Mono. #10 - The Character Issue (Part1)

Mikolai Berg & Kerry Dorney skillfully blend references of Occultism & spirit photography from the early 20th century with inspiration from literary heroines, Nancy Cunard & Edith Sitwell.

Nancy Cunard, the 1920s heiress, muse & writer, created as much controversy with her personal style as her political activism. Dubbed the 'Barbaric' look, Cunard mixed large scale jewellery, African influences & Cubism & came to typify the spirit of the Roaring Twenties. Exotic, liberated, adventure & tolerance.

Poet & eccentric Edith Sitwell, famed for her dramatic personal style & deliberate poses penned the verse 'Aubade' in the early 20th Century. An aubade is a morning love song or poem about the separating of lovers at dawn.

Photographs: Mikolai Berg
Styling: Kerry Dorney

Will Broome's cartoon-like characters are well known & well loved. Having worked with Marc Jacobs since 2004, his world of graphic, maniacal melancholia has included collaborations with Topshop, Wedgewood, Becks & Bistrotheque.

We're meeting at Central St. Martin's, where he is teaching today. The new King's Cross campus feels like the Brutalist child of a shopping mall & conference centre but in a beautiful way. Will muses that we could be in an airport in Berlin. The new CSM campus houses a much more diverse body of students than the earlier 'art school' incarnation & as he gets stopped at every set of stairs by students, Will grumbles kind-heartedly about students wearing Uggs.

We find an empty seminar room & Will's story unfolds:

I grew up in the countryside in Nottinghamshire, in between Mansfield & Nottingham were I went to a massive thousand pupil comprehensive school in a pit town. I don't remember having any aspirations to go to art school; I wasn't built that way. Originally I wanted to be a dustbin man because I saw a programme about Australian bin men & they all seemed to look like Angus Young from ACDC, have a right laugh & finish at lunch. Then I wanted to be a Marine Biologist because I was obsessed with Jaws. My mum still has a really cool sketchbook that I filled with drawings of sharks when I was little. I was academically bright at school but very naughty. I wasn't a 'bad-lad' but I was cheeky. I loved art at school. I loved my art teachers.

I had two art teachers, one was called Mr Nicol, who was Scottish, had a mullet & an earring, the other was called Mr Stevens, who used to lock himself in his cupboard in the art room & pass notes under the door that said things like 'it's you lot that made me like this' & 'I blame the Welfare State'. I'd be in the corner doing 15H pencil drawings of 1950s Elnett adverts whilst there would be absolute bedlam going on around me.

I stayed on to do my A levels at school but by that point I was totally on flexitime. I took Art 'A' level, which I failed. I really didn't know what I wanted to do after that, I couldn't have got into University because I had one E grade 'A' level.

Luckily, I managed to get into my local Further Education college with just my

GCSE Art portfolio by saying that my A level work was being marked, they seemed to believe me, because otherwise I don't know what would have happened to me. I nearly got thrown out after the first year on that Foundation course; I was still really immature & not engaged with it at all.

It was like 'proper' Art School in those days. The course leader was called Al Atkinson he had a beard & was a folk singer, all the tutors had beards & seemed to be called Trevor… There was this film tutor called Trevor Ellis who used to talk about there being four Dimensions, he was was a proper Acid casualty. I thought he was fucking genius!

Continued»

WilliamBroome.co.uk

Interview: Matt Ryalls
Photographs: Lucy Ridgard
Illustrations: Will Broome

This touching & poignant photographic essay by Lucy Ridgard, observes the British character. Acknowledging the richness of life after 60, Lucy describes meeting & photographing each character in her own words:

Joyce Salin
Joyce, 70, comes from Uganda & is my friend Helen's mum. I first saw her at Helen's birthday party last year where she was sporting a great maroon trouser-shirt combo. She looked very 1970s chic. Joyce used to work for the United Nations. She is very calm, kind & always busy with yoga, lunches, learning new self-help therapies or counselling for Macmillan. She also has an amazing collection of waistcoats & Pierre Cardin dresses.

Blanche Marvin MBE
Blanche is an 86 years old theatre critic with amazing style & tons of energy. She is half Russian & was called Blanche Zohar before she married. Blanche will see a play every night & sometimes a matinee as well. Her outfits are legendary & often themed for the play. She's sharp, feisty & is guided by her originality & authenticity. Blanche has set up the New Plays department for the Arts Council & founded The Empty Space: Peter Brook Award.
Blanche's review can be found at BlancheMarvin.com

John Row
John, 65 is a storyteller & poet. He lives up the road from my dad in a little village called Bures in Suffolk. Having started off in the Visual Arts, he then moved to the spoken word: poetry & storytelling. As well as teaming up with a group of reggae & free Jazz musicians in the 90's to form 'Sound Proposition' John has run the KidzField at Glastonbury for the last 10 years. He is also writer in residence at HMP Blundeston. John continues to tour festivals, schools, parties & beaches. He also has an amazing beard.
JohnRow.com

Mary Jacobs
I met Mary at a New Years eve party in Wetherden Village Hall. When I went to her house to take her picture I entered one of the greatest places I've ever seen: Mary has kept the original kitchen they'd built in the 1960s, an old Victorian lamp post in the garden & even a collection of Golliwogs! Mary & her husband are two of the nicest people I've ever met. They love travelling & collecting things, their last trip was to Iceland.

Sue Butcher
Sue, 62 is a friend of my dad & step-mum. She's an artist & musician, playing the piano, guitar & even the hand bells. She leads a group of campanologists in her local town of Sudbury on 300 year old church bells. Sue is like a dynamo, her life is a non-stop event filled marathon & is renowned for turning up to a social event in an interesting outfit. Sue has just built a new studio built at the end of her garden, as well as teaching she does good business with a 1 bedroom Bed & Breakfast annexed to her house.

John Bird
John Bird is the dad of my friend Jonathan Bird. Old man Bird lives in Rougham, drives a Ford V8 & rides a Harley. John loves listening to music & watching bands, he dj's at his local pub, The Bennet Arms as well as weddings & festivals all around Suffolk. He lives in a cottage full of pictures & music memorabilia with his wife Louise, they like old things. After I took the photo they where off to see a Johnny Cash revival.

Sandra Esqulant
Sandra, 70 is the landlady of the Golden Heart in Spitalfields, London. Renowned friend of Tracy Emin & listed as of the 100 most influential people in art. When I went to take her photo she'd been up since 6am & would probably be there until closing, not bad for a 70 year old, although she said she was feeling a bit tired. Sandra has the most amazing alabastar skin & an incredible style. I thought that she must have been a model. 'No,' she said 'just a house wife, you disappointed?'

LucyRidgard.co.uk

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Q&A: A Cup of Tea with Joe Corre

Joe Corre, the child of punk is a very successful businessman. Corre co-founded the cult British lingerie label, Agent Provocateur & more recently, the ethical clothing line, A Child of the Jago. The entrepreneur is also Managing Director of the independent makeup brand Illamasqua & believes in being radical & telling it straight.

Mono. How did you get into 'business'?
Joe Corre: I didn't know anything about business but I can't say I didn't know anything about fashion because I'd grown up around my Mum [Vivienne Westwood] stitching clothes in her shop, looking amazing & unlike anyone else's Mum. I understood what she was doing & was a big fan, but I had no ambition to get into it, I just thought I should help out because there wasn't anyone else around. I didn't know anything about business so I made one rule which was that it was okay to make a mistake, fuck up, but that it wasn't ok to make that mistake twice, that's all I knew. So we opened the shop again, & started to build up a business.

M. Having parents who started Punk, was it difficult to rebel?
JC: I think this whole thing about kids having to rebel against their parents is a bit of a cliché pigeonhole. I don't think it applies to everybody & not for me, I didn't feel I had to. There were already too many problems with the general public & having to face that, to feel like I had to rebel. Growing up as a child wearing all that punk rock stuff & Teddy Boy clothes even before that, it was like being part of some sort of alien army. Its difficult for people to understand that today, what that means, but as a young kid walking down the street you would get grown adults spit in your face. It was like everyone was against you, the national front would smash our windows, we had death threats on the phone. So, rebelling against your parents? I already had enough to worry about.

M. With so many successful businesses under your belt, do you think you could sell anything to anyone?
JC: If you are going to start something, promote, push an idea you have to have confidence in it. You can't do the kind of things that I have done, that I do, if you don't have confidence. I won't do something unless I'm confident in it. If I believe it's really great then I've got all the confidence in the world because its total belief. I'm a terrible sales person, a good sales person can sell you any old bit of rubbish, but I can't sell anything that I don't personally think is great, I wouldn't be able to sell it, I'd tell you it was rubbish. I don't want to sell rubbish; I want to sell good things. I want to make good things, things I believe in.