CREATIVE BOOST

I sit down to write this and feel almost sick with the excitement of it. At some point in the month I have to share the creative endeavours that rock my boat. I am a lousy, slow typer, so it comes out slower than I hope.

First, I went to Milan to visit a dear old friend Sophie Ott, French by birth, Italian domicile by choice. I had one request: that we could go to Fondazione Prada. I had no expectation. I knew that Mona Hatoum was showing, a definite draw and that was it.

Mona Hatoum - OVER, UNDER AND IN BETWEEN - Until 9th November

Fischli/Weiss, who made one of my favourite art videos ever - The Way Things Go - a collection of mundane objects connected in a chain reaction that moves forward with suspense and explorative brilliance. I could only find extracts of the 29 min 45 sec film shot on 16mm - so good if you haven’t seen it.

I digress. In the fabulous Atlas Building at the Prada Foundation they have a collection exploring raw clay and humour - Suddenly the Overview - it is the best thing I have seen in ages. They haven’t collaborated in a while and they felt they could work together separately creating humorous figures and unexpected scenes, feeding into each others creations. Here are a few I loved. The titles make them, and I examined all 157 of them. Like little gems. This is part of the Foundation’s permanent collection.

Fischli/Weiss - Suddenly the Overview - the captions are brilliant, sorry I haven’t captured them better.

I also love Robert Gober and his weird wax limbs and the combo of him with Louise Bourgeois in a Haunted House is just perfect.

Robert Gober above Louise Bourgeois below

The cafe is filled with the most beautiful, well dressed people ever, and the buildings with texture, colour and character - heaven.

When you go - I very much suggested you do - eat @tavernacalabiana_milano. The best salad of puntarelle and raw new artichokes, the most delicious meat ravioli with porcini tucked about them and a light kick arse tiramisu.

What do you bring back from a trip?

For me it is simple - food.

I brought back courgette flowers not to be seen here until June (if I am lucky). I brought back wood-fire cooked beetroot, carefully wrapped, those pears I love with the red wax, some very special blood oranges the size of a grapefruit, a large packet of thinly sliced speck and some broth ravioli.

I had a small bag and no clothes.

Northern Italian Bootie

I am going to share with you one of my favourite recipes. Not something my Mum would cook, a little too fancy. Something that my sister and I make easily while rustling up other stuff, and now my eldest will make the batter and fry the courgette flowers as it is one of their favourite edibles.

The batter is Elizabeth David - it is the only batter I use. It is super simple and gives a crisp plump result, not too greasy and can be used for all your tempura style needs.

• 120g of flour

• 3 tablespoons of olive oil

• A pinch of salt

• 1/4 pint of tepid water or 0.1420653 of a litre - she is old school

• Whipped white of a small egg

Stir flour, olive oil and salt to a cream, gradually adding the tepid water. Leave for a couple of hours and then fold in the stiffly whipped white.

Heat a saucepan with a centimetre of sunflower seed oil. Coat the courgette flowers and fry until golden. We ran out of courgette flowers so supplemented sage leaves from the garden. Another good one is vine leaves or elderflower. Sprinkle with salt or in the case of elderflower use icing sugar.

We ate the courgette fritters with the smokey beetroot cut up with cooked lentils and balsamic vinegar and olive oil and the speck. Like prosciutto - less greasy and more flavour - like Elizabeth David’s batter.

What to write after food sometimes seems hard. I have however seen some awesome shows recently which are worth sharing.

Three photography shows that I took a friend to. She was more impressed by the galleries than the work - possibly. There is something about Sprueth Magers or Taddaeus Ropac that make you feel you are a protagonist in the film Blow Up.

Back to the art.

Gagosian is showing two photographers, different and equally brilliant at capturing the soul of someone. Really holding on to a persona in a frame, as if their essence percolates out to greet you.

Until 11 April, 2026

Avedon is known for his fashion photographs. These prints are from his five years spent from 1979 to 1984, travelling to twenty-one US states. He would set up a white sheet, shoot outside on a large format camera. He was interested in the people he shot and ended up with 126 images, only 21 of them on show. They are of coal workers, grifters, migrants, housewives and a meat packer. All of them so astounding, beautiful and significant in their black and whiteness.

These prints are an edition made by Avedon, the negative is then destroyed and when they are all sold, that is it. See now!

Meanwhile on Davies Street another photographer frying different fish

Until 21st March, 2026

I have had a massive crush on Nan Goldin since forever. She records her world with a loose precision that captures just around the interesting edges. The light, the people are all glamourous and grungy in equal measures.

I had a heroin addict boyfriend for a while when younger and look at these photos with a curiosity and fear. The life she led, it looks so fun and also so brutal. Two things living in parallel. Hedonism and distress, stories clearly portrayed like film stills.

Until 28th March

Another crush slightly different. One of those art school infatuations. What is it about water towers, gas tanks, winding towers? It is easy to say - they are photographed in exactly the same way like a record of time and humanity, and yet the affect of these pictures the love they are taken with, and the way they frame mundane things with such significance - I love. You kind of have to see them together to understand that they have a pleasing synergy and create an eccentric taxonomy that fill me with joy.

These three exhibitions show the mundane exalted - a preoccupation of mine.

I have 400 of these episodes to listen to, that makes me very happy. I am not listening in order. The very latest one made me weep. It is Blind Boy talking to Seán Ronayne an autistic ornithologist, recorder and writer. I learnt more about what it is like to be autistic in the first 10 minutes of their round about chat than I have in ages.

The birds, particularly starlings, pooing cormorants and flamingo calls come later.

The inability to make eye contact, the frustrations about understanding time on a clock. I got up at 3am to go to Milan. I thought the clock said 5am.

Understanding that an electrician in the house can be like a punch between the eyes. My eldest had a plumber in her bedroom and had a totally freak-out and went to bed without supper - I get it now. And the making friends and eye contact - Sean describes going on a date and sitting next to his now beloved Alba. He later asked her: “how can you look at someone without looking like a stalker”

And this, the best description: “If I am not making eye contact I can look at the inside of my thoughts better.” Seán Ronayne.

I understood my eldest better from two irish blokes just chatting - one of them with a plastic bag over his head.

I kind of go to hardcore films with my youngest. Some ritual of understanding a bit of a world we don’t belong to, and discussing it after.

This is not a film for the light hearted. It is excellent. I smelt the sweat and vomit, and felt the claustrophobia of the prison cells it is set in. The chemistry between the leads as two very different people with different expectations trapped in a cell together is remarkable and believable.

All the characters fleshing the story out are both grim and have a sympathetic side so the story leads you along even if at the edge of your seat.

How to Enter the Art World after a late start , a first career, illness, raising children, a crisis of confidence, leaving it in disgust... written by Hettie Judah with my illustrations is coming out in April - more soon. One of my favourite characters drawn this winter in the meantime.

I am listening to The Body Holds The Score, and wondering about every psychological trait and bodily humph I have in relation to all the past bumps and trauma, whilst gardening

I am reading Dan Pearson Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City when not gardening. I want four pairs of secateurs so I always have a sharp pair like Pearson and his clear understanding that plants do just die.

And I am a huge fan of Kathleen Jamie, so am reading her essays Surfacing in between. What a remarkable description of an Arctic Tundra and the revealing of tools and artefacts that hadn’t been seen for 500 years. I can’t describe my slow distilling of a place I don’t know through Jamie’s exceptional prose.

Finally I have just picked some of my flowers to put in small vases. Although grey today the flowers are not.

Hellebores, wallflowers, narcissus