Image: natasha smith
We’re 50 this issue – so, in our eyes, that means it’s time for a party. And what would be a party be without a spot of karaoke? In honour of the occasion, we’ve compiled some of our team’s favourite tunes. Whether you’re in public, in a car, or simply in your bedroom with a handy hairbrush/mic in hand, come join us in a good singsong…
Take a listen here.
illustration: hannah mccreath
In our early spring issue, we’re spreading the love and we’ve made a playlist to match. Our Embrace-themed playlist is filled with songs about coming together, staying together, standing together…
Wrap your ears – and your arms – around it here.
illustration: honey debney-succoia
The history of pop music is filled with cruel twists and turns. Stars that burn brightly for one dazzling moment that proves to be sadly short lived. Our midwinter playlist celebrates those artists who enjoyed only a brief blaze of glory, as well as those with long-lasting careers that continue to be defined in our collective memory by just one song.
Turn it up loud to enjoy their musical gifts, which encompass everything from poignant ballads to dancefloor fillers. And, in this festive period, join us in raising a glass to these musicians who gave it – and us – their best shot.
Anni Albers in her weaving studio at Black Mountain College, 1937.
Photo: Helen M. Post, Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina
Innovative textile artist Anni Albers is currently being celebrated at London’s Tate Modern. As a female student at the radical Bauhaus art school in Germany, Albers was discouraged from taking up certain classes. She enrolled in the weaving workshop and made textiles her key form of expression. The exhibition explores the artist’s creative process and her engagement with art, architecture and design and displays the range of her work, from small-scale ‘pictorial weavings’ to large wall-hangings and the textiles she designed for mass production. We spoke to curator Ann Coxon to discover more about this pioneering artist – and why her work remains so relevant to today.
This is Anni Albers’ first major UK exhibition. Why do you think it’s taken so long?
It’s because of the media. Because Anni Albers was first and foremost working with weaving. Because the art that she made was made with thread. She stopped weaving when she was older, because it was quite physically demanding, and started printmaking. Quite late in her life, she made some comments about how when you’re working on paper it’s considered art but when you thread it’s considered craft.
That legacy of dividing into art and craft has continued, even though the ethos of the Bauhaus – where Anni Albers studied – was to bring design, craft and art together. Even though that happened 100 years ago, I think we’re still just catching up! It’s really important that Tate Modern is showing that textile can be used as a fine art medium and putting it centre stage.
Black White Yellow 1926 / 1965, original 1926 (lost), re-woven by Gunta Stölzl in 1965, cotton and silk, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Everfast Fabrics Inc. and Edward C. Moore Jr. Gift, 1969 / Art resource / Scala, Florence © 2018 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London
Could you tell us a bit about the weaving workshop in the Bauhaus?
At the Bauhaus, students took a preliminary course, then chose a workshop. We don’t know exactly how it came about but we do know that the weaving workshop became known as the women’s workshop. That women both gravitated towards it and were encouraged to take it up and discouraged from certain other disciplines. For various reasons, weaving wasn’t her first choice, but she took it up and really fell in love with it when she found her creative outlet there. And so this incredible thing happened at the weaving workshop, when these women were exploring weaving as a form of modernist art making.
The Bauhaus disbanded in the mid-1930s with the rise of National Socialism and Anni, and her husband Josef, were lucky enough to be offered to be offered teaching posts at Black Mountain College in the United States. But some of her peers were not so lucky. Otti Berger, a contemporary of Albers at the Bauhaus, unfortunately died in Auschwitz. Anni was of Jewish heritage as well. In the 1960s, she got back in touch with Gunta Stölzl, who was head of the weaving workshop, or Gunta Stölzl reached out to her, and together they recreated some of the beautiful wall-hangings from the Bauhaus era that had been lost during the war.
Going around the show, you really get a sense of how naturally experimental Anni Albers was.
I think the interesting thing about weaving is that you’ve got this quite rigid format, with the vertical warp threads that are set up on the loom, then the weft threads get woven across and through and so you’ve got this grid framework really at the heart of the endeavour. What Anni Albers’ was interested in exploring is: what can I do with that? What are the variations? What happens if you twist the warp threads? What happens if you use this technique? Or this one? She was really thinking about how to push all the possibilities.
I’d previously seen her work as photographic reproductions and it’s amazing how different they look when you see them in person.
That’s something that really comes through in textile media. We tend to privilege the visual and the optic. What comes through with textile art is that there’s this tactile and haptic register: not just what’s seen but also felt. I think Anni Albers’ work really makes you think about the tactile. She was very vocal in saying – even at the time that she was writing in the 1960s – that we were starting to lose touch with what it means to make things with our hands and she gave the example of when you go out to buy your sliced bread, it’s very different to kneading the dough to make the loaf of bread.
Study for Unexecuted Wallhanging 1926 The Josef and Anniversary Albers Foundation © 2018 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London
There’s something of a recent revival in weaving. Do you think it’s that desire to get back in touch with our hands?
Everything is very visual and the touchscreen fills our day. More and more, we’re all glued to our phones. Everything is communicated very visually and perhaps it’s that longing to get back to something a bit more tactile, literally a bit more homespun. Certainly, lots of a younger generation of artists seem to be making reference to Anni Albers’ work or beginning to use textiles again as part of a multimedia practice, such as Sarah Sze – whose work has recently come into the Tate’s collection.
The exhibition also emphasises Anni Albers’ wide range of cultural influences.
When Josef and Anni came to North Carolina in the 1930s, they travelled by road down to Mexico, and they both fell in love with Mexico and Mexican culture, history and making and they made several trips to different Latin American countries, such as Peru. Anni Albers referred to the Peruvians as her “great teachers”. She was very interested in pre-Columbian textiles, unpicking them to see how they were constructed and fascinated by the way that weaving was really the most ancient form of communication, of technology, of civilisation. To take that, to inspire her to make weaving a modern project. She’s really taking that ancient art form and making it modern.
Anni Albers, Six Prayers, 1966–1967. Cotton/linen, bast/silver, Lurex. 1861 x 2972 mm. The Jewish Museum, New York, Gift of the Albert A. List Family, JM © 2018 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London
What would you say is Anni Albers’ masterpiece?
The very beautiful work, Six Prayers. It was commissioned by the Jewish Museum in New York as a memorial to the holocaust. It’s beautifully constructed. There’s a kind of light that shines out of it – it really is a masterpiece.
Anni Albers is at Tate Modern until 27 January 2019. Read about a stay at the Bauhaus here.
Illustration: Chrissy Curtin
Come and have a sit down. Why not rest your head for a short while? We’ve compiled a suitably dreamy playlist for our autumn issue to accompany you through the darkening days of the season. Slow your pace and let the likes of Bat for Lashes, Aretha Franklin and School of Seven Bells soothe your soul. There, that’s a bit better already.
Take a listen to our autumn playlist here
Photos: Frances Ambler
In our late summer issue, we share four different stories of time travel. Frances Ambler wrote about what it was like to spend a night at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany.
"I was standing in front of the then ultra-modern building… Its architecture represented to me the beginning of a new era.” So wrote student Hannes Beckmann on arriving at the Bauhaus in Dessau. Walter Gropius designed the building to match this ambitious art school, a vision of soaring glass, proclaiming its own name in huge letters down its side. Its photograph was circulated around the world – at first a symbol of German creativity and forward thinking; later, after its closure by the Nazis, a symbol of a lost era.
As I stood there, in grey drizzle, it wasn’t quite living up to this promise. I was staying overnight in one of the 28 studio rooms where students had worked and slept, part of my research for my book, The Study of the Bauhaus. The room had the single bed, fitted cupboards and sink familiar from student halls – here, however, the furnishings revealed the creativity of its former inhabitants: the tubular metal furniture devised by Marcel Breuer seen in a set of nesting tables; the modernist patterns promoted by the weaving workshop present in a bedspread devised by Gunta Stölzl. Echoing the pattern of my own student life, I crawled into bed with my phone, distracting myself with the hum of contemporary online life.
If I went to bed in a 21st-century fug, I woke up in the optimism of the 1920s. Bright blue sky had taken the place of the grey. The huge desk by the window suddenly looked inviting. I stepped onto the balcony, and looked over the surrounding town in a new light.
The day opened up a Bauhaus experience bigger than the room: what had been the student canteen, auditorium and gym, the spaces where workshops once whirred with activity. On a tour, we stopped in one of the studio rooms, made up as it would have been then. It had belonged to Marianne Brandt, who had found her calling in the metal workshops, inventing lamps, ashtrays and her now-famous tea set, which today sell for thousands of pounds. It was right next door to the room where I’d spent the night.
Looking at Brandt’s record player, I understood my earlier disconnect. The many snapshots taken by the students themselves show them in and out of each others' rooms, leaning across their balconies and throwing impromptu parties – rows of cakes spread across the nesting tables, grinning attendees squished onto the single bed. They experimented and learnt together; they also gave friendship.
Right wing opponents forced the Bauhaus to close in Dessau in 1932, and it moved, temporarily, to Berlin before finally closing the following year. Its students spread out around the world. We tend to hear the names of the lucky ones, such as Josef Albers or Marcel Breuer, who forged new lives in America. Others struggled in Germany, their careers never reaching such dizzy heights. Some suffered in concentration camps. The building itself was damaged in bombing, only fully opening for visitors four years ago.
But the Bauhaus was always more than its building. It was about the people and their desire and determination to build a better world – a spirit that blazed as brightly as that day’s blue sky.
The Story of the Bauhaus is published on 11 October (Ilex Publishing). You can pre-order a copy here. And enjoy three other stories of time travel in our late summer issue.
Illustration: molly egan
No matter where you are, whatever the weather, there are certain sights, smells and sounds that always conjure up those summers that seemed to last forever. This playlist celebrates those songs that pull you back through the past. It’s the soundtrack to staying out in the park till sundown, sitting out chatting with your friend into the early hours, perhaps a gentle doze in the sunshine. While the heat of summer may be beginning to die down, they’re the kind of memories that last forever.
Happy birthday to us! Our first issue was published eight years ago this month. Look how we've grown...
It should come as no surprise, but we’re print lovers through and through. Oh Comely was created in response to the disappointing options of women’s magazines available, seemingly focused on celebrity, diets, money – and with the habit of making their readers feel worse about their lives. We certainly weren’t alone. Since our first issue, eight years ago this very month, we’ve enjoyed seeing the number of independent magazines being made grow and grow: bringing fresh voices and perspectives to our reading habits.
The current strength of independent publishing is being celebrated in a free exhibition, Print! Tearing it Up, at London’s Somerset House, bringing together some of the most influential and innovative British print magazines of the past, with titles of today. We spoke to co-curators Paul Gorman and Claire Catterall to find out more about the exhibition.
Somerset House PRINT! Tearing It Up © Doug Peters_PA
What do you think is behind the current revival of independent print?
PG: Producing and consuming print offers a more permanent means of expression than a here-now-gone-in-a-minute Tweet or Instagram post.
Committing to print, whether as a reader or writer/designer/photographer, takes care and consideration, and magazines are the perfect medium for announcing personal and sometimes oppositional views. Indie publishers have also settled on financial formulae for producing magazines independently, making such work one platform of their activities and producing when they are able – quarterly, biannually, annually.
There is an alignment with the revival of interest in vinyl, but the resurgence of print is more political; that’s why, I think, minority voices and those from the female, queer, trans and non-binary communities have gravitated to magazines and produced excellent titles which deal with identity such as Accent, gal-dem and Ladybeard.
It’s a reality that alt-right views and fake news exist almost exclusively online, the preserve of white heterosexual (with the exception of token people such as Milo Yiannopoulos) men. It’s interesting that they balk at producing their own print publications. That’s because that would be a commitment to clearly stating their hateful, unrepresentative views, which could then be easily challenged. These people prefer the hectoring and permanently shifting sands of digital media to cogent argument as set out in cold, hard print.
gal-dem issue 2 © gal-dem
What do you hope a visitor will take away from a visit to the show?
PG: Inspiration to do it themselves. If one person leaves with the encouragement to produce their own magazine – for however small an audience – we will have done our job. Also, an understanding that the current resurgence has roots going back through magazines such as The Face in the 80s and 90s, punk fanzines and feminist press such as Sniffin’ Glue and Spare Rib in the 70s, the 60s underground and satirical press from Oz and Time Out to Private Eye in the 60s all the way back to Peace News in the 30s and Wyndham Lewis’s modernist manifesto Blast on the cusp of the First World War.
What magazines, on display, past and present, mean the most to you personally?
PG: It’s great to feature an issue of Graham Greene’s “British New Yorker” Night And Day which was published for six months in 1937 before being closed by a libel suit from the child actor Shirley Temple’s Hollywood studio. Night And Day – whose reviewers included other greats of 20th-century literature such as Anthony Powell and Evelyn Waugh – set out to examine high and low culture with the same critical eye. In this way, later magazines such as Time Out and The Face and many current publications are part of its lineage.
One of my favourite contemporary titles is British Values, edited by Kieran Yates, who is second generation Punjabi and took the title from a statement by David Cameron to show that, in fact, immigrants to this country express the finest aspects of so-called “British values”. It’s also very funny with a six-pack pin-up of Sadiq Khan and a cover of Teresa May when she was Home Secretary in a hijab with the speech bubble: “Must admit, my cheekbones look banging in this.”
Oz, No. 29, FEMALE ENERGY © Paul Gorman Archive
What notable rarities and curiosities are included in the display?
PG: There are many, including an original copy of the second and final issue of Blast, which was produced in 1915 as the First World War raged; it is packed full of polemic and wonderful graphics and artworks; the Sex Pistols designer Jamie Reid loaned us precious copies of Suburban Press, his fanzine which railed against the depredations of urban developers in his home town of Croydon in the early 70s; the countercultural historian John May has loaned such ephemera as flyers circulated outside the Old Bailey when the Oz editors were on trial for contravening obscenity laws; and artist Scott King loaned copies of his late 90s publication Crash! which took on the consumer spectacle of Brit Pop, Britart and Blairite politics.
What can looking at independent magazines from the past teach us today?
CC: In many ways it’s difficult to gauge the impact of magazines from the past without understanding the context of the times they were produced. You can’t fully appreciate the seismic impact a magazine such as Blast would have on England in the 1910s without fully appreciating how stuck in Victorian times society was.
Spare Rib 1972 © Angela Phillips
Similarly, I think it’s difficult for us now to truly appreciate just how radical a magazine such as Spare Rib was. Women in the 60s were very much still ‘seen but not heard’. To read about women’s issues from a woman’s point of view was hugely important and liberating for many women.
Having said that, you can still get a powerful sense of just how radical these magazines and others like them – Peace News, Private Eye, Black Dwarf – were by how fresh and relevant many of the articles still seem today. They don’t seem ‘old-fashioned’ at all, and in some cases read like they could have been published yesterday. So, I think magazines from the past teach us lessons about the power of oppositional thinking and demonstrate, simply by saying things that had never been heard before, how important they were in bringing quite radical ideas into the mainstream and changing our point of view.
Print! Tearing it Up is on at Somerset House, London, until 22 August. Go visit and be inspired – and if you do decide to set up your own magazine, don't forget to tell us about it!
Illustration: Fern Choonet
How much of our identity was forged in our teenage bedrooms, leaping around and singing along to music turned up way too loud? Music remains a way of escaping the humdrum of everyday life, a way of helping us out figure out who we are and who we want to be.
From angry punks to disco divas, our Identity playlist celebrates the musicians and pop stars who refuse to conform, and who encourage us to do the same. Take a listen here – we hope that by its end you’ll join us in shouting out, as instructed by Gloria Gaynor, “I am what I am”.
Water Bodies D1 Butoh Tyska
As if we needed an extra reason to head to the seaside this summer, the Whitstable Biennale is luring us with a fantastic programme of experimental and emerging art, taking place from 2 to 10 June.
Featuring over 50 artists and 179 screenings, live performances, workshops, talks, walks and events, the work is embedded into the fabric of the town: artworks are located on the beach, in the sea, fish market, beach huts, boatyards, shingle harbour and alleyways. From a Victorian Sea Scouts Hall to Whitstable’s only DVD/Comic shop, the biennale will take over curious buildings and unusual spaces.
Taking its title from Deborah Levy’s Booker-shortlisted novel Swimming Home, many of the works respond to the rhythms of the tide or explore ideas of where home might be. Deborah’s own inspiration was the book The Swimmer by John Cheever, later made into a classic film starring Burt Lancaster, which will be screened at the festival. Levy is also creating a new, limited-edition text for the biennale.
There are plenty of works that intrigue here: artist Sophie Lee’s sound work is inspired by a 12th century mystic and will be broadcast from the bell tower; Jude Crilly’s biodegradable sculpture will attract a mass of seagulls and Alice Theobald’s live performance with two choirs will be staged at the Oyster Indoor Bowls Club. Meanwhile, Hannah Lees will be working with art and food, transforming the town’s Horsebridge café with new décor and new dishes.
We’re also up for the artist-led walks, taking visitors through hidden alleyways and marshy edge lands or combine with discussions in The Walking Reading Group. Visitors are invited to go foraging with local bird experts or join a surreal dining experience in a restaurant in the Labour Club. But we advise you to also leave space for some fish and chips – it wouldn’t be a visit to the seaside without it.
Silk train (detail), woven with a pattern of roses, c.1890s © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
In our spring issue, we celebrate ethical fashion with our feature, Yours Sustainably. The V&A’s Fashioned From Nature exhibition delves into similar themes with its exploration of the complex relationship between fashion and the natural world since 1600.
As the exhibition shows, the beauty of the natural world has always been an inspiration for fashion, influencing colour, fabrics and patterns. Unfortunately, sometimes the fashion industry has chosen to exploit the very thing that has provided that inspiration.
Earrings made from heads of Red Legged Honeycreeper birds, circa 1875 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
These 1875 pair of earrings are formed from the heads of two real Honeycreeper birds – a hugely popular item that sold in enormous volume at the time. The devastating consequences of the plumage trade for world bird populations actually led to the foundation of the Society for the Protection of Birds in 1891. Cartoons appeared in Punch satirising those women that supported the feather trade. The feather debate continues today.
Greenpeace Detox Catwalk in Bandung © Greenpeace/ Hati Kecil Visuals
Other protesters draw attention to the waste and sheer volume of raw material required by the fashion industry. Greenpeace launched the Detox campaign in 2011 to encourage legislators, manufacturers and brands to eliminate chemical pollution caused by the textile and clothing industries. The toxic substances used affect drinking water, with a devastating impact on wildlife and the human population.
'Grape’ dress (detail) made with Vegea, a leather alternative made from grape waste © Vegea
Fashioned From Nature also highlights the brands seeking out alternatives, for example Vegea, who use grape waste from the wine industry to form a leather-substitute (Italy produces around seven million tonnes of this waste each year).
Outfit made from leather off-cuts and surplus yarn, Katie Jones, 2017. Photograph by Rachel Mann
And, like our Yours Sustainably feature, it shows what customising can do to give clothes new life, as Katie Jones did for fashion writer Susie Lau (AKA @susiebubble) to wear during Fashion Revolution Week 2015. We also feature Katie Jones on page 65 of our latest issue – with details about her workshops for knitting and reinventing your clothes.
Visit the V&A before 27 January 2019 for more inspiration, or pick up a copy of our spring issue.
Illustration: Rachel Heavens
Spring is here – finally! Celebrate by plugging into our latest playlist – an ode to the season. We're dreaming of life amid Les Fleurs with Minnie Riperton or Grazing in the Grass with Hugh Maskela. And a shopping mall now covered in flowers a la Talking Heads? Yes please. You can take a listen – and get lost in a world of birds, bees and blossoms – here.
Oh Comely issue 42 – spring – is out now. Order a copy here.
In our early spring issue, we explored our relationship with our mothers – and we invited you to respond to our survey. We were overwhelmed by your response, and the personal stories that you shared with us.
More than half of you said that your relationship with your mother couldn’t be better and 65% of you are in contact with your mum several times a week, with over a third in daily contact.
Only 7% felt your mums would be disappointed if you didn’t pursue a career, kids, marriage and owning a home. In fact, almost half of you said that your mother’s biggest expectation was having a career. However, a fifth said that you felt that your mothers expect you to dress and look a certain way.
"I'm one of the lucky ones. My mum doesn't put pressure on me to live up to expectations."
"She is already disappointed."
"I was never pressured to live a certain way but I think my mam is proud of how my life has turned out."
"I hope I make her proud. That is my goal in honouring her life!"
"She has no expectations, but would prefer me to stay single."
More than half of mums let boyfriends/girlfriends stay over, two thirds were allowed to drink at home, while 6% were allowed to try drugs. Less than a quarter were allowed to party without their parents around.
"I think I’ll do a lot of things differently, partly because I have a little boy. I want to give him a much better understanding of relationships and boundaries than I had."
"Mum was really easy going but because I was ill it didn't really affect me because I didn't really drink or party. When I got better I did and the impression I get even now is that she feels relieved when I talk about drinking and going out because she knows it means I'm well. I'm probably the only person who can say their mum reacted to me coming home drunk with "you look happy".
"My mum is in her 70s so it was a very different time for her as a young woman/mother. I am much more open minded and have experienced a lot more that I look forward to educating my little boy about"
However there are some indications that there are certain subjects that mothers and daughters don’t talk about. More than a third’s mothers told them nothing about sex or periods, half never discussed sexism. 75% of those daughters felt this was a mistake.
"Sexism is a really important social issue and as a woman, I feel like it should have been addressed further."
"She just seemed to accept it, which I disagree with. It's something that should be confronted and fought."
"She saw my interest in feminism from a young age and fuelled it with literature."
"She took it as just the way things were"
"Her opinions changed as I was growing up and experiencing it myself. Her attitude to catcalling turned from, 'it's harmless and best to ignore it' to anger at hearing the things that were shouted at me on the street. We grew our understanding together in a way."
"I've always been able to talk to my mum about anything. I've always been very grateful for that as I have friends who can't speak to their Mum like I can. Even at times when she didn't want to listen, I knew I could say it anyway. Ask her anything."
Thank you for your honesty and thoughtfulness in sharing your thoughts and memories on this topic – they showed how close, complicated and ever-changing our relationships with our mothers can be. We hope to further explore the ideas and subjects raised in future issues of Oh Comely.
"Whilst a strong capable women in many ways, she was crippingly shy and would not stand up for herself in work situations or with my dad. I never learnt how to defend myself in situations because I didn't know how. It's made me vunerable in my adult life, although finally I'm much better at standing up for myself now – but it's taken therapy to learn that."
"As my mom passed away so recently she has been on my mind. She had Alzheimer's and was in long term care for the past year. It is indeed a long goodbye. She is a precious treasure, my best friend, my biggest cheerleader and confidant. I will miss her every day."
"I think my mum treated my older brothers like 'adults' when they were 21, but she doesn't treat me the same. My body is her business, in way that theirs aren't. I love her, and she is simply a different generation but I find it so frustrating."
"I absolutely hope to be at least HALF the woman that my mother is. She is an amazing, courageous, smart woman, and I am so lucky to have her as my mother and my best friend & mentor <3"
"She's also the one person in my life who has consistently told me I don't have to have children if I don't want to. Whilst my boyfriends mum is so pushy about it. My Mum has given me the strength to say I'm not where I want to be in my career yet and even admit I'm not sure kids are in my future."
"My mother died in 2013 when the phone rings on a Sunday morning, when I'm still in bed, I still think it's her. We had a very close relationship and she was always there when I needed her. Although I miss her a lot I feel a part of me hadn't grown-up when she was around, maybe because I still lived locally. I do see her some days when I look in the mirror and occasionally when I'm with my boys I feel I'm channelling her, not always in a good way."
"My Mum is the most beautiful woman in world but has always worried about her weight. This used to upset me as a child and still does. To all the Mum's out there, you are beautiful."
"Not all mums are good at being mums, some are really abusive and neglectful. Mothers' Day means so many websites and magazines covering schmaltzy stories about how great mums are, how not just for once cover the stories of people who've grown up without a mum? Not all mums are great, mine wasn't and for that reason I work hard at being the best mum I can, I have that to thank her for."
"My mum is so tender and treats me like I am precious to her, even while she champions my independence and strength of character. I will never be as wonderful a person as her.
For our press release about our Mother's Day survey, click here. Read Oh Comely writer's reflections on our relationships with our mums in our early spring issue.
Portrait: Liz Seabrook
“Look at that! You get to pour your own chocolate in here.” Laura Dockrill is marvelling as she spirals her jug of warm, dark drinking chocolate into the awaiting mug of frothy milk. “It’s so good!” For a moment, it feels like we’re in Laura’s new young adult book, Big Bones, whose heroine, Bluebell, just loves her food: whether crumpets leaking with butter, salty caramel slathered millionaires shortbread or chips so vinegary that they make your nose hairs shrivel.
In our early spring issue, we had the pleasure of speaking to writer Laura Dockrill. Her new book Big Bones – out today - celebrates the pleasure in eating. As Laura says, “There’s no such thing as a perfect body but there can be a perfect meal and you can enjoy that”. Needless to say, it made the entire team very hungry indeed. Laura was kind enough to share her favourite recipe for pesto.
Laura Dockrill's fresh green pesto recipe
Big Bones is not just a love letter to food and the body; it is also to show how rewarding it is to cook and eat. It doesn’t have to be hard or fussy or posh or embarrassing to cook. I want to inspire people, kids, to enjoy food. And so the recipe I’ve chosen to share is simple, quick, easy to make, fragrant, vibrant and versatile and can turn any cheap carby comforting canvas into a wholesome meal that looks and tastes impressive. It’s the way I like to cook. Messy and natural. And if you are able to grab, rip, squeeze, pinch and smush you can make this without even touching a flame or a knob of the oven!
I made this for my partner Hugo, after a lot of beer, smothered over pasta. He said, “oh my god, this is the best meal I’ve ever had.” (No, it was not the beer talking) and he is not one tincy bit interested in cooking, but this is something he can now whizz up himself in under a minute and saves the day every time.
It lasts and it’s so much better and tastier and cheaper and vividly GREENER than the jarred stuff.
FRESH GREEN PESTO
You will need:
one massive handful of basil stalks and everything (or I just use one of those whole bags you can buy individually from the supermarket)
big glug of olive oil the better the olive oil the better it will taste
parmesan the best thing about this is because the pesto gets smushed up you don’t have to fiddle around with the small fiddly bit of the grater!
juice of a whole lemon
sea salt and pepper
*optional toasted pine nuts
All you have to do is simply bring all of this together. Use a Nutri Bullet or blender if you have one for a 30 second smooth sauce or you could bash it up in the pestle and mortar or hand mix for something chunkier.
The thing I love about this is you can add as you go, more lemon for acidity, no pine nuts for pasta for something smoother, add nibs of toasted walnuts or pecans for a salad, a handful of spinach for extra green and goodness and chilli flakes work well too.
Then stir into hot pasta, smear over hot roast potatoes, drizzle over a green salad, slather over bread for a toasted cheese sandwich. A great invention are those Jus-Rol puff pastry sheets, you can smear this homemade wonder over a sheet of this stuff and accessorize with olives, sun dried tomato, artichoke, mozzarella for an impressive pizza/tart or roll into little swirls for a snack that makes you look SO FANCY! You could add to yoghurt or houmous for dipping (which is also super easy to make), top over roasted vegetables or just stuff it in the corner of a lunch box and visit with bread or whatever’s in there like a little pesto watering hole.
Big Bones by Laura Dockrill is published by Hot Key books and is out today. And pick up a copy of our early spring issue to read the full interview with Laura.
Illustration: Alice Clark
Issue 41, our early spring issue, is devoted to companions. Our latest playlist – 'It takes two' – celebrates duets, collaborations and damn good partnerships.
Take a listen here. Even better: share your earphones with your best bud and give them a treat too.
Photos: Olivia Howitt
What does your bedroom say about you? Olivia Howitt’s photographic project explores this most intimate of spaces
Like many good ideas, Olivia Howitt’s What’s in Your Bedroom? project came out of a conversation with her friend. “He told me about a girl he met at a friend’s shared house in Hackney – they were talking about bikes and she invited him to see her bedroom. She had bicycles filling every available space, on the floor and hanging from the ceiling.” Olivia was struck not only by the girl’s passion but that she only had one room to house it. “I started to think about what goes on in people’s bedrooms, other than the obvious...”
Her project is a visual demonstration of just how many things are going on in people’s bedrooms, from side projects to main jobs, and how even the smallest of spaces can be used in a creative way. As Olivia describes them, they are “small museums exhibiting moments of their inhabitant’s life in objects”, each capable of telling “short stories about our lives”.
While our bedrooms became our realms as teenagers (as in the marvellous example of Ellie May O’Sullivan, pictured) that experience is prolonged in London, where Olivia has shot the majority of the rooms, where housing costs are likely to mean shared accommodation well into your twenties at the very least. That was Olivia’s experience when she moved to the capital from Manchester, going from her own house to “all of a sudden, my whole world contained within my bedroom.”
Across the array of tastes and styles of bedrooms Olivia has had the privilege to photograph, there’s a common link, and one that’s not linked to their inhabitant’s taste or budget. “For me they have soul. I’d always want my bedroom to have soul”.
See more of Olivia's bedrooms at whatsinyourbedroom.com and @whatsinyourbedroom. You can snoop inside three more bedrooms in issue 40 of Oh Comely, out now.
Ellie May O’Sullivan, student
“My bedroom is an area that is completely my own, so it’s a place where I can relax, listen to music, draw and express myself. My mum and sister have always collected things and I guess I’ve followed the family trend. There are so many things I love in my room and it’s so hard to pick a favourite – in a fire, I’d probably be burnt to a crisp trying to decide what to save – but definitely one is my small vintage Steiff penguin, Peggy, who’s a bit tatty round the edges but is really cute and fuzzy.”
Who needs coffee when you can plug into our latest playlist? It's inspired by morning rituals, full of the tracks that help us get up and go (although coffee is useful for that too...). Take a listen here.
illustration: stephanie handley
Our midwinter issue is inspired by patterns. You can pre-order a copy here.
words: olivia potts
photo: deborah dewbury-langley
When my mother died, I lost a recipe.
Her death was sudden and unexpected. The day before, we talked normally, knowing nothing of what lay ahead. We talked about her library books, my job, Emmerdale.
If I’d known she was going to die, I might have asked the important questions: what do I need to know about childbirth? How do you get curry stains out of a white shirt? How do you make your chilli con carne?
But I never asked those questions. I found myself – 25, motherless, heartbroken – not knowing things I never knew I wanted to know. Amongst those were her dishes. Losing her meant losing her food; I had never once asked for a recipe, and now it was too late.
Until it ended, I hadn’t realised how important food was to our relationship. Now, I can see it was her main way of conveying sympathy and care. She was not obsessive about food, like I am; she didn’t derive any joy from standing over a stove, or hosting a dinner party. The food she made was just for her family, for us. But every mouthful was carefully and meticulously prepared.
Whenever I was poorly – I was a sickly child, and an even sicklier teenager – my mother made minestrone soup. She would sit opposite me at the kitchen table, watching quietly as slowly, spoonful by spoonful, I ate it, and then she would walk me slowly, quietly around the garden. All soups are nourishing, but this soup was special. It was made with care in both senses. It was full of love, patience and effort. But it was also careful; everything chopped meticulously, placed in neat piles, and then one by one, dropped in a big pot in a preordained order. I needed to recreate this soup. The entirety of my mother’s cooking and love seemed bound up in minestrone. So I began trying to make it from memory. I knew it involved tiny pasta, and bacon and a lot of vegetables.
I knew that those vegetables were diced precisely. I bought pasta and bacon, and I diced vegetables precisely. I threw them in a pot and thought good thoughts.
My first attempt was wrong. So was my hundredth. I drowned in soups, unable to replicate the taste. I could get close, but it was never quite right. It was never my mother’s soup. I turned to the internet, and spent nights gazing at search results for soup recipes, eliminating possibilities: no, no, no. Of all dishes, minestrone must be one of the hardest to recreate. There is no such thing as an authentic recipe; it has as many variations as it has cooks.
Years passed, measured in failed soups. The grief eased, or at least changed: it became quieter. A looming adversary became a stolid, bitter companion. I could see past it, but it was always there.
A few months ago, when my father decided to move out of our old house, he offloaded most of my mother’s books on me. Among them were her cookbooks. In truth, I could never remember her actually using a cookbook. But here they were.
I flicked idly through them. I almost didn’t spot the minestrone soup. But as soon as I began reading, I realised: this was the recipe. This was my mother’s minestrone soup. I studied the method, line by line, and pictured my mum dicing, frying, stirring, the intricate ballet of her perfect soup. I closed the book and looked at the front cover.
It was Delia’s Complete Cookery Course. My mother’s minestrone soup was Delia’s minestrone soup. I had been searching for this recipe, experimenting, testing this recipe for three years only for it to be in one of the most famous cookery books ever published.
But now I have it. I make this soup in the pot that my mother used – and finally, I make it as she did. And it tastes like home.
This story originally appeared as one of our 'stories of the senses' in issue 33 of Oh Comely. We were delighted to hear that Olivia won the category of Fresh Voices in Food Writing at this year's The YBFs with an edited version of this piece. You can see read more of Olivia's writing on her blog and follow her on Twitter.
Illustration: Jess Woodward
Take a listen to the songs that helped inspired our autumn issue of Oh Comely on Spotify here. You can read an interview with Kali Uchis in issue 39.
words: frances ambler
illustration: maria martini
Our cover girl for issue 38 is Annette Kellerman – the swimming star who challenged Victorian perceptions about women’s bodies by ditching pantaloons and skirts and daring to bare her flesh while swimming. It’s Annette who is responsible for the swimming costume as we know it today
Record-breaking swimmer, the highest paid women in vaudeville, a health and fitness pioneer, the first major actress to both appear nude and to wear a moveable mermaid costume on film – out of all of Annette Kellerman’s notable achievements, it was her own line of one piece costumes, the foundation of modern swimwear, of which she was most proud,for it helped liberate women, allowing them – for the first time – to really swim.
Born in Australia in 1887, Annette wore steel braces as a child and took swimming lessons to strengthen her weak legs. She took to the sport like the proverbial duck to water. To help her family's finances, she became a professional swimmer. As a record breaker, Annette travelled the world raising publicity, in London swimming in the polluted Thames; in Paris, racing men in the Seine. She was one of the first women to attempt to swim the Channel.
While for most of the western world, pantaloons, skirts, even corsets, were still the norm for women’s ‘bathing’, Annette wore a short legged, non-skirted costume to compete for Australia. Invited to perform for British royalty in 1905, she sewed a pair of black stockings onto her men's swimsuit, creating a full-length one-piece “figure suit”. “I can’t swim wearing more stuff than you hang on a clothesline,” she sniffed. Such an ensemble saw her being arrested on a beach in Massachusetts for indecency. From the subsequent publicity, she designed and sold her suits worldwide, one step towards liberating the female body.
Annette also challenged Victorian perceptions of women’s physicality. Her performances combined a kind of underwater ballet with high dives, her choreographed moves with her ‘Kellerman girls’ an early form of synchronised swimming. She starred in highly successful films too, appearing unashamedly nude in the 1916 film, A Daughter of the Gods.
“I insist that swimming is not only a splendid sport for women, but that it is the sport for women,” Annette said, benefits ranging from the physical to the psychological. “If more girls would swim and dance, instead of rushing into matrimony as the only joy in the world, there would be fewer divorces.” She encouraged women to throw aside their corsets and penned books on health and fitness. A lifelong vegetarian, she even opened her own health food shop.
Annette died in 1975, at 89, having swum well into her eighties. Her swimwear got a generation of women into the water for the first time, allowing them to experience what she described as this “clean, cool, beautiful, cheap thing we all from cats to kings can enjoy".
