I’ve long been a fan of all things 1950s from rock and roll music to swingy skirts to drinks with cocktail cherries, and I’m currently glued to BBC 2’s The Hour, so naturally I was delighted to be given a couple of tickets to a late event at the Museum of London paying tribute to the 'fabulous fifties' last week.

The Museum of London is one of my favourite London museums and not only because it’s literally a stone’s throw from where I currently live. The permanent galleries tell a fascinating story of London’s history from the first people to dwell in settlements along the Thames up until the present day, and there are some great temporary exhibitions too: currently there’s an engrossing exhibition of London Street Photography from 1860 to the present day as well as a fun display of hand-drawn maps of the city in the foyer. Downstairs in the cafe, you'll also find an installation by the Light Surgeons, which is to be the first in a series of media art commissions at the museum.

I’ve been to plenty events at the museum before but this was the first event in their Late series that I’d seen, transforming the entire museum for the evening after the usual closing time. On offer was music from Laura B and the Moonlighters and The Broken Hearts DJs, vintage pin-up makeovers, talks on fifties fashion and popular culture from the museum's curators, dance classes with The London Swing Dance Society, craft workshops from  Tatty Devine, and of course, fifties-style food and drink.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the current fashion for all things vintage and nostalgic, this was a hugely popular event: the Tatty Devine workshop was so busy that sadly I didn't get chance to join in, but I was lucky enough to get my hair styled by one of the stylists from the Vanity Box, who provided a pop-up vintage salon creating 1950s hair and make-up looks. And as well as tapping my toe to a few fifties tunes, and sampling some chips in a cone, I also snapped a few shots of some of the amazing dancers twisting, strolling and hand-jiving the evening away - for once I managed to remember a camera! It was a great evening for people watching, with some amazing outfits and retro frocks on display, but what's more, it was interesting to see the museum transformed into such a buzzing and lively space for a fun evening event - this was certainly a clever strategy for drawing in new audiences, as well as to approach learning about the history of the 20th century in a different way.

This event was part of a month-long programme across the city to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain: find out about more events at Story of London.  For anyone who like me, enjoys 1950s music, you might also be interested in this fifties inspired blog written for the event by The Broken Hearts DJs featuring some of their favourite tunes from the decade.

 Back in March this year, I took part in the March for the Alternative along with about 500,000 other people. The march was a protest against the government’s spending cuts, and one of the largest demonstrations ever seen in the UK.

Being on the march was a fascinating experience: it was great to be part of such a friendly and positive crowd, meeting and talking to people about why they were there, and admiring the wealth of amazing banners and placards that people had made for the event. Never ones to resist the opportunity for a bit of drawing, cutting out and sticking, we of course made our own placards for the march too, and afterwards donated them to the Museum of London, who together with the Save our Placards team from Goldsmith’s were helping to document the occasion.

We were very excited to find out recently that one of our placards (the snappily titled March for the Squeezed Bottom, above) had been selected to take part in an exhibition, Nothing in the World But Youth, opening at the Turner Contemporary in Margate in September.You can read about the story behind our placard (and see some photos of me drawing the lettering) over at the Save our Placards blog; but more importantly, the team are still trying to trace the creators of 8 of the 12 placards selected for the exhibition. If you were on the march in March, then do take a look at the slideshow of placards, and get in touch with them if you know who made any of these beauties.

(It goes without saying that I'll of course be going to Margate to see our placard sharing exhibition space with work by Peter Blake, Sarah Lucas, Andy Warhol and many others, so watch this space come September for more...)

 Last week I popped along to Tatty Devine's Brick Lane store to check out Graham is a Weirdo and Other Stories, a mini exhibition by illustrator. Gemma Correll. I'm quite surprised to realise that I've never written much about Gemma's work here on the blog before, since I've been a fan of her kooky, faux-naive illustration, and especially her drawn daily diaries, and What I Wore Today project for some time.

Apart from her distinctively quirky style, and enthusiasm for cute animal characters (cats! pugs!), what I really like about Gemma's work is the way that she brings images and texts together to create work that tells stories. In fact, in many ways, her work is reminiscent of the children's book illustrators I love - there's a touch of Sara Fanelli, a hint of Oliver Jeffers and a whisper of Quentin Blake about her drawing style.

This small but perfectly formed exhibition is a fun collection of unexpected animal drawings, and comes accompanied by its own zine. (On the day I visited, Graham Norton had apparently also been along to see the show and had been rather taken with one of Gemma's 'Pugs Not Drugs' tote bags!)

If these lovely pictures weren't enough reason to think highly of Gemma and her work, she also has a pug called Mr Norman Pickles and a very enviable studio space. Find out more about her and her work on her website and blog.

Graham is a Weirdo and Other Stories is at Tatty Devine until Monday 1st August.

 [all images by Gemma Correll]

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is undoubtedly one of the most important arts events of the year, and after several of those who entered the calendar competition told me it was also their cultural highlight of the summer, I knew I should go along and take a look!

I have to admit (shamefaced) to never having been to the Summer Exhibition before, and as such I was curious to see it. The show has often been characterised as occupying the traditional and 'safe' end of the contemporary visual arts spectrum, yet it is also something of a phenomenon: the largest open-submission contemporary art exhibition in the world, it has been running since 1768, and this year attracted over 12,000 entries from 27 countries.

Far from being dry or dusty, I found the exhibition to be a hugely inspiring experience. Wandering through the interlinked galleries is like feasting on a delightful smorgasboard of different work, encompassing a huge range of styles and approaches. I loved the presentation style, with works often grouped close together - perhaps most obviously in Gallery III (pictured above) which this year was hung by Christopher Le Brun and Tony Bevan, and which Le Brun describes as 'a battle of the paintings'. Rather than seeming cluttered or chaotic, the result is a pleasingly exuberant patchwork of art.

For me, the prints and the paintings were the undoubted highlight of this exhibition: I was much less taken with the photography, architecture and sculpture, although I did enjoy the scribbly geometric forms of Anthony Gormley's Drift, and Jeff Koons' exuberant Colouring Book.  Amongst my favourite spaces were the Small Weston Room, arranged by Olwyn Bowey - a treasure trove of miniature and small scale works - and Room I, hung by Chris Orr, filled with an intriguing range of prints by everyone from Gillian Ayres to Tracy Emin; Keith Coventry to Elizabeth Blackadder, plus vitrines containing artist's books.

Half the fun of the Summer Exhibition is stumbling upon new talent jostling alongside works by well-known or favourite artists whose style is instantly identifiable, be it Rob Ryan's magical images or Barbara Rae's jewel-coloured screen prints. There's more fun to be had poring over the list of works in the exhibition, which includes prices for the majority of the works, and choosing which ones you might buy for yourself, just supposing you happened to have a small fortune to hand. Altogether, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is a most enjoyable experience - certainly this year one of my cultural highlights of the summer too!

Many thanks Sam and Kate for the recommendation.

[Image: Installation view of Gallery III. Photo: John Bodkin. Via Royal Academy of Arts]

 

Last weekend I went along to Pop Up, a brand new festival of stories which took place in Coram’s Fields in London on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 July.

The festival was actually the grand finale to several weeks of events which had already taken place in venues across London, from the British Library to London Zoo. These events brought together children and young people from schools in Camden and Islington with a range of illustrators and authors, including Jamila Gavin, Malorie Blackman and Anthony Browne, who launched the schools programme as his final appearance as Children's Laureate.

The final weekend was packed with free public events for children of all ages and their families, ranging from a tea-party with the Moomins to a chance to meet Rastamouse to spoken word, poetry and hip-hop with artists such as Francesca Beard and Charlie Dark. I was there for several events relating to Booktrust's Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and spent a most entertaining day helping out two of the judges from the 2010 prize,  Bruce Ingman and Philip Ardagh, with their laugh-out-loud performances and workshops.

Because I was so busy with these events, I didn't get as much chance to look around the festival as I would like, but it was fun taking a wander around at the end of the day, looking at artwork created by children, peeping into the event spaces and the packed Guardian bookshop, and even meeting a few animals in the farmyard area! Over 6,000 people came along to the festival over the course of the weekend, in what was undoubtedly a fantastic start to this fun, exciting festival, which puts a fresh spin on the usual book festival model. For more information visit the website or there's a longer blog post here which I wrote for the Booktrust blog.

I was lucky enough to go along to see the launch of this year’s London Literature Festival  - an event with author Philip Pullman at the Southbank Centre. The London Literature Festival is an annual summer event, which this year featured authors including Alan Hollinghurst, Iain Sinclair, Ali Smith, Alexander McCall Smith, Hanif Kureshi and Michael Morpurgo.

Pullman is a writing hero of mine - I'm a huge fan of his Northern Lights trilogy and the wonderful Sally Lockhart books - so it was wonderful to have this opportunity to hear him discuss his life, work and writing process with broadcaster Peter Kemp. I wrote a full account of the event for the Booktrust blog which you can read here.

 Thanks to everyone who entered the Tate calendar giveaway!

I now know all about some of your cultural highlights for the summer, including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Magritte exhibition at Tate Liverpool, the Camberwell Arts Festival, and of course the mighty Manchester International Festival, which this time round features everything from an opera inspired by John Dee to The Day We Sang a 'love story with singing' created by Victoria Wood.

I've now randomly selected the two winners and they are:

Ben for the Miró calendar
Kate for the Watercolour calendar

I've emailed you both so get back to me as soon as you can to receive your calendars.