Clare Gaylard Glass 

Is what I said to the poor fellow standing guard at the exit at the RA. I did mean it though, no Olympia? it was a small exhibition with a deal of unfinished work but some stand out portraits that would cross any chasm of time and convention.

This one of Proust, you want to pull his beard, he looks so bucked to be a literary lion at the height of his powers, but what a painting, even his self-pleasure is infectious. The artist's first wife, not to be disguised by the hats or hairstyles of the day, glowing and without artifice. Superb and radiant portraits, beautiful rendering of objects and scenes, but all over a little too quickly.

Input has all been quite decadent and styalised lately. Friends gave us a couple of tickets to Sadlers Wells and my youngest had just finished reading a swathe of Lorna Hill's wonderful ballet books. I wasn't too excited about a Christmas Sleeping Beauty but this was Michael Bourne and it was a stylish, humorous, vampiric delight. I could have sat through a second performance straight after the first. Bourne choreographed the famous Swan Lake with the male corps de ballet and now we must find out how to see it.

January was more about doing than blogging so there is a lot of catching up. Fortnum & Mason's New Year windows were more inspired than their Christmas ones. We enjoyed the Marie-Antoinette / Mad Hatter / Arcimboldo product display and on a clear day, even when the light is going, you get a lovely series of street reflections.

Test pieces as the ivory glass has a tendency to 'eat' other colours. The ivory has such a beautiful grain that I am frequently asked if it is real ivory by perplexed people. Ivory is such a 'soft' glass that i need to wrap it over a base of clear glass in order to get it to hold a shape for any time.

Happy Valentines Day, and something to take the edge off the pretty: Dorothy Parker,

Coda

There’s little in taking or giving,

There’s little in water or wine;

This living, this living, this living

Was never a project of mine.

Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is

The gain of the one at the top,

For art is a form of catharsis,

And love is a permanent flop,

And work is the province of cattle,

And rest’s for a clam in a shell,

So I’m thinking of throwing the battle—

Would you kindly direct me to hell?

We found this merry-go-round in St Malo in France last year and the colours have been on my mind ever since. There is a gentle Steampunk feel to the carousel that this photo doesn't show: Captain Nemo's submarine, the plane from Le Petit Prince, a hot air balloon. I will post a couple more photos as the vignettes of Brittany are stunning rather than sweet. We got there at dusk after a rather outrageous detour through the walled city trying to beat the setting sun and the one-way restrictions.

This splendid work is 'Angels amd Demons' by the amazing Lucio Bubacco: lucciobubacco.com I'm going to be attending a workshop of his this - after some years of looking longingly at the events taking place at the wrong times or places for me.

Bubacco grew up on Murano in a family workshop environment from childhood. As with musicians and other artists who have the chance to live a medium, the skill seems effortless, internalised and absolutely instinctive. One of my brothers was recently talking wistfully about playing Gypsy Jazz with gypsies for whom the guitar and music was a language absorbed from birth rather than a learned craft. This is similar and I'm very excited.

Masterclass.

We kicked off with a Mexican Fiesta and fireworks. I settled on multiple Mexican dishes to cater for a wide number of guests food quirks and allergies. I had forgotten how stunning the colours were and that it really is food for sharing, plus how good it tastes the following day. Health, wealth and happiness for 2013.

December in Camden enjoying the kitsch,amazing December weather and picking up one-of-a-kind Christmas presents for each other. It is all a lot more slick and established than it was twenty years ago.... but in two decades something has to give. Still enormous fun window-shopping and people-watching.

I cant remember when I came across the distinctive work of Erte, probably still at school when I was very interested in the idea of studying theatre and costume design. Some of his images have been highjacked by the high street for greetings cards but not always the most inspired ones. I got Erte's wonderful retrospective book in the eighties when he turned 90 as a special birthday present and was given his La Traviata playing cards for another.

This Christmas I was lucky enough to get a mint condition bridge set commissioned in 1982 by Soubranie, for a song (comparatively) from ebay. Needless to say they are no longer mint, removing the cellophane was quite a pleasure. Happy Christmas! 

In amongst the grey November days we are getting away with some absolute jewels, the last two weekends have been about fish&chips and ice cream at the seaside.

I was just thinking that these are definately not your noble, dignified, wise sort of owls that might be a companion to the goddess Athena. Then I remembered the image above and tracked it down, it can't have been war and wisdom all the time.

I'm putting together a kit of buttons and beads for my clever sister-in-law who lives in S.A. www.janemactats.blogspot.co.uk  I find tatting beautiful but just the idea of following such complex patterns makes my head ache. It needs to be pretty direct and intuitive for me, even origami reduces me to profanity.

I'm afraid it's a menagerie at the moment as I have been asked for frogs, pigs, owls and elephants.

Another week or two and this clear, cold, bright weather and none of the children to get ill for a while so I can work flat out. I've always been fond of this Blake.

September is throwing out some stunning days, crisp, windy and very hot if you are in the sun. These intensely coloured and rampant climbers outside the back door are an out-and-out fairytale trope : skin as white as blossom, lips as red as berries, eyes as blue as the sky... and no photoshop! The red berries are honeysuckle and the white climber is called something like 'racing demon'. At the moment they appear to co-exist beautifully, you wouldn't think there was an intense struggle for domination going on.

Turquoise glass just seems to pull the light more than most other colours, I am still playing with rings and looking at driftwood, seaglass and shells gathered over the summer for a starting point. First day back in the studio and taking it on the chin that nothing quite comes together.

We seem to have got a special 'back-to-school' batch of fortune-cookies, mine was definately the best. The poor kids got worthy, motivational injunctions like: 'Believe to Achieve' and 'Climb Every Mountain' and felt it was overkill..

The door in question has to be the one to my sadly-neglected workshop after a full house and a full-on schedule for six weeks of summer. Looking forward to it, nearly there.

No photos permitted but we thought the stamps for each exhibition area adding up to 007 on the ticket was a neat touch. Looking round the exhibition with two daughters was eye-watering. A womans place was in bed or a body bag, more frequently one after another. It was in other ways a great exhibition.

The Jubilee decorations at Fortnum and Mason are still up, we passed them a few times, frustratingly, without a camera. So a stunning, clear day and three cameras between four was a bonus. The colours are brilliant hues on a turquoise ground and the figures are heraldic and celebratory, they look as though they have climbed out of the margins of a book of hours. Plus there a bit of inescapeable chintz.

We had plenty of  hand-me-down clothes when we were kids but were never stinted on materials to create or inspire. I have been trying to track down some of the magnificent, illustrated, childrens books our Dad routinely brought home and am finding them woefully expensive or near impossible to find. This is 'Pandora' by the remarkable Janet and Anne Graham Johnstone, sisters who spent most of their lives in Suffolk, who studied art at St Martins then worked together all their lives. They produced Starlight Barking, Midnight Kittens and numerous adorable fairies and nursery rhymes. Also Grimm Fairytales and Greek & Roman Mythologies that still operate on my imagination.