Hugh Hughes's Rough Book

Happy New Year! It is the sixth day of 2010 and I am "fully" back at work. My brother says calling milk "full" milk is potentially confusing and so he would probably take issue with my statement about being "fully" back at work. To clarify any possible confusion, I mean that I’m back in my studio after taking a break from it.

My break took in Christmas and New Year and a lovely time at home in Anglesey. And a trip to Snowdon. It was not just a trip. It was a treat. A treat of a trip. A tongue-twister of a trip. Better than going to buy sweets on Saturdays when I was an eight-year old boy (the year I loved sweets the most).

The island looked beautiful, lined by the long white-skirted mountains of Snowdon. The air was so clear and the sky so blue it felt like Aunty Glen had been up polishing all night. Spectacular. I did plenty of walking.

2010 has been declared between myself and friends as ‘The Year of Opening New Doors’. It was our joint New Year’s resolution. And one door I’d like to open is to my studio and to the rehearsal room. And so today’s sudden fascination in my studio has led to WORDS AND SYMBOLS.

Once you start to get your head around the idea that a letter, therefore a word, is just a symbol, then a whole new communication system, another visual world of pictorial reality opens.

In fact, I am launching a new series called HUGH HUGHES’ ROUGH BOOK. It is a series of blogs, photos, podcasts etc that shares my on-going work-in-progress. It’s a virtual open studio. It’s rough and ready. I hope you’ll enjoy it and come visit.

Happy New Year!

Hugh Hughes

Hello 2010!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had wonderfully indulgent Christmases with plenty of food and prezzies, snow, carols, decorations and other lovely things, plus brilliant New Year celebrations including bubbly and countdowns and Auld Lang Syne. But alas all good things must come to an end (at least for another 365 days) and 'real life' is back. Of course it's not all terrible and here at Hoipolloi we have many exciting things on the cards. Most excitingly...Sydney. Hugh will be in there performing 360 at the festival. So if you're in Sydney,do go along. If you're not, but you need a holiday, then you should go too. Click here for more info.

As much as I would love to go along for the ride, muggins here will be remaining in Cambridge for the foreseeable future. Aside from freezing my face and fingers on my bike as I cycle around the city in my shiny new shoes, and attempting to stick to my probably un-stickable-to-resolutions, I'll be preparing things for Hugh's trip to Oxford and Liverpool in March. So if you can't make it to Sydney, but you still want to see 360, then here's your chance.

Thanks to Geraint Lewis for the picture of Hugh