Tuesday 25 June 2013

Thank you Jude...


Dearest Jude,

Thank you for being you… thank you for being my beautiful friend and thank you for letting me into your world and sharing your day with me.

Love always Jen Angel…xx


 
Jude and me a shade of blue
chin up!
beautiful Jude

To Follow...
My beautiful friend actress/comedian Genevieve Morris



Tuesday 18 June 2013

This entry is dedicated to the memory of Iain Banks…

 


Who is your favourite writer/author and why?
"Iain Banks. I started reading Iain Banks with The Wasp Factory in 1984 and I have pretty much followed Iain Banks right through. I do not do his science fiction when he writes as Iain M. banks as sci-fi does not really rock my boat.  However, all of his novels do and I just became so involved with him as a writer… I also got to meet him as well at Waterstones Booksellers in the UK. I asked him a question regarding colour as I was writing an essay at Art College at the time on Walking on Glass.  My Iain Banks books are signed with references to colour. He was a modest and giving person.
He is dying now; he has pancreatic cancer…very sad."

Since my day with Jude, Iain Banks passed away on the 9th of June 2013 he was 59.













Do you have words of wisdom that you would like to share?
"Be Kind…"


To follow...
My thank you message to Jude



























Monday 10 June 2013

A dinner invite from Jude

All my guests on my blog get to create a fictional dinner party, they choose their theme, the food they want to serve, the country they would like to have it in or maybe their own home, anywhere really. They choose who they would like to invite alive or not and the reasons why they would like to have them there? They also share one of the main recipes from their dinner. The fun begins as they think about who they would like to have there and why. This week Jude’s dinner is about to unfold…

 
circle
 

What country and its food would you have at your dinner party?
" I would cook a dish called Benachin it's a one-pot meal from Senegal in West Africa. The dinner party would be in Senegal out in the desert near Rufisque in a Mauritanian tent. We will be sitting on the floor on bright cushions in a circle and we would be drinking palm wine.  

What is palm wine?
" It is made from tapping the sap of the palm tree and allowing it to ferment naturally."

Could you describe your dish to me?
“Its basmati rice, tomatoes and tomato pasteonion, nutmeggingerScotch bonnet (pepper)cumin anchili pepper. You can add other ingredients such as vegetables, meats and fish.
If you have meat, then you fry that first, take it out of the pot and put it to the side. Then fry the onions, tomatoes and pepper; add stock and in goes the rice. The rice takes on a characteristic orange colour from the mixture. 

Then the meal is placed into this huge serving plate, everyone has this sort of pizza slice in the dish, and all the vegetables and fish are placed right in the middle of the dish. You then are ready to eat with your right hand, regardless of whether your right handed or left handed you always eat with your right. 
 
When I ate this dish with families, the children flaked the bones off the chicken/fish and then a little piece of the chicken/fish landed in your area, and you look up and there is this little smile, it is like their gift to you. They could be eating it themselves, but the children get so much delight in feeding you."


one-pot
music, cushions...

Ok we have the country and food for your party now for your guest list and why?
Well I’m quite specific where I would like my guests to sit so I will start with Andy Goldsworthy. I would like him to sit on my right as I imagine him to be very softly spoken, shy and retiring. In addition, he is the one person I would like to have the most connection with in the room. I want him to be my guest because I love his work. This is a man that goes out at 2:00am to build an ice sculpture. When working with the ice he cannot use gloves, his hands turn blue while he bites into the ice to make its shape, then licks the end of those pieces so they can stick together. By mid morning his work is melting, it has had it’s moment.”

Who would be sitting on your left?
“That would be Michael Franti because in my opinion everyone should have Michael Franti at a dinner party! He can play his songs and entertain us for the evening… then I look down at the end of the circle, I see the three wise monkeys, and they are staring at me.”
  
Who are the three wise monkeys?
“The three wise monkeys would be Spike Milligan, Peter Ustinov and Sir David Attenborough. Spike because… well because he is Spike Milligan! Peter Ustinov
because he has been a raconteur all his life and I have seen him do an audience with…boy he tells a good story. Sir David Attenborough because of all the fantastic work that he has done in the world but the three of them together is more about the dynamics between them. Three octogenarians creating balance and humour.”

 three
balance
I just love your dinner party so far, who else is there Jude?
 “Anita Roddick, Dame Helen Mirren and Dame Judi Dench… Anita as I really respect the woman. I love what she has achieved and what she has done in the world, her drive, her commitment and her beauty, her unyielding desire to set her business up (The Body Shop) when everyone around her was saying are you nuts… what great energy and if she is like that in business, she must be like that in life. Anita would just be great to have around.
 Helen because she delivered that famous line, “I want you to cook Michael for me” from the movie, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. I love how she smokes a cigarette in Prime Suspect, where she played Jane Tennison role … being happy to get her kit off, really I love everything about her. I did meet her once with her mother at a café where I was working, she was so beautiful to her mum and introduced me to her mum it was very brief as I was just clearing the table but it was nice to feel that presence.
 I have the same respect for Judi Dench. I felt grief when she died in Skyfall. She is more than just an actress; she is an icon.
 I love that these woman embrace ageing by doing it so gracefully. I imagine if Anita were still with us, it would be the same, which makes me feel great about getting old.”

happiness
 
That is eight guests so far who else will join you?
 "Robert Winston, because of the incredible work he has done with children’s development and his presentation of this to a wider audience on television.
Brian Cox; sexy physicist and musician, what a combination. I would seat them both amongst the women. I would also like to have my children there for the experience, for dinner and getting to meet and chat to my guests, they can stay until Franti plays a couple of songs and then off to bed."



To follow...
Words of wisdom from Jude







Sunday 9 June 2013

JUDE CRAIG, continued...

Today I am going to run with photos of my day with Jude...



To Follow...
A dinner invite from Jude

Monday 3 June 2013

JUDE CRAIG, continued...

What makes you happy?
"Seeing my kids happy makes me happy. Seeing them hit a tennis ball, kick a football, wrestle and play… that fills my heart with joy. Having long days in my studio, attending opening nights… moments that every artist lives for, selling work or getting a commission that makes me happy. Getting home after being out all day and my dog, Lobey jumping on me, letting me know he has been waiting for the boys and me to come home. That makes me happy."

Jude's boys when they were little

Lobey

How does music inspire you in your life?
"Well, my music collection is very eclectic…I am finding since moving to Australia, while working in my studio, I tend to listen more to Radio National. Music is so overpowering for me, it transports me to different pockets of my life. I can listen to new music that I have discovered here in Australia when I am working on my artwork but I can’t listen to music that takes me back. For example, The Smiths transports me back to that era in the 80’s and I find the influence to heavy!"

Jude with her school friends in Bangor (check out the boom box)

How about when you are on your own, without doing your artwork?
I love listening to so many different types of music then…  Les Miserables to Franti, Joni Mitchell to the Chilli Peppers. I have just made friends again with African music. I can’t listen to music softly, I have to have the music really loud so I can feel it!

Listening to Joni Mitchell

If you could go back in a moment of time where would you go?
I would go back to… a time when I was on the boat in the Red Sea coming out of Suez and heading down to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. I was on that smelly diesel boat with my, now partner, Marty. We both went for breakfast on that boat and that’s when… hmmm that fable of Cupid’s arrow was real, that’s when there was that moment we both looked at each other and we both shuddered! Marty said what the hell was that? I said I don’t know, what was that? It was Cupid’s arrow it was absolutely Cupid’s arrow! That was the moment we absolutely connected, fell in love, whatever you want to say that was a huge physical response to something that you think is just a fable.  I would like to re-live that moment.


A Moroccan pouf from Jude's travels


To Follow...
A dinner invite from Jude