice Sebold
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
Talking Heads by Alan Bennett
Submarine by Joe Dunthorne
Hidden Lives by Margaret Forster
Shooting from the Lip by Katie Puckrik
Drowning the Hullabaloo Blues by Michael O'Dwyer

I would recommend any of these to you. Each one was a pleasurable, if brief journey into a different world.