Inputting

Sir Paul Smith's aphorism (must be original)

Sir Paul Smith's a wise old bird. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me describing him thus. He was speaking at HERE, an It's Nice That (http://www.itsnicethat.com) conference at The Royal Geographical Society yesterday. Here he is in action:

He presents like your favourite uncle: a bit whacky, stylish (but not pretentiously so), full of great ideas and observations (beach-hut = jumper; colours in a church = shirt; Russian building = scarf, etcetera), fresh, eccentric and ultimately down to earth. Well, he is from Nottingham. But you knew that.

Sir Paul's colours

After hearing him speak, I just wanted to rush out and buy his clothes. Not the ones off his back, obviously, but from women's wear, Floral Street - or better still, his known-by-only-those-in-the-know shop in Paris, curiously called 'Tourette' - a 1930s bistro on Rue Grenelle that he's kept as-was....

The conference had me realise how little input I have been receiving of late. Probably I have, as Sir Paul observed, just been missing what inspiration is around me. But I guess like most of us, I feel I am constantly outputting and this becomes hard, sterile, unproductive, when there's little or no input.
Yet HERE it was in spades.

The power of film, (Carol Morley's Dreams of A Life) art, design, social media, crowd sourcing (Tom Roope), photography and a tale of triumph through extreme adversity achieving all but a standing ovation (Giles Duley http://gilesduley.com/) (- I wept, actually), audience participation (the brilliant Job & Roel Wouters), animation (for studio aka, Grant Orchard's curiously kinky Yeah Just There for OneDotZero), even an audience-shared cocktail (- gin, industrial strength Guiness, ginger-beer and khat-infused vodka bitters) c/o those jelly mongers, Bompas & Parr (http://www.theavantgardediaries.com) - with on-stage nudity - to name but a few of the eye/mind/senses candies on offer, restored my faith in creative possibilities. Or rather, reminded me what can be achieved and is being, constantly, by those willing to just do it....  Les Artes Sans Frontiers, I guess......

http://vimeo.com/40442475

On Saturday Live this morning, studio guest Clarissa Dickson Right's triumph over alcoholism and the 'road to Damascus' tale of the amazing Linda Cruse (http://www.lindacruse.com/) seemed to echo the HERE theme of what human beings are capable when they just get out of their own way to do stuff, when people get fed up of drifting, being safe in their comfort zone of the security of the familiar. Joseph Beuys was right - to paraphrase, everyone is indeed creative. We are all pretty amazing.

Stirring stuff.

I attended HERE with an amazing woman, known to Twitterers as sitdowncomedian (https://twitter.com/sitdowncomedian). Together, we ventured into the Photobot photobooth (http://www.photobot.co/) at coffee break, (after Ms SitDown had caused us to gatecrash the speakers' genteel hospitality room where everything was free, instead of the punters' canteen where everything was hideously expensive after an equally hideously long queue....) where we were instructed by Photobot to be happy, then sad, then angry and, finally, surprised, in quick flash-gun succession. 

I feel it's fair to say that the result (retaken by phone camera - poor, but adds a certain je ne sais quois, I feel) illustrates fairly well the gamut of emotions we went through as the day progressed. Then again, HERE or not HERE, couldn't the same be true for all of us, every day?

To avoid any confusion, clockwise from top left: happy, angry, sad, surprised

'Til next time,

Bo