This and That...

The most fun of all that happened this week was undoubtedly that my dear friend Kathy Prendergast, (whom I have known since our days at the Royal College of Art when she was in the Sculpture school and I was in Fashion)  won a new big art prize on Friday night: £50 000! The very first David and Yuko Juda Art Foundation yearly prize  was announced at a Private View at the Annely Juda Fine Art Gallery in Dering Street. She was one of eight nominees, but was so certain that she was not going to get it that she had not prepared any thank you speech ...

 There is noone more deserving than Kathy: hard working, dedicated and inspired, she makes thoughtful delicate work, but she is also a great mum who has always had to juggle the demands of motherhood with a demanding career as an artist. Now she will be able to throw herself in 100% again! Her children have grown up and are now going to university- but at the moment they are working as my painting assistants as the three of us are crawling around on our hands and knees in a studio in Queen's Park, painting the floor canvas for Auckland Castle. We have to be out of here by the end of September- it is touch and go whether we will be ready...

 I took the day off today- it is incredibly hard work physically- and enjoyed a lovely quiet  Sunday until my old friends Claire and Geoff called and enticed me out: just around the corner  to something called 'Portobello Soul', a mini music festival with live bands, bars and exotic food stalls.

And while all this London activity is going on, there is also preparation for my next Mali trip in the beginning of October- but first the British Library exhibition with its Private View on the 27th of this month- I am supposed to give a speech! and unaccustomed as I am ...ahem, it does worry me a little...