'our creation is that guru; the duration of our lives is that guru; our trials, illnesses and calamaties is that guru. There is a guru that is nearby and a guru that is beyond the beyond. I humbly make my offering to the guru, the beautiful remover of ignorance, the enlightenment principle that is within me and surrounds me at all times.'
Guru Stotram

Thursday 5 February 2009



However many times I mop the floor I seem only to succeed in redistributing the streaks of dust, never in actually removing them. It's been like this ever since Eleanor Wright erected the filing cabinet monolith in November. But I adored the filing cabinet monolith so I can forgive the dust bowl that 88 Bevington Road has become. Eleanor's latest dust creation scheme is currently in situ on the Southbank. For a short time only as they say. Until Sunday 15 February exactly, you can go and experience Brownfield - a really quite impressive immersive installation by 24 year old emerging environmental artist Eleanor Wright. It's free. This is what's called Not For Profit. A lot of what I do works like that. It's terribly clever actually. But that's the kind of business-woman I am. Clever. Hmmm. Feeling good.

On that note of largess I'll give you a free tip if you like. I bought rather a fine limited edition screen print last year from another up and coming young British artist - one Adam Bridgland - for a bargainsome two hundred odd quid.

He rang me the other day.
"Good news the BK. The British Museum have just bought the exact print you bought from me for their collection, along with two other pieces of my work."
"Nice one Mr B. Like it," I said.
"I thought you'd enjoy that. You've got a sharp eye Miss Knowles."
Now, I'm not in the business of recommending artists I don't represent, But if I were....

We had the private view for Grove Women on Wednesday. It was a roaring success. Well, it was roaring anyway. I hadn't realised quite how roaring until I saw the police arrive at 8.15. Sadly I don't mean Sting. Or Sergeant Lewis. Had somebody thought to invite the boys in blue for a drop of Oyster Bay in the name of community relations? How jolly.

Next thing there's a bit of argy-bargy coming from the street and I totter over to the door to see some young miscreant / drug addict / young(ish) offender in the ITV classic side of the face squashed up against the van pose. It was fantastically exciting. What browned me off though was that the caring sharing WPC they sent back to check I was alright and coping with the emotional trauma of having my private view busted by the fuzz, was looking more bloody glamorous than I was. I've never seen eyelashes like it. I wondered for a fleeting second if she was a striper. Which no doubt shows how naive I am. Stripers aren't glamorous. Or maybe they are. Oh God, how did I get on to this. So un-feminist. So wrong. Actually I shared a dorm with a striper once. But that's another story. Anyway, it turned out it wasn't the bobbies stripping off. This young buffoon they'd carted off had dropped his trousers. Dropped his trousers. At my private view. In front of super gorgeous and pinkly be-bowed Ellie the Intern from Sweden and Minnesota. I mean that takes the biscuit doesn't it? It certainly brings a whole new meaning to the term private view. It's a damned glamorous place the art world.

The next morning: the aftermath. Seeing the half baked results of my tragic attempts at mopping Yvette has taken over. Yvette's far more glamorous even than the WPC. I've never before witnessed someone doing the mopping in a vintage fur stole. She totally carried it off. Oh yes, it's a glamorous old place the art world.

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