FOR THE ARTS,

FOR ALWAYS.

CONTENT LIST

WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO FORWARD PR & THE AGENCY GROUP

//BUSARDI//SHOPCADE

//AOFM//DEV

//CHRISTY LEE ROGERS//HAKEEM KAE-KAZIM

//PHILLIP LAREA//KATE NASH//CARNIVAL

//DRAWN TO FASHION//CONFESSION

//CORDELLIA SIMPSON//MARK A. MURPHY

//SUZI MORRIS//ELEANOR BENNETT

// AFTER NYNE UNSIGNED//DANIEL GOTHARD//EMMA ROBERTS

//ROB RYAN//BELEVE

//CLARE TAYLOR//TOKAIDO ROAD

//KIT RICE//LAURE HATCHUEL-BECKER

A MAGAZINE CURATED BY CLAIRE MEADOWS (EDITOR - IN CHIEF) & CRAIG HEMMING (FASHION EDITOR)

LOVE, CLAIRE.FROM THE DESK OF CLAIRE MEADOWS

EDITOR - IN - CHIEF

So here it is, the biggest issue of After Nyne Magazine. It’s been a joy to put together, and we’ve had a great time.

Our covers stars, Brit signer and fashion icon Kate Nash, and international star DEV have done us proud – they look stunning on both of our dual covers. They both talk exclusively to After Nyne Magazine, and we’re delighted to report that they were both wonderful.

New to this issue is our Un-signed section, in which we’re proud to showcase the talents of bands, and models as yet unsigned, but who we believe have the talent to go far.

We’ve also showcased two inspiring women – model and mum of four Cordelia Simpson and Marsha Powell, founder of the charity BelEve, which dedicates itself to pro-moting and supporting girls and young women as they embark on the first steps of their life journey.

So read on, we’re sure you’ll love it. Don’t for-get to spread the word on twitter @AfterNyneHQ.

www.busardi.com

Since Jonathon Saunders, Mary Katrantzou and Erdem graduated onto the London Fashion Week schedule, the capital has become re-nowned for its trademark bright colours, geometric prints and precision cuts. For generations, sweeping ball gowns, long trains and layers upon layers of tulle has been the strong suit of the Parisian fashion establishment – that’s until Busardi, Thailand’s old-est surviving fashion house, signed up to show in London.Think Valentino’s use of lace, combined with Alice Temper-ley’s eye for detailing and a splash of Dior-style embel-lishment, Busardi bridges the gap between ready-to-wear and haute couture. However, with a 65 year-old heritage on its books, this fashion house is by no means emerging. Run by mother and son duo, Busardi and Tuck Muntarb-horn, the label’s first London collection was a panoply of floral lace, petal embroi-dery and three-dimension-al rose appliqué offset by provocative slits, shorter cuts, sheer paneling and bursts of weighty adornment.“I initially trained as an archi-tect,” explains Busardi who does all the designing. Busar-di left university with the in-tention of becoming a land-scape architect, which might go someway to explaining the recurring use of garden flora in her collections. “I was raised in an environment sur-rounded by sketches, manne-quins and rolls of silk and chif-fon,” explains Busardi, whose mother was also a designer.“Eventually, I came back to fashion and set up my own label with my son Tuck in Thailand.”

Tuck, who lives in London is credited with injecting con-temporary zeal into the brand. “I’m constantly trying to bring in aspects of my London life-style, challenging concepts and innovative ideas to help us perfect the international Busardi women,” explains Tuck. It was his idea to style the dresses at Busardi’s Lon-don Fashion Week show with black leather thorn chokers. “My input helps my mother build upon the foundations of our rich heritage and cul-ture and propose modern and relevant designs with function. With such a long legacy, we aim to summa-rise the past and add to it, through a strong luxurious aesthetic that can still trans-late into beautiful clothes that women want to wear.”In Thailand, Busardi’s sump-tuously rich creations, be-decked with layers of lace and oodles of silk have become the uniform of the well heeled and has even got the gold seal of approval from the roy-al family. However, for London, Busardi wanted to break a few regal rules. “My girls are no longer prim and proper,” the designer said backstage after the show, “While holding on to the romantic essence of the brand, I decided to give this collection a subversive and wicked spin.” The move to the West hasn’t just opened up the brand to new circles, it’s also given it fresh perspec-tive, crystallising the luxury label’s highly decorated par-ty dresses into stunningly memorable pieces worth more than a second glance.

By Harriet Bowe

Meet Nathalie Gaveau, the newest fashion entrepreneur to land in London’s gilt-edged emerging tech scene with a start-up set to redefine so-cial commerce. Up until now social commerce, or s-com-merce as it is more commonly known, has been approached by fashion’s leading brands with trepidation. Then Nath-alie came along with Shop-cade, securing a slew of the high street’s biggest names to her business, including ASOS, Topshop, Urban Out-fitters, along with more pol-ished luxury players such as Liberty, MR PORTER and even Saks Fifth Avenue.

“I moved to London when I came back from Hong Kong because I wanted to launch Shopcade in English from the start and expand global-ly,” adds the serial entrepre-neur, who has already taken Shopcade over the Atlantic and into America and is cur-rently looking to expand into the proverbial land of oppor-tunity: Asia. “It’s an exciting time for Shopcade,” adds Nathalie. “With over 800,000 active consumers leaf-ing through over 150,000 brands daily, Shopcade’s global ambition to become the one-stop shop for fash-ion lovers the world over is swiftly becoming realised.”

5Minutes withFashion Boss:Nathalie Gaveau

“The secret is the fact that it’s people, not brands that drive social commerce,” explains Shopcade’s Nathalie. With this in mind, the app is taking the fashion and celebrity world by storm. Operating like a ‘shop-pable’ Instagram, the millions of dresses, skirts, tops and shoes that filter through the site daily are powered by the choices that celebrities, fash-ion bloggers and consumers have made. In fact, a whole host of high profile bloggers have already put their name to it – and at the brand’s April Style Battle party, everyone from model, DJ and present-er, Vogue Williams, celebri-ty hairdresser, Lee Stafford and stylist to the stars, Re-bekah Roy got on board.

Hailing from Paris, Nathalieknows a thing or two about fashion. “Style is really a way of life in France. It has definitely influenced me. My grandmother was a famous model, alongside Brigitte Bardot and for the Carven brand and she always said that you have to make an ef-fort to look stunning.” How-ever, her impeccable eye for fashion comes packed with a business punch. In 2010, Nathalie put her former com-pany PriceMinister on the selling block – walking away with 200 million euro. Proving that female entrepreneurs can shatter the glass ceiling, the departure consequen-tially made Nathalie part of one of the largest consumer website exits across Europe.

BY HARRIET BOWE

Stacked with big, beautiful pictures and minimal text; everyone loves a good coffee table book. And the newest one to go to print – ‘MAKEUP IS ART’ by the Academy of Freelance Makeup (AOFM) – is no exception to the rule.

Impossible to put down, the bestselling hardback book is a newly updated, super glossy, gorgeous make-up manual, created collectively by the world’s leading back-stage make-up artists under the direction of Jana Ririnui, creative director of AOFM Pro. These make-up artists have preened models to perfection at catwalk shows in London, New York, Paris and Milan Fashion Week, as well as on editorial shoots for some of the world’s most prestigious printed publications, block-buster films, music videos, television and celebrity.

“At AOFM Pro, we work with only the best,” explains Jana, who has lead the creative direction for each edition of ‘MAKEUP IS ART’, including the most recent third copy, which includes 40 addition-al pages of rich content and imagery. “When the likes of Dior and Chanel started to bring out their own books, we saw ‘MAKEUP IS ART’ as an opportunity to profile the make-up artists that work behind the scenes for these brands. The new edition is the third time it has gone into print, which is something that we are very proud of.”

Billed as the most insightful make-up manual that the in-dustry has ever known, the book instills years’ worth of professional make-up expe-rience and breathtaking vis-uals into 264 pages. Flicking through you can find basic make-up advice along with step-by-step instructions for a range of truly inventive looks using specialist tech-niques – from Lady Gaga-in-spired creations and 80s glitter lips, to underwater make up and body painting. The new edition also contains the most up-to-date knowl-edge and works as a direct educational tool for those al-ready working in the industry.

However, the most important thing about any coffee table book is of course the front cover – and ‘MAKEUP IS ART’ is simply stunning. Plastered with a mythical model sport-ing a pair of perfectly placed eyelashes so long it looks as if they could flutter off the page, it’s sure to intrigue any reader to pull it off the book-shelf and open its pages.

BY HARRIET BOWE

Make-up by Anne-Marie Lawson for AOFM ProPhotographs by Jenny Brough

crea advert-final out.indd 1 5/7/14 4:07 PM

DEV

AFTER NYNE CHATS WITH AMERICAN ARTIST DEV ABOUT FASHION, MUSIC AND HER UPCOMING EP.

;

Our fashion editor Craig Hem-ming catches up with US Rap sensation DEV and talks about fashion and her up-coming EP Bitersweer July!

Do you feel fashion influ-ences the music you write?

Yes. Fashion is a great form of expression personally and musically. They go hand in hand. I go through phases with my clothes depend-ing on my mood and vibe for performance. Its impor-tant and really fun for me. What inspires you?

My daughter and fiance. Magazines. Daily life and re-lationships. traveling. Books. Movies. Anything really.

Let’s talk about how far you’ve come, what has been your career highlight?

Receiving plaques for my a few of my songs. Filming a documentary for MTV. Host-ing the woodies. Recording Bittersweet July. It’s been a crazy ride so far, we’ll see! What’s your favorite song from the new EP and what does it mean to you?

I dont have one favorite. These records have got me through an interesting year and a half and were very fun therapeutic experienc-es. They’re all my favorite!

How has the response been to the latest single ‘Kiss It’?

- Its been good! My fans enjoy the sarcasm and sass of the song. Its meant to be sweet and bratty.

What can you tell us about this new EP, has there been any evolution in terms of the style of music you are creating?

-There’s definitely a good progression with Bittersweet July. It’s a lot more personal and has a bigger pop sense to it I think. The vulnerable re-cords are even more vulnera-ble, and the melodic records have big pretty hooks. I’m real-ly excited for people to hear it. How do you think your music differs to cur-rent ‘chart’ music?

I think I’ve always had a quirk about myself. A little left-of-center, but still relatable and honest. My music, since day one, has always been a good mix of sounds/genres.

Could you summa-rize your experience of making this new EP?

It was intense. It was just as emotional and difficult as it was beautiful and exciting. I had great days and great ses-sions, and some really dark ones. It took a lot to create these life moments and ex-periences into this project, saying enough without say-ing too much. I think this is a good starting point for a new phase for me. I’m constantly growing and learning about myself. It’s levels to this. What can we expect next?

M u s i c , S h o w s , V i d e o s .

CHRISTY LEE ROGERS

Rogers’ works have been exhibited through-out the US and Europe and are held in private and public collections throughout the world. She has been featured in International Magazines, including Harper’s Ba-zaar Art China, Eyemaz-ing, The Independent, Casa Vogue, Photo Pro-fessional and others. Rogers’ work Reckless Unbound is currently housed at Longleat in the UK; the stately home which is the seat of the Marquesses of Bath and also home to Renais-sance gems of the Italian masters, like Titan’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt.

Christy Lee Rogers is a visual artist from Kailua, Hawaii. Her obsession with water as a medium for breaking the con-ventions of contempo-rary photography has led to her work being compared to Baroque painting masters like Caravaggio. Boisterous in colour and complex-ity, Rogers applies her cunning technique to a barrage of bodies sub-merged in water during the night, and creates her effects naturally in-camera using the re-fraction of light. Through a fragile process of experimentation, she builds elaborate scenes of coalesced colours and entangled bodies that exalt the human char-acter as one of vigour and warmth, while also capturing the beauty and vulnerability of the tragic experience that is the human condition.

H a k e e m K a e - K a z i m

Hakeem Kae-Kazim rose to fame in the Oscar Nominated film Hotel Rwanda playing George Rutugunda. This tal-ented actor has an impres-sive list of credits and grew a huge fan base when he played the villain Colonel Dubaku in Fox’s series 24. He went on to play in many of Hollywood’s prime time TV shows and Blockbusters in-cluding X-Men: Wolverine and Pirates of the Caribbean. Now he is to star in STARZ much awaited new series, Michael Bay’s original Black Sails.

In the highly anticipated pi-rate adventure, Black Sails Hakeem stars as Mr. Scott, a former slave, whose loyal-ties are put to the test. This much-awaited series centers on the tales of Captain Flint and his men and takes place twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island. The series is set in 1715 and the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbe-an is at its apex. The former British colony of New Provi-dence Island is now lawless territory, controlled by a few dozen of the most notorious pirate captains in histo-ry. Hakeem stars alongside Zach McGowan (Shameless), Jessica Parker Kennedy (The Secret Circle, 50/50), Mark Ryan (Transformers, The Prestige) and Toby Ste-phens (Die Another Day).

Hakeem is well loved for his TV work, which recently has included many primetime shows including Human Tar-get, Criminal Minds, NAVY NCIS, Law and Order, Cobert Affairs and Strike Back. This Nigerian born actors list of impressive credits include Pi-rates of the Caribbean III, Lost, Cane with Jimmy Smits, Law & Order: SVU with Mariska Hargi-tay, The Triangle with Sam Neill, The Librarian with Gabri-elle Anwar, X-Men: Wolverine with Hugh Jackman, The 4th Kind alongside Milla Jovovich and Darfur with Billy Zane. His latest films Half of a Yellow

Sun and A Chance of Rain, are set to be released soon.

After Nyne Magazine talked to Hakeem recently about his upcoming roles, and a lot more besides.

Hakeem, Black Sails is get-ting rave reviews. Tell us a little about what attracted you to the role of Mr Scott.

I found it interesting how Mr Scott wasn’t born a slave, but he was captured at a young age. So I believe he has a dif-ferent mentality to someone who was born a slave and because of this I decided to base my character on Black Ceasor the African pirate who was around in the 1700’s.

Mr Scott is a former slave - how do you think the film ‘12 Years A Slave’ has im-pacted on Hollywood?

12 Years a slave, is a fantastic film but I feel that the narra-tive needs to be expanded in Hollywood In terms of telling the black story. We weren’t just slaves and servants we have so much more history and it would be great to see that also be told in Hollywood.

Take us back in time to film-ing Hotel Rwanda - did you have any idea when you were filming it that it would have the success it did?

I had no idea, how success-ful and powerful it was going to be! But after reading the script and doing research, I felt it was a story that need-ed to be told with a great impact. I am very proud to have been a part of it.Filming it was also very pow-erful and painful. We had a lot of Rwandan refugees on set and I spoke to them about their experiences and tried to understand the mentality of what was going on at the time and why it all happened.

You have an extremely impres-sive body of work both in film and tv - what has been your single favourite experience in the past couple of years?

I would say my favourite ex-perience would be being on Black Sails right now! I’m en-joying it so much and I’ve had the fortune of working with such amazing actors. It really is a joy and a pleasure to go into work, everyone is wonder-ful and really down to earth.

Who are your own influences?

I really admire Sydney Poitier! But in terms of acting I love watching Sean Penn, Denzel Washington and Mel Steet, they are amazing to watch and I really love their work.

Outside of work, what are your passions?

My Family!

Did you always intend to become an actor?

Not really, It just sort of hap-pened. I was actually planning on becoming a doctor but I changed my tracts and de-cided to study acting instead.

Tell us what’s next for Hakeem Kae-Kazim

After I leave South Africa, I’m going back to LA to start work-ing on a film called ‘Daylights end’. I have also just finished writing a script so hopeful-ly by the end of the year I’ll be producing my own film!

CROWS B E T W E E N H E R E A N D THERE

PHILLIP LARREA

Harbinger stares east, Messenger west.They sit on a fencein Nebraska to contemplatethis coal-fired Eagle line out of Kansas Citybound for the coast.She carries sheared waves of grainon tracks built beforeThe War Between the States.One stop more in Wyomingto take on butchered beefhung in freezer cars to preserve death’s freshnessduring that long trip on a slow boat to China.This time it is Harbinger’s jobto deliver the news of what has been traded away.

G R E A T A N DS M A L L

FOR NELSON MANDELA

PHILLIP LARREA

My revolution is not televised,it has been miniaturizedwallet-sized yet so largeI am forced to discardmy labor permit,license for movement,number to be.All burnt in a wood stoveby candlelight.Cords stacked high outside.Contraband storedgrain by grain,preserved pluots jammedin this 8x8 stateI am unconfinedby what I do not want forwhat I do not lack.

KICKING IT WITH

AFTER NYNE TALKS FASHION, MUSIC & AMERICAN DREAMS WITH LONDONS VERY OWN KATE NASH.

COVER IMAGE BY ALICE BEXLEY/ STORY IMAGES BY CHRISTOPHER DADEY

What does fashion mean to you and why do you feel it’s so important to your work?

Fashion is fun and it is also an important element to my onstage performances. What I wear on stage has to communicate to the au-dience and work for me as performance-wear when I’m playing the bass, the gui-tar, the drums or singing.

I’m sure you’ve been keep-ing a close eye on Fash-ion Week, what has been your personal highlight?

AW14 was the first season I wasn’t able to attend fashion week, as I’ve been working in Los Angeles. However, I’m a massive fan of Rebecca Mink-off, Charlotte Ronson, Diane von Furstenberg, Bora Aksu, FELDER FELDER, Mark Fast, Eudon Choi, Sibling, House of Holland, Simone Rocha, Burberry, Miu Miu…so I was catching up online from afar!

Your latest album ‘Girl Talk’ seems a million miles away from the sound of Made of Bricks, what in-spired this amazing album?

Girl Talk is definitely a pro-gression. It’s a lot heavier. I wrote everything on the bass. It also has a lot of pret-ty melodies. I was thinking about Hole, The Breeders and The Beach boys a lot.

Your friendship with Re-bekah Roy is quite unique, how did this come about?

We met on a shoot and kept in touch and it spriralled from there. She really gets me. Re-bekah made fashion week fun for me. I think before that I was always intimidated by it. I felt like I wouldn’t really fit in, Re-bekah helped me realise that fashion week is about cele-brating being an outsider. The freaks and geeks and weirdos and outsiders are embraced within the fashion world.

What is the most meaningful track from Girl Talk, and why?

I love the punkier, more ag-gressive side of album, but the ballad track ‘Oh’ means a lot to me, as one of my best friends, who passed awaybefore Girl Talk was released, sings on the track with me.

How’s the tour going, any highlights you’d like to share?

I’m just getting ready to tour America again and will stop-ping in cities across the Mid-west and the Weat Coast. I’m really looking forward to play-ing Coachella again. It’s one of my favourite music festivals!

What would be the mes-sage behind your latest al-bum, can we expect more music from you soon?

I wish I had had Girl Talk when I was a teenager. It would have helped me through so much! It’s all about re-lationships, being a strong person, looking after your-self, editing out friends who aren’t really friends.

I am working on new mu-sic now in Los Angeles.

Ending on a nice one, If you could give any ad-vice/words of inspiration to your fans a.k.a your Girl Gang what would it be?

Don’t let anyone else tell you what you can or cannot do, and straight from my mum:

‘Don’t let the bastards get you down.’

C A R NI V A L

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FOX HARVARD

Fox Harvard is currently a US-based fashion & portrait photogra-pher. Born in Tampa and raised in Sarasota, he’s a native Floridi-an who currently resides in the Tampa Bay area. Fox began pri-vate art lessons in adolescence and went on to attend a private performing arts high school before proceeding to study Studio Arts at the University of South Florida. He attributes his present style to applying the same creative approach to photography as he did to painting. The majority of his work possesses an overtly uninhibited and cinematic flair, incorporating strong emotive and sentimental qualities that regardless of subject matter, seem to allude to a time not long forgotten. His work captures the undisguised beauty of the people he works with and simul-taneously professes an undying love for elegance & sensuality.

A LETTER FROM CRAIG HEMMINGFASHION EDITOR.

IF AFTER NYNE DID WEIGHTS WE’D DEFINITLEY BE THE SCHWARZNEGGERS OF THE ARTS PUBLISHING INDUSTRY.

THE NEW LOOK HAS BEEN COMING ON AMAZING AND THE LAST ISSUE RECIEVED SUCH AMAZING FEEDBACK. IT FEELS LIKE WE JUST KEEP GETTING BET-TER AND BETTER, DON’T WORRY WE WONT STOP THERE EITHER!

THIS MONTH WE ALSO INTRO-DUCED NEW SECTIONS SUCH AS AFTER NYNE UNSIGNED, ALSO TO THE RIGHT IS SOME-THING FROM OUR DRAWN TO FASHION FEATURE, AFTER NYNE IS ALL ABOUT GIVING YOUNG TALENT NEW OPPURUNITIES AND WE BELIEVE OUR MAGA-ZINE IS THE BEST PLATFORM FOR THIS, I LOVE THIS IMAGE INSPIRED BY MARC JACOBS FALL COLLECTION, DRAWN BY CHELSEA LENTELL FROM SOMERSET!

I’D ALSO LIKE TO THANK A FEW PEOPLE, SUCH AS ALISSA APPLEGATE (THE AGENCY GROUP) WHO ENABLED US TO HAVE NOT ONE BUT TWO COVER GIRLS!COURTNEY BLACKAN (FORWARD PR), WITHOUT YOUR HELP THIS ISSUE WOULD NOT HAVE GAINED THE MOMENTUM IT NEEDED, WE ARE FORVER GRATEFUL!

IT REALLY HAS BEEN AN HON-OUR BEING GIVEN THE CHANCE TO PUT MY OWN TWIST ON THE ORIGINAL MAGAZINE AND I REALLY HOPE YOU ALL LIKE THE CHANGES (LITTLE AND BIG) I’VE MADE IN THISS ISSUE.

SEE YOU IN AUGUST! X

CRAIG HEMMNG @CRAIGAFTERNYNE

DRAWJNG BY CHELSEA LENTELL

DRAWNTO

FASHIONAFTER NYNE TAKES A LOOK AT THE INTERNETS BEST UPCOMING FASHION ILLUSTRATORS. WORK COURTESY OF EXAMPLE, EXAMPLE, EXAMPLE, EXAMPLE

@AGNESKRPATIENCE

@SMULTRON_O_SPRIT

@IAMARINATEN

@SAMBALOU32

WWW.EMMAMULLEN.COM

CONFE

COREEN CONNELL

SSION

Lying here in my hospital bed, guess, if I was honest with myself – my death bed – I’ve been contemplating my past life. I’ve had plen-ty of time for reflection; in between all the tests, in between the bouts of pain and shots of morphine; and so I have decided to tell my love of my life, the truth! I first had these tell tale signs of love over twenty years ago – the heart throb-bing, the racing pulse and the desperation of want-ing. Wanting to be together, to kiss and to touch and be touched. Always watching from afar, making all sorts of excuses, just for one more moment together. We had so few times alone and such a short time to-gether over a life time.

Exhausted just from think-ing and remembering I found myself drifting off to sleep once again. I’m woken later the same day, it’s Visiting Time; my fam-ily, all grown up are here – stroking, kissing, smiling and I suppose pretending all is well. I know that I am dying, in fact, I welcome it. All through my life I’ve diced with death, usual-ly at my own hand; four suicide attempts and my favourite sport – driving too fast. I simply loved that speed and total disre-gard for personal safety. My husband, Andrew is so precise, cautious and so careful – well they do say that ‘Opposites Attract’. The love and passion we once shared just fizzled out but then we had the children, and in those days, the wife stayed with her husband ‘no matter what’ especially when children were involved, so I stayed and regretted it there after.

en though the children have left; a love-hate relation-ship, having been black-mailed into staying and I suppose one gets stuck in the same rut or perhaps, it’s a case of ‘better the devil you know’ and all that

Not long after our youngest left home I was madly in love with someone else, a close friend. I wasn’t proud of myself and I certainly didn’t set out to cheat on my husband but I was de-termined that I would take the risk should the oppor-tunity arise. Unfortunate-ly, it never did; I never got the chance nor did I pluck up the courage to divulge how I felt! I am hoping that ‘my friend’ will visit soon.

As my family left the ward, my friend did arrive; com-plete with an armful of flowers. The delicious scents of the carnations, stock and the roses over-whelmed the room sadly masking the body scent of my friend as I received the cordial cuddle. Over the years, I had become famil-iar with my friend’s facial expressions, body odour and idiosyncrasies’ like the raising of an ‘eyebrow’ or blinking when very nerv-ous. I could see only but sadness in those usually sparkling green eyes that always made me melt. I got my usual peck on the cheek – this was as much as I had ever had, and I can tell you that it has been a frustrating twenty years! I was suddenly tongue-tied, so unusual for me, as I had always been the one with the quick response. God, where do I start? Taking a deep breath and grabbing my friend’s hand, I began..

‘Back in 2000 I remem-ber thinking how sexy you were and I really tried not to think of you in that way, after all we were already good friends and I didn’t want anything to spoil that. I have never stopped lov-ing you – there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think of you. I used every conceivable excuse I could think of just to see you. My husband suspected but I shrugged it off, after all we weren’t actually having an affair. Every night I dreamt of us making love – your hands caressing my entire body, exploring me using your lips and making love all night long. I imagined our naked bodies entwined, your body heat warming my heart and soul, and of course, the unbelievable sex. I can still remember how just thinking of you made me so randy and so wet. I often caught my-self staring at you, at your wonderful body, and typi-cally we were in a crowd. I thought you must’ve sus-pected but you never said. And then you had that af-fair, remember with your boss? Oh God, I was so de-pressed – I couldn’t under-stand why not with me as my heart was burning with desire. I supported you through the affair, for years it went on, but I still loved you, I still hoped. I contin-ued to dream and to ogle!

My favourite dream was the two of us sneaking off together for a week-end away. I told Andrew that I had a work-related course and had to stay away overnight. I guess you would’ve had a similar excuse. Anyway, we were alone in a luxurious hotel room; where there was an

enormous four-poster bed with drapes all around it, an en-suite with a Jacuzzi and room service. We never left the room the whole week-end as we spent all our time making love. We were em-barrassed at first but once we kissed and touched one another, there was no stopping us. Of course, it was perfect, just as good dreams always seem to be..

My only regret is that I nev-er told you how I felt but I have always been thankful, even grateful for our fan-tastic friendship. I know I am dying and I just wanted to say thank you for being my best friend all these years, I really don’t know what I would have done without you. You’ve always been there for me, so un-derstanding, tolerant and supportive. I don’t want to go without telling you how much I love you.’ Tearfully, I kissed my friend’s hand.

My friend, also tearful turned and kissed then hugged me and said ‘I did suspect but I was afraid, you know if I was wrong – I didn’t want to sacrifice our friendship either. It’s a pity we can’t turn back the clocks. I will miss you so much.’ The next thing I realise that my friend is being ushered out of the ward by some fat nurse. Our arms are stretched out desperately seeking one more moment touching, until even our fingertips no longer touch. A wave and a kiss blown from the doorway and I was all alone with the nurse fuss-ing over the medication.

As I drifted back to sleep and high under the mor-phine I dreamt I had met my friend back in the late 1980’s without the re-straints of marriage and children, we were young and free. The sun was shining and we were on the open road on a Honda 500cc ‘Goldwing’ heading past Loch Lomond. We ar-rived late in the afternoon at the hired cottage in the Scottish hills. All the while whilst riding the bike, I was thinking of how exciting the first time making love would be, the anticipation was driving me wild as I held on more tightly than was necessary. I watched you taking off your black leathers and letting your hair fall free from the hel-met. We got the log fire started and ran a bath. We laughed as we watched the bath fill with the dark peaty brown water. We were quite sore from the long drive sitting on the bike and were eager to get into the hot bubbly water. I chose the tap end seen as you had done all the driving! As we lathered one another, I couldn’t help fall into that dreamy state, bewitched by your body and the bath salts too. As you washed my back I felt your hands slide around to my breasts, then cupping them and squeezing them nipping the nipples between your fingers. I could feel myself and my body in turmoil already. I felt your body slide up pressing against mine. I turned facing you, so we could kiss – nibbling your lips and sucking your tongue – our tongues dart-ing in and out, kissing con-tinuously until we gasped for air and all the time you continued to play with my

nipples. Then your mouth kissed its way down to my breasts, taking as much of one of them into your mouth as you could. You sucked my nipples so hard they stood erect for ages while your hands slid round my arse and between my thighs. Your hands forced my legs apart and fondled my sex – ex-ploring the crevices and lips, at first ever so gen-tly, and then desperately.

We almost ran and fell onto the bed in one anoth-er’s arms still dripping wet locked in an embrace. We made love like we never had done so before, com-pletely at one another’s mercy and so intense. We then fell asleep together in each other’s arms, our bod-ies wrapped around tightly.

I drifted in and out of sleep, the coming and going of family and friends was beginning to blur. Strange when so young, time does not exist, everything takes forever but as one gets older time does eventual-ly run out. All those things one puts off for another day – oh why, did I? That day just won’t arrive now for me! Only last month I was still under the impression that I had all the time in the world and now time has run out. I struggled but opened my eyes and saw you, my dear friend, tears rolling down your cheeks but smil-ing back at me as I felt your hand squeeze mine. With fi-nal thoughts of you, a smile upon my face, I slipped away into that final sleep.

Hat by American Apparel/ Body-suit and kimono by Veltvet Johnstone/ Shoes by Spy Love Buy

CORDELIAS I M P S O NPhotography Oliver Morris/ Stylist Tasha Leslie-Badu/Make - Up and hair Claire Appleby/ Hair Cheveux Par Isha/ Asst. Adele Neverson

All jewellery by Jolita Jewellery

Cordelia Simpson is an inspi-ration for women everywhere who have passions, and be-lief in themselves. A mum of four, she recently won a modelling competition run by Angel Sinclair’s Models of Diversity agency. I met with her to discuss her incredible journey, being a role model and what she would like to see more of in the industry.

Cordelia, how would you describe your journey up to the point where you decid-ed to take up modelling?

I trained at London Studio Centre college in Perform-ing Arts. I then went on to have a successfully career as a backing dancer and danced for the likes of Whit-ney Houston, Black eyed peas, 50 cent and lots more.

When I was 20 I fell pregnant with my daughter Carma it wasn’t planned and defi-nitely wasn’t ideal but with my family’s support I went on to have her. I was a sin-gle parent as her father was very abusive so we separat-ed early in the pregnancy.

I returned to work for a year and then I met the love of my life and soul mate, my hus-band Bob. We want on to have a further 3 children in 4 years which left me at 26 with a 5, 3, 2 year olds and new baby. Busy few years! I then got married the following year.

Unfortunately at 25 I lost my mum to cancer which as you can imagine was devas-tating. Not only was she my best friend but she was also a huge inspiration to me and without her I’ve had to dig deep to find the confidence and strength to succeed.

Throughout my 20’s I didn’t lose sight of the fact that once the children are old enough I would pursue my career again but this time I wanted to go down the route of model-ling and presenting/ hosting.

If you could pinpoint one moment that influ-enced your decision, what would that be?

Within a month of deciding to start modelling I entered MOD’s head shot competi-tion and to my astonishment I won. It was a real confi-dence boost and definitely spurred me on to push my modelling career further.

You could be called a role model - how would you feel about that?

I would be happy to be seen as a role model. In fact that’s exactly what I would love, if I could influence people and give them the incen-tive they need to progress in life through any career path, that would be amazing.

What pressures have you seen on other women during your time in the industry?

I’ve met lots of women that are conscious about certain areas of their bodies, legs or arms are too big. Also height is an issue. I’m feeling those pressures too, if I’m honest, but I am determined to stay true to my self and keep my-self at a healthy weight. Be-sides I enjoy food far too much.

Hat by American Apparel/ Body-suit and kimono by Veltvet Johnstone/ Shoes by Spy Love Buy

Bodysuit by Velvet Johnstone/ shoes by Spy Love Buy

Have you experienced any form of discrim-ination during your time in the industry?

I do find it strange when the specifically want to see Caucasian women but I hav-en’t come across a time yet when they only want to see mixed race or black women!

How do you feel about the efforts of people such as Angel Sinclair, cam-paigning for more di-versity in the industry?

I think what Angel stands for is amazing it’s so important that we are all counted as in-dividuals and therefore a vari-ety of people should be repre-sented through the modelling industry. She still has a way to go but at least she is moving in the right direction and giv-ing diversity a voice. I support her 100% and am extremely grateful for her enthusi-asm and confidence in me.

I have been told by a top fashion agent that it is hard enough getting work for a girl under 5’7” but being black as well would be impossible!!

What would you like people to take away from your own story?

If you have a dream you can achieve it don’t follow the crowd or be influenced by what people perceive as an unrealistic goal. If you want something in life you need to stand up and be heard. But know one said it will be easy!

N O WW E A R E STARS

MARK A. MURPHY

You are wanted by the heavens.And I am a man in need of air –who leaves twig and branch to despairat the hardly hid-den deceit of dreamswhere we meet phantomsin the tortured etherunable to untie the mist, or decipher the confessions of knives and kindness.So we live in a win-ter of photographswhere every page might rememberthe deeds and do-ings of last Novemberwhen I failed to call or wishfor us upon the es-caping billion stars.I interrupt Jesus mid-speech, begetter of your bloody li-bretto and scorewhere you find noth-ing now matters.So what is left, but sad partitionsin the clouds where lovers might deliverthe heartbreaking news to each otherthat love does not care for gentleness.Love is beyond what hunted dogsand the mysterious rivermay partially recall in the neverending flood of lives lived below the bogs.Wake, my love, wake with the sensationsof rain tickling your neck, next yearwhen we think of the star, Mintakain the belt of Orion, we shall remain namelessto the millions that are yet facelessin the womb of the earth-mother,but it is not in doubt that their dreams will come among us to undressthe dawn where we might confessto the sparrow-hawk and the kestrel our

rancour at the killing and the killer that would sor-row the mother in her nest.Why do I write you? Hardly a day passeswhen I do not bolt heav-ens’ door on the earth and all its sores. and all that binds the mud and ties us.We are children now, defencelessto all that would enslave the dour recollection of our rap-port, but we persist as sun and moon and nebulas still being born in the galaxies beyond our making. I give you no cure, only the long aeons of your life without me, the sure cold of Munch’s Frieze.

MARK A. MURPHY

BLUEN O V EM B E R

Where has my Nora gone? I do not see herin our white painted room where her crucifixes hang above the bed. I do not see her in the garden where the blue rhododendrons clamour for light. Where is my only girlwho makes the moon-light my midnight friend?In this pitch less room, I must wait with the antique barom-eter, the dried out rosesand the porcelain an-gel for the common crow to break the silence of my nightly vigil,claim my fitful sleep, claim my broken schemes.Blue was her dream, blue, always her colourwhen she took hand-fuls of barbiturates,when November rain re-turned with its idle words.

R a c hm a n in o f f ’ sR h a ps o d y

MARK A. MURPHY

It is not certain when or if will we meet againin this life. More years pass. There is so much to say. I love you. You are no ghost, but a living creature.

I can no longer touch, kiss or feel. I am no ghost, but a man bent on loving, though my time may well be through.

How can I forget about beauty?

How can I unravel the wool or indeed the past which is pinned to my soul whilst the leaves fall from the elms?

When we made love, noth-ing could tear us asunder.

We fell into bed ignor-ing the march of armies outside. We fell into bed without mortal hunger,smiling, laughing,though it was not yet paradise.Night followed night.

For whom did we cry, my love? For whom did we cry?

‘On l o c a t i o n with Suzi’

Morris’

To many the thought of work-ing in film conjures up the thoughts of exotic filming lo-cations or red carpet events in Leicester Square but what is a day on set for an Art Di-rector for Film really like?

Its 0700 and my alarm goes, meeting with the director and crew over breakfast in 45 minutes. My body clock tells me its 0500 and asks me why am I getting up so early – I am in Petra in Southern Jordan.

I am an abstract oil painter having just finished an in-tensive year long Masters Degree in Fine Art at the City & Guilds of London Art School. Having missed what everyone tells me was a great summer 2013 – the offer to go over-seas and see the sun was always going to be a ‘YES!’ This is my eighth project with Fact Not Fiction Films, a small independent multi award winning film and doc-umentary Production Com-pany based in West Sussex.

We have a crew of 12 and I am here as Art Director on the investigative thriller feature film, A Dark Reflection. This is not a studio film with gen-erous salaries and budgets. This is a co-operative model film where we are all given shares in the film – there is no pay up front. We are all doing this because the issues at the heart of the film, issues that could impact anyone who flies today. The film explores what many claim is ‘Avia-tion’s biggest cover-up’ and is the aviation version of films like Erin Brockovich or The Insider. Being part of a film that could potentially make air travel safer for everyone is primarily why I am here.

Our unit is in Jordan to cap-ture the opening six or so minutes of the film that in-troduces our lead character, journalist Helen Eastman. The actress Georgina Sutcliffe plays the role of a tough jour-nalist working in a hostile overseas setting. ‘Georgie’ is a delight to work with and her smile and enthusiasm for the film makes the film-ing more like a family holiday than a regimented studio film.

Typically the larger the production crew, the less flexibility there tends to be. The director and producer of the film is former British Airways Captain Tristan Lo-raine. Tristan has filmed in Jordan before and has a very clear idea of what he wants the filming to achieve which makes my life much easier.

After a hearty breakfast in the Marriott we head off for our first location. A small kebab café in a nearby local Bedouin village. In a studio film, the café would be rented for the day or built as a set. We have use of it for only a few hours whilst business continues at the quiet time of the day. Con-sequently, we have to work extremely fast. Films are very rarely shot in consecutive or-der as you see the film on the silver screen but to a shoot-ing schedule put together by the Line Producer and Produc-tion Manager. The scenes in Jordan are at the start of the film but the rest of the film has in fact, already been filmed.

The scenes in the café are made up of wide shots, shots that help show the location and setting of the scene and other shots such as ‘close ups’ or a ‘two shot’ (when there are two people in the camera shot). We start with the wide. Our Director of Pho-tography (DOP) is Nick Eriks-son, a young rising star in the world of film. He has a First and Second Assistant Camer-aman, Joshua J.J. Green and Ciaran Maginn. Josh’s primary

role is to make sure everything filmed is ‘sharp’ or in focus and Ciaran’s is to set the cam-era up and load and unload the film magazines. A Dark Reflection is being filmed on 35mm film as opposed to digital, digital is becomingmore commonplace in TV and in feature films. 35mm is the gold standard. It’s a bit like painting with Schmincke Mussini oil colours, it’s as good as it gets. The advan-tages of film are its amazing latitude to capture brightly lit areas and the darker are-as all in one go. Digital lacks the latitude of film and the look of film is magical com-pared to digital. Using film also brings a discipline to filming often lacking on dig-ital productions because of the far higher cost of filming. Each ‘take’ has to be properly rehearsed before actual film-ing. Georgina is exemplary in her deliveries; a director’s dream, as her performances are usually precisely what the director is looking for.

As Art Director, for the wide shots in this scene, my role is to prepare the set for filming and ensure the location is not in anyway seen to be in Jor-dan, as the scene is actually set in an unknown overseas location. Any logos or brand names need to be cleared by the legal team, sometimes a slow process, so its often eas-ier to remove obvious ones or confirm with the DOP that any potential brands in shot are ‘soft’ i.e. out of focus and unrecognizable. As we have a small crew on this location, I will also look to ensure there are no continuity issues.

Film scripts are usually writ-ten in a program called ‘Final Draft’. The program formats each A4 page in a very pre-cise way. One page of script usually equals one minute in the film. Our film script is 117 pages, so the running time of the film without end credits, will be in the 2 hour mark. The start of the scene

we are filming this morning appears in Final Draft as:

INT. LOCAL RESTAURANT – DAY

Helen and Tom sit down op-posite KAMIR, 40’s. He sips Arabic coffee, his hand shaky.

Helen faces Kamir, Tom is between them.

K A M I RIf you were followed –

HELEN EASTMAN

We weren’t.

Tom holds the camera and glances at Helen who nods for him to start filming.

Kate Morgan our young Third Assistant Director is also act-ing as continuity girl in Jor-dan. Kate ensures the script is followed and provides the editors with all the details of every take, such as lens used and if the take is use-able or not. Jane Williams who is Head of Hairdressing on the film, also works as a make-up artist in Jordan. Everyone here has more than one role. Even our Executive Producer Captain John Hoyte and his daughter Lucy have to act as crew members.

Once Jane has got the actors ready, the ‘wide shot’ is filmed quite easily with a few local extras keen to be part of the film. The wide sees Georgina and Tom, played by young ac-tor Luke White, enter the café and sit down. This is followed by single and two shots of the three characters in this scene before we come to the main part of the scene: the shooting.

The scene sees two charac-ters in the café shot by an assassin with an AK-47 as-sault rifle. The consequences of being shot in the head by a high velocity rifle are, as you would imagine, visually quite shocking. The bullet enters with a very small entry wound and basically takes

out the back of the person’s head. This needs to be re-produced on the walls near where the two characters are sitting. The exact trajectory is worked out for complete accuracy. I am now painting the walls of the café with the highest quality of stage blood the market can produce. At £50 a bottle, it looks so real local bystanders ask them-selves if the café is now the butchers shop or if the last customer perhaps failed to pay his bill. It’s totally water soluble so washes off the walls very easily after filming.

Each camera shot is called a ‘set-up’ with a slate number identifying the set up and ‘take’ written on the ‘clap-per board’. This is used to allow the editors in post-pro-duction to sync the sound, which is recorded separate-ly to the film footage being filmed at 24 frames a second.

The last ‘set-up’ is where the day gets really interesting. The director, keen for accura-cy in the film, has a real AK-47 being used and firing blanks as opposed to a plastic weap-on. Before filming the gun being fired and using up val-uable film stock, he asks that the weapon be fired to make sure it all works properly.

The weapon check is carried out in the street by one of the local production managers, Mohammed Nawafleh, ciga-rette hanging out of his mouth. He clearly knows a lot about weapons. Not surprising real-ly, as the last film he worked on was the Academy Award Winner Zero Dark Thirty. I look around at how nobody seems worried an assault ri-fle is being fired in the street and remember I am not in London anymore. It’s exciting - you remember in the world of film - anything is possible.

Being an automatic as-sault rifle, it fires a round and automatically reloads itself in the blink of an eye. The test firing however high-lights a problem. The gun does not reload automatical-ly because the blanks being fired don’t have enough gas release to reload the weapon. Its suggested that the gun be manually reloaded but that is not part of the story and not realistic, so the director jokingly says ‘we need some real ammunition’. Much to my surprise an unknown local steps forward and says he can supply as much ammu-nition as needed ‘for a small fee’. 30 rounds are ordered and the crew starts to look a bit worried! Five minutes later the ammunition arrives. Georgie’s father was an elite soldier so she remains un-phased. Clearly for the ‘re-verse shot’ of the gun being fired we need another loca-tion or the café owner will be rebuilding the place after we have gone. The location man-ager ‘has a cousin’ and we all drive off to a remote farm.

The farm looks over the most scenic of valleys. Once all the livestock is moved away to safety, the film camera is set up beside the gunman to capture the shooting. Just be-fore we ‘turn-over’ the camera and ‘roll sound’, I turn to the director and highlight that its amazing that the man us-ing the weapon, actually one of our local drivers, has been given the AK-47 to fire and yet never asked for any tuition. He smiles and says ‘I hadn’t thought about that – I guess everyone can fire an AK-47 over here’ and smiles. After the filming he and Georgie also fire the weapon easily.

After a wonderful meal and break back at the hotel, it’s off for more filming. This time at the local hospital, arranged by ‘another relative’. The scenes we are filming are the arrival of one of the two people shot in the café. The

hospital is a working hospital and they have kindly agreed to let us film after 11pm when they are fairly quiet.

My role as Art Director in the hospital is to en-sure everything is as real as possible. We remove any signs that identify the hospital location, apart from that it’s ready-made.

It’s not a set; it’s the real deal. I was also very lucky we had extras that all work in the hospital.

Doctors, nurses and special-ists simply acting as extras in what they do every day. I supply the expensive missing blood in generous quantities.

After we ‘wrap’ the film-ing, we leave the hos-pital under an ocean of stars, its 2 in the morning.

It’s a long day but one you will never forget. It’s the amazing world of film and A Dark Re-flection is a film that will make a difference and I am glad to have played a small part in helping to make it happen.

For more informa-tion please visit:

www.adarkreflection.com or w w w . s u z i m o r r i s a r t . c o m

ELEANOR BENNETT

Eleanor Leonne Bennett is an internationally award winning photographer and visual artist. She is the CIWEM Young Environmental Pho-tographer of The Year 2013 and has also won first plac-es with National Geograph-ic,The World Photography Organisation, Nature’s Best Photography and The Nation-al Trust to name only a few.

Her photography has been published in the Telegraph, The Guardian, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Life Force Magazine, British Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and as the front cover of books and magazines extensive-ly throughout the world.

Eleanor’s art is globally ex-hibited, having shown work in New York, Paris, London, Rome, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Co-penhagen, Washington, Cana-da, Spain, Japan and Australia amongst many other loca-tions. She was also the only person from the UK to have my work displayed in the Na-tional Geographic and Airbus run See The Bigger Picture global exhibition tour with the United Nations Internation-al Year Of Biodiversity 2010.

Her written work has had permanent showcase on the official company blog of Zenfolio. In 2012 shewas especially invited by the founder of the BCC to con-tribute an article to highlight the importance of the Day Of The Imprisoned Writer.

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UNSIGNED

AFTER NYNE PRESENTS

INCLUDING: MAN CANT FLY./ CHESS GALEA/ OLIVIA REED

Debuting in 2013, Man Can’t Fly have already made a name for them-selves on the Radio 1 Playlist with introduc-tory single ‘Don’t Waste My Time’. Championed by BBC Introducing, MCF secured a slot on the Intro stage at Reading & Leeds 2013.

Man Can’t Fly are mak-ing their eagerly-antic-ipated return with their second independent single ‘Vacant’. Collab-orating with female singer-songstress A Girl Called Ruth (featured in The Guardian Band of the Day and a favourite of BBC Radio Wales), the track boasts a quirky ‘Of Monsters and Men’ feel, with a sharpened edge.

Further achievements include video airplay on C4’s Sunday Brunch, a performance at Bing-ley Music Live Festival alongside Primal Scream and Nile Rogers, a sell-out gig at The Cockpit in Leeds, and an upcom-ing support slot at The Dunwells album launch.

MAN CANTFLY.

https://www.facebook.com/mancantfly@mancantfly

What inspired you to get into modeling, do you have an icon, or anyone you as-pire to be as good as?

It was by chance when I was about fourteen I got asked to do abit of modelling and I just decided it was something I enjoyed so carried it on into a career. I could list a few supermodels that I admire but I don’t aim to be them as everyone has a different path.

What do you love most about modeling, and what makes you differ-ent to the current market?

The thing I love most is meet-

ing a lot of lovely new people, I’ve met some friends for life through modelling. I do a lot of alternative art based mod-elling which I think makes my portfolio very different.

My editor thinks it’s crazy that you aren’t agency signed! Do you find freelancing as a mod-el is much easier/more fun?

Not being signed to an agency has its pro’s and con’s but it means I have the pick of who I work with.

What has been your most fun/memorable shoot, talk us through the experience!

It has to be the paint shoot that’s featured, it was a very cold and challenging shoot but was definitely the most fun with a photographer that I really get along with. It was also very quick after I was painted as we both knew what images we wanted to get from it, my shower after was an experience within its self, it was very colourful!

How do you prepare for photo-shoots do you have anything specific you al-ways do before hand?

Not particularly, I always eat extra healthy on the morning of a shoot though!

This months Unsigned model comes in the form of Rebecca Louise, from York/London. We picked up her images from ins-tagram and love her potential!

Fashion Editor Craig Hemming caught up with Rebecca on her career, and life as an unsigned model!

REBECCALOUISEIMAGES COURTESY OF DEKKER PHOTOGRAPHY

Chess was born and raised in Malta, surrounded by clas-sical music that her parents listened to and played. She started ballet at the age two and piano at the aged five. Chess began writing songs very early in life and kept them in a songbook at the bottom of her wardrobe.She spent her childhood and teenage years immersed in music – listening to anything from Queen to Beethoven and the Spice Girls. She loved it all.Originally a classically trained singer, Chess moved on to contemporary singing in her teenage years when vocal coach and mentor Joshua Alamu (Pop Idol, The Voice) paid a trip to Malta.Chess poured her heart out to him letting him know of her dreams and he suggested she moved to the UK. So she worked everyday for a year, spent nothing, and moved to Guildford to attend the Acad-emy Of Contemporary Music.Here she completed a Higher Diploma in Vocals (Perfor-mance). Meanwhile, her mu-sic started to be recognized in Malta – achieving a local num-ber one with ‘stilettos’ and nominations for best dance song for her collaborations.

Working with great upcoming producers like Xenia Gha-li (Jessica Sutta – Pussycat dolls) and Edd Holloway (Eb-ony Day) – Chess wrote lots of songs that caught the public’s attention. She created two EP’s, which did extremely well in reviews, magazines and newspapers as well as blogs. The EP’s were supported by two fully funded kick-starter projects, which had backers from all over the world. She has gigged in many places around the UK and Malta and has gained radio airplay in the UK, Australia and Malta. Chess was recently featured on BBC Introducing and Best Of Brit-ish Unsigned and was nom-inated for Best Solo Artist at the 2014 Malta Music awards.

Chess, you started writ-ing songs at such an early age. Where did you find your inspiration for the songs you wrote?

I always had a creative imagi-nation and a lot of determina-tion even when I was a child. I got my inspiration from listen-ing to music and watching live performances of my favour-ite singers/bands. I danced as a child as well so that helped with the inspiration.

You mention Queen, Bee-thoven, the Spice Girls - such diverse influences. Any other influences you would like to mention?

I love Queen for the incredi-ble songwriting, harmonies, and Freddie’s inspiring per-formances as a front man. The Spice Girls were my first love, who brought pop into my life. Beethovan has creat-ed emotional compositions that evoke passion. Another great influence is Prince, who is a multi-talented musician and an incredible singer and performer. I always try and emulate him in some way.Another more recent in-fluence is Lady Gaga who is re-inventing older ide-as. She is a real showgirl and I love that about her.

Your first year in the UK - working hard, spend-ing nothing - was that a difficult time for you?

It was a really tough time, I had about 3 jobs at one point at the same time, and I was still at college too! But I be-lieve that you need to work hard for something you want. It’s all about working your way to the top and staying humble.

Who have you worked with that has really ex-cited you? Who would you like to work with?

Xenia Ghali is a DJ/song-writer/producer who I have worked with in the past - she has a great vision and ex-ceptional talent. I would really like to work with Dis-closure, Sam Smith, and Zedd in the near future.

What’s next for Chess Galea?

I will be releasing new ma-terial soon, and re-creat-ing my whole live appear-ance to give my fans the full experience. So watch out - it will be a good one!!!

CHESSGALEA

chessmusic.co.uk@chessofficial

BURSTINGW I T HL O V E

DANIEL GOTHARD

Lawrence Weller, a chronic asthmatic, died on the floor of his parents’ bathroom; on the day of the party cel-ebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. He was found by his fian-cee, Amy. She screamed until her throat was too sore to go on, and then fell to the floor next to him, sobbing in to his still chest. He was lying on his back, wide-eyed, as if he had been asked a perplexing question; his blue lips slightly parted, as if he had one last thing to say.

The bathroom door was nearly taken off its hinges as Lawrence’s brother and father ran in to see the hor-ror they had half-expected since Lawrence had nearly died of pneumonia when he was four years-old. And there it was next to the shower unit – the dead son everyone loved; the boy they had watched grow in to a man – so many years of always triple-checking they had packed his inhal-ers when ever they trav-elled outside the house – and now he was a grown-up; they had hoped and prayed he was over the worst of the asthma attacks.

But fate had decreed the biggest tragedy of their lives would happen to them on a day when the family home had never looked happier – plastic banners of Happy Anniver-sary festooned the lounge and dining room; balloons of many different col-ours and shapes adorned every ceiling corner. Mu-sic filled the place. Love and life were supposed to be in the air, not the chilly claw of the Reaper.

‘Someone call a bloody ambulance ... now, now,’ Lawrence’s father shouted. He moved Amy to one side; his other son cradled her, and then he tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation – he had been learned First Aid to try and add another skill to the family health arse-nal; in case a day like this one came along. But he had always assumed he would never need the skill; nev-er feel his child’s cold lips beneath his. His child was gone. And he knew it even as he blew deep and added compressions to the chest area. My poor boy, he want-ed to say, my poor, poor boy. But he kept trying to breathe his life in to his son.

The paramedics arrived a few minutes later and took over the job of at-tempted revival. But it was futile. And after approx-imately fifteen minutes, one of them looked at his watch, wrote the time of death on a pad and turned to Lawrence’s parents.

‘I’m so very sorry,’ he said.

Lawrence’s father hugged his wife and felt her tears soak his shoulder. He looked at his son’s face – he interpreted the wide eyes as desperation, and was suddenly drenched in guilt; assuming his boy had died silently hoping his dad would find him and save him – wasn’t that a father’s duty, to protect his chil-dren? And then he looked at the blue Salbutamol inhaler in Lawrence’s left hand. The lid was still on. He wondered whether his poor boy had been too over-come to even take a single breath of the vital steroids.

The paramedics insist-ed the family and friends leave them to ‘take care’ of Lawrence’s body. The house emptied reasona-bly quickly; lots of tears and hugs were exchanged. Amy was taken, by her best friend, Louise, to the spare bedroom where she and Lawrence had been due to spend the night.

And after an hour or so, when the body had been taken away – Lawrence’s parents followed the ambulance to the hos-pital – the house fell in to complete silence.

Michael, Lawrence’s broth-er, and Sam, Lawrence’s best friend, drank copius amounts of brandy and stared in to space. Michael could hear Louise and Amy upstairs talking and crying, and he wondered if he should offer them some of the alcohol too. But he couldn’t move. His arms and legs felt some-thing other than numb – they felt disappeared. His body felt gone. Just his eyes left. How would life go on now, he thought.

Sam wanted to do some-thing, say something. He was a teacher; used to giving information and solving ‘issues’. He wanted to believe he could offer a shred of detail that might be remembered as a de-fining point of hope in this hellish scene. But instead he sipped more and more brandy and kept thinking of Lawrence’s last words to him, just a couple of hours ago, ‘I need to talk to you in a minute or two. I really need your advice.’

What had been so impor-tant? Nothing was now. What ever he needed to say was lost for ever. His best friend, the boy with the frail lungs but the biggest heart, was dead.

He felt alone. He had never even told Lawrence how much he cared for him. Why didn’t men ever do that, he thought, I must tell my friends I love them, and soon, I must. He drank more brandy, leaned across the arm of his chair and patted Michael’s arm, gently smil-ing and nodding. Michael looked back at him and tried to return the smile.

Upstairs, in the spare bed-room, Amy and Louise lay next to each other; hold-ing hands; one moment silent and the next clutch-ing each other tighter, as emotion and shock poured out in violent sobs.

‘We had just ... we had just decided on a wed-ding date,’ Amy said..

‘I am so sorry, Amy, so sor-ry. He loved you so much. He was such a sweet man. You were lucky to have him. We all were,’ Louise whispered. Later that day, when Lawrence’s parents had returned from the hos-pital – his mother had been prescribed with a sedative, which she shared with Amy – Michael, Sam and Louise began to take down the anniversary decorations; quickly filling bin bags with the remnants of the short-lived celebration. Sam be-gan cutting the necks of the balloons with kitchen scissors, gently allowing the air to leave; rather than loudly popping them.

‘No, no, Sam, stop,’ Amy said. ‘Not that one. That was the last one Lawrence blew up. I want to keep it.’

Sam handed the silver bal-loon to Amy and hugged her; taking care not to crush the prized posession. She took the balloon up to the spare bedroom; care-fully wedged it between a chair leg and the wardrobe, put on Lawrence’s pyjama top and took a deep breath of his natural aroma – the scent triggered a sudden and horrendous vision of him struggling to catch his breath; pulling at his collar perhaps and trying to call out for help – she clenched her eyes and re-ordered her thoughts to the sight of him smiling above her, kissing her fore-head and handing her a cup of tea in bed, as he had done on that very morning. And then she crawled un-der the duvet and stroked the pillow where his head should have been.

Shortly after, Louise looked in on her, said she would see her tomorrow, and then left. The following week was like a fever dream to Amy. Michael called her every a day, as did Louise and Sam. And she tried to find anything to distract her long enough to avoid thinking about the look on her lover’s face; lying dead on a bathroom floor.

The nights were the worst of times, alone in their bed, in their home – wall mount-ed sketches by Lawrence they had framed (he had been an architect) and var-ious holiday photographs only served as painful re-minders of the recent past and the no longer future.

‘Do you feel able to write a eulogy?’ Michael asked Amy two days before the funeral. ‘It wouldn’t have to be much. I just thought it might be a chance for us all to talk about how much he meant to us.’

‘Of course. I want to tell him about ... where ever he is. You know ...’ she said.

Michael smiled and nod-ded, and squeezed her hand.

Amy barely slept across the next forty-eight hours, try-ing to think about what to say; how she could verbal-ise the depth of her love and how heartbroken she felt. Throughout each day since Lawrence had died she found herself returning to the hat-box under their bed, where she had placed the silver balloon for safe-keeping. It was beginning to look a little diminished – slight crinkles were slowly appearing around the tied neck – and she wanted to find a way to preserve it – not just for a little while longer, for as long as she lived. The balloon held what might have been Lawrence’s last breath.

Amy spent some hours looking up preservation techniques online: For-maldehyde? Dry ice? Some form of jelly? She eventually dismissed each one as either unwork-able or ridiculous and con-centrated on the eulogy. She began with a poem by EE Cummings: a favour-ite of Lawrence’s, and the one they had talked about using at their wedding, “ I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart ...”

She cried as she copied the poem and repeatedly glanced at a desk pho-tograph of the two of the them, smiling and hugging by a Christmas tree; taken by Louise two years before.Eventually, at two o’clock in the morning, on the day of Lawrence’s funeral, she was finished. She re-read the words one last time before falling asleep. And was woken by the ra-dio clock alarm in what felt like minutes later.

Amy dressed in the black clothing she had bought for this awful day. She wanted to cover herself in darkness; let what ever celestial being(s) might be ‘out there’ know how crushed she felt; how much she blamed them/it for ru-ining her life. Michael and Louise called to confirm the time their car would be collecting her, and then she sat and stared at the sketch Lawrence had finished fairly recently. A self-portrait – bright eyes and a sweet smile. Amy had asked him for it as an anniversary present.

She hadn’t eaten that morn-ing, but instead made a third cup of coffee and took it in to her bedroom and sat on the bed. She pulled the hat-box on to the duvet and opened the lid. The bal-loon was sagging and now looked about half empty.

She held her head in her hands and cried again; there was no way to pre-serve a balloon. And even if she ever did find a method, it was too late for this spe-cial gift. She knew what she had to do. She went to the kitchen and brought some scissors back to the bed.

She had watched Sam gently cutting the tops of the other balloons during the wedding anniversa-ry clear-up. The air from each one had oozed out; some of it making Sam’s fringe rise up. Amy lifted the silver balloon out of the hat-box slowly and with the care of someone holding a newborn baby. She pressed it against her cheek and then kissed it.

‘I will always love you, Lawrence. I carry you in my heart,’ she whis-pered, her mouth against the balloon skin.

Then she picked up the scissors, pinched the tied neck and made a delicate cut. Air started to leak out. Amy held the balloon near her face; closed her eyes to allow Lawrence’s breath to wash over her.And then she heard words in the breath.

Lawrence’s voice; like a recording.She squeezed the leak shut, swallowed hard and stared around the room. What the hell was going on? Amy walked around the flat, checked the answer-phone and the computers – no sounds. And then she sat on the sofa and held the balloon up again. She was shaking as she let the last of the air dash across her face. And there were his last words; his last breath.

‘I’m in love with Louise ...’

T H E S T O R M WOKE ME

EMMA ROBERTS

I was dreaming. I was dream-ing of us. You and me. You were here. Lying next to me. I could feel your breath on my cheek. We ate scrambled eggs and salmon for break-fast and drank champagne and got a little drunk. Then we slept some more. You were there. Next to me. The wind blew the shutters open and you got up to close them. In the half-light I could see your silhouette. We spent the day walking. We walked and we walked and then we sat under the trees in the park and you read Hemingway to me. Our fingers entwined. We took our shoes off and buried our feet in the grass. The sun was hot on our skin. I quietly worried we would burn. It did a little. Then you said you were hun-gry so we went to a café and ate croque monsieurs and drank a bottle of red wine. I think it was Merlot. Your eyes. I remember your eyes. But I don’t remember why, I just remember feeling comfort in them. I dreamt about the first time you said you loved me. I dreamt of our wedding. Like it was yesterday. Was it? I dreamt of her birth. I remember her eyes. Those eyes again. Yours. Just like yours. I dreamt all of this. The three of us. I remember her first day at school. I remem-ber how I cried. But I didn’t let you know. I missed her so much. But she loved school. Every minute of it. And then she grew up. Our little baby grew up. Into such a beauti-ful woman. I remember when she came to me and told me she was ill. My heart stopped. I dreamt all of this. I remem-ber telling you, and watching your face. I will never forget that. Maybe this is why it comes back in my dreams. Do you remember that? Of course you do. We watched as she fought. She fought so hard, didn’t she? We couldn’t help her though. Could we? We couldn’t, could we? Our baby. So brave. So strong.

But she’s peaceful now. No more fight. No more pain. That’s a good thing. Isn’t it, darling? That’s a good thing. Isn’t it? And then it was you and I again. Just like how it was in the beginning. She had touched our lives. She had loved us as we had loved her. She will always be with us. She will always be young. She will always be our baby. Before she was taken away.

I was dreaming. I was dream-ing of us. Do you remember that day we walked to the park and you read Heming-way to me? You read for ages and then we ate croque mon-sieurs in that cafe. I always remember that. I remember the waiter. I thought he looked like Cary Grant, do you re-member me saying that? You said I was right. I always re-member that. We loved her so much, didn’t we? Why did they have to take her? Why wasn’t it someone else? I’m sorry. I was just dreaming. Of us. The three of us. I always do. In my dreams we are walking. The three of us. The sun is warm on our faces. I worry we might burn. Her skin is so young. So pure. Our baby. We walk for miles and miles. We walk and yet we never tire. The day goes on and on. It never seems to end. When I look at the sky the sun is high, it nev-er sets. It follows us. Forever warm on our skin. We walk and we laugh and we run. We sit for a while under a tree. We take off our shoes. I can feel the grass beneath my feet, even now. I can feel how the blades tickle my toes. We lie and watch the clouds. Looking at the shapes. A sheep, a lion, a dragon, a mouse. I can see them now. I always dream of the clouds. They passed us one by one, the dragon, the lion, the sheep, the mouse. Always the mouse. She al-ways saw the mouse. Our baby. I dreamt all of this. I al-ways do. I dreamt about that day she came into our bed.

I remember she said ‘The storm woke me’ and we cud-dled up. The three of us. The wind shook the shutters open and you got up to close them. I remember your silhouette in the half-light. I always re-member that. I dream a lot. Now you are gone. I dream of us. I forget you are not here. I forget it’s just me now. Some-times I reach out for you. I can feel your hand. Your breath on my cheek. I can see those eyes. Her eyes. I always re-member your eyes. It was like myself looking back at me. If I dream you are there. She is there. Like it was. The sun is warm on our faces. I think we might burn. I always did. I don’t know why. Sometimes we did a little. I remember that. The clouds skit across the sky. They move faster and faster, I can barely tell the shapes anymore. I watch the leaves on the trees change colour. First green, then yel-low, then brown and then they fall on our faces. But we just lie there, together. Our fingers entwined. I can see your lips moving. But I can’t hear the words. I can see the book in your hand, but the words just float away. You smile and look at me and I look at her. She points up to the sky and says ‘Look, a mouse! Can you see?’ I cannot see, but I say ‘Yes dar-ling, I can see’. The clouds are moving too fast. I cannot tell the shapes anymore. I dreamt all of this. I always dream of clouds. I always dream of us. Do you remember that day we lay in the park and ate croque monsieurs in that café? I al-ways remember that. I like to dream. We are always togeth-er in my dreams. Like it was yesterday. The years vanish and we are young again. The three of us. In my dreams. I was dreaming of us. I always do.

The leaves are green, they do not turn and the sun does not set. Forever warm on our skin.

R O B R Y A NAN INTERVIEW BY CLAIRE MEADOWS

Rob Ryan is one of the most ex-citing visual artists working in the UK at the moment. His intricate, and poignant work is instantly recognisable - delicate, yet tactile, whether on screenprints, limited edi-tion ceramics or tea towels.

After Nyne Magazine caught up with him ahead of his appearance at SohoCre-ate in London in June to talk cups, collaborations and why supporting the arts is more important than ever.

First of all Rob, thanks for talk-ing to After Nyne Magazine. We’re big fans of your work.

Hey! The pleasure is all mine.

You’re on the panel of Soho-Create, which we covered in the last issue of the magazine. Can you tell us what inspired you to want to take part?

I’ll be honest, I was asked. re-ally I have got so much work that I want to create in the studio that I haven’t got too much time to spend on this sort of thing, but I love Harriet from Tatty Devine and any ex-cuse to hang with her is good.

You’re in conversation with Harriet Vine at SohoCre-ate. Can you tell us a little bit more about the Ryan/Tatty Devine partnership?

Well we’ve known each other quite a few years, I used to do some of their screen printing for them back in the day. I had a show of big painted rulers in their shop on Brick Lane many moons ago, my daugh-ter Barbara had a show of fanzines by girls there too! A few years ago we did an acryl-ic jewellery project togeth-er, that was pretty cool, and last year we worked together on a collaboration for their fine range in gold and silver.

You’ve partnered with the V&A on the ‘Loving Cup’ project. Can you tell us a bit more about this? What was your inspiration?

It was commissioned by the V&A specially for their ‘Wed-ding Dress’ show. The actual shape of the two handles mug is based on one from their ceramic collection. I was given a free reign to cre-ate so I just got on with it. I guess my inspiration was in a way based on kind of old fashioned formality, but what is a wedding? It’s just a promise, a promise for life.

You’re part of an illustri-ous panel at SohoCreate - is there anyone there whose talk you are espe-cially looking forward to?

Helen David and Toyah, I think it’s a really interesting com-bination and I’m interested to see how they crossover. And Yinka Shonibare! I saw his show at the Yorkshire Sculp-ture Park - I’m a huge fan.

In your opinion, how essential is creativity to our future?

As much as it ever was. You know people sing the prais-es of the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, the Ital-ian Renaissance, the British Industrial Revolution but those ground-breaking eras are nothing compared to the perseverance of early man three thousand years ago and stretching back to the very birth of homo sapiens. Their struggle to survive for thou-sands of years got us where we are now and their crea-tivity is as good as anything since. Creativity has to con-tinue obviously not just for its own sake but to improve our understanding of who we real-ly are and what we should be.

Your second book in the Invis-ible Kingdom series is out in October. What part has litera-ture played in your own life?

Well I do like to read but I flit around to whatever catch-es my fancy. I’m not a writer by any means, in fact I find it incredibly hard but I guess that’s why I try and take it on, because it’s a challenge.

Finally, what words of in-spiration do you have for young artists, at the start of their journey? 1. Put whatever you think, dream, down in pictures and words onto sketchbooks, ab-solutely everything, put it in.

2. Don’t sit around waiting for someone to offer you some-thing or for something to happen, get off your arse and make things happen your-self - you owe it at least to prehistoric man and woman

SohoCreate takes place on 4-6 June 2014 in London. For more information and to book tickets please visit www.sohocreate.co.uk.

http://robryanstudio.com/

BELEVE

CLAIRE CHATS WITH FOUNDER MARSHA POWELL

After Nyne Magazine throws itself behind empowering causes, and strong, inspir-ing people who are trying to make a difference. In this month’s issue, we talk to Marsha Powell, founder of BelEve, who tells us more about her mission statement, and her own inspirations.

Marsha, thanks for talking exclusively to After Nyne Magazine. Can you tell us a little about BelEve UK?

BelEve UK is a Social En-terprise that is passionate about Inspiring Change, Education and Empowering Growth by supporting girls and young women aged 10-24 to develop skills to improve their life chanc-es and career prospects.

We believe it is important to; inspire and empower young women to maximise their po-tential, while ensuring they have the right support, skills and confidence to make in-formed choices about their fu-ture and take control of their owndestiny with a SMART plan.

What inspired you to set up BelEve UK?

The BelEve journey began af-ter the death of my beautiful Mother. Whilst the vision was there, the desire the take a risk and turn my vision into reality, very much came a year after my Mother died. I had worked for a corporate organization for over 13 years as a HR Business Partner, so supporting people is my thing, however I felt that my true purpose was support-ing, guiding and educating young women, who do not necessarily have the same support or opportunities I received from my mother.Our vision is to be an organsia-tion that inspires, empowers and educates young women whilst supporting them in gaining the right skills and experiences to improve the career and life chances.

Would you like to see government interven-tion in these issues?

The Government should fund more grass root organsitions who are making a real dif-ference in supporting young women to improve their life and career prospects. It is apparent that the Government is looking for hard outcomes, ie more young people into work, however supporting them in increasing their self-esteem and confidence is a vital part of the process.

Tell us about the re-cent Girls Rock event.

BelEve Girls Rock on 27 April was in partnership with The Albany. The inspirational af-ternoon took over the Dept-ford Lounge Library for the day with over 150 guests in attendance. This platform is about giving females the op-portunity to Rock the stage. We had 8 year old Faithlyn sing in front of an audience for the first time. All the at-tendees enjoyed the Hip Hop Shakespeare workshop, the amazing showcase of up and coming female artists and the Stories of 5 Success-ful women from a variety of professional backgrounds.

What are your plans for Be-lEve over the next year?

BelEve UK plans to collab-orate with other organisa-tions to deliver our mission of Inspiring, empowering and educating girls and young women. We have some great projects planned, which will support the females we work with gaining new opportu-nities and developing trans-ferable skills in which they will be able to use every day.

Do you think it’s equally important for people to in-spire and guide young men?

It is definitely important for people to inspire and guide young men as they face simi-lar issue to girls. Having pos-itive role models is equally as important for boys as so-ciety has different expecta-tions, for men, which comes with different challenges.

What can people do to support BelEve?

In order for us to continue to deliver high quality support to the girls and young women we work with we are always looking for women to sup-port by donating their time and non-financial resourc-es. Our biggest asset today is our mentors, so we are always looking for mentors and women who can support us in delivering our mission.

Follow us on twitter: @Be-lEveUK https://twitter.com/

PICTURED UBOVE: MARSHA POWELL

LISTEN.AFTER NYNE MEETS AUTHOR CLARE TAYLOR

What made you want to write Listen

The central character, Sarah, interested me: a middle-aged woman, safe in her job (she thought), her home and her relationship. But a dissatis-fied woman, fed up both with the new market-led values at the BBC and with her partner. I wanted to turn her life up-side down, wreck all her com-fortable certainties, and force her not just to re-evaluate but to take some sort of personal-ly inspired action in support of her ideals and beliefs. I particularly wanted to rescue a middle-aged woman from the ‘has-been’ bin and Sarah’s struggles, I hope, reflect the struggles many woman have later in life, when the nest is empty, and they can’t see much ahead. I wanted to give her fire and put her through fire, but kindly, and have her emerge gently. And, of course, I wanted her to re-discover desire and sex. After all, she was once a Sixties whizz-kid.

If you had to describe the book to a stranger, what themes in the book would you like to most draw to their attention?

The theme of listening: how so often we don’t listen to each other, or to what is happen-ing around us; how easy and comfortable it is to assume we need only look after our-selves and the government will take care of us, benignly. I was fascinated when I heard about the women peace ac-tivists at RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire who were standing up so stalwartly for what they did believe in, and surprised how little attention they received from the press. I wanted to bring Sarah into that world, back into the world of feminist and political val-ues she’d left behind and see what happened. Sarah starts by refusing to listen, even - and centrally - to herself. But gradually she comes to realise that the state is lis-tening to whatever it wants

perversely nobody wants to know. So the theme of listening embraces both state listeningtening and personal listening. One has to do with our own ten-der hearts, the other with or-ganised state paranoia; nec-essary perhaps in the face of terrorism, but terrifying when it becomes an institutional-ised response which the gov-ernment denies is happening.

Sarah’s journey takes her back to the north and that ‘re-turn’ is a strong theme; many of us now move away from where we grew up and that powerful pull, made up of a mixture of repulsion, melan-choly longing and nostalgia interested me. The story is set in the mid-nineties, when London is on its way to tak-ing off like a vast shiny he-lium balloon and hovering over the rest of England, so the north and south theme is pretty central - as a pre-cur-sor to where we are now.

Finally, women’s age, or rather ages and how unkind younger women can be to older women and vice versa. A ridiculous sort of prejudice. So there are four different ages of women in the story.

You’ve woven a character whose world is collaps-ing around her with a po-litical thriller - how did you strike that balance?

Sarah is motivated to escape her own collapsing world by her need to honour the memo-ry of her dead friend, Lucy, and understand how she came to die. So initially it is a per-sonal prompting that sends her on an adventure which ultimately becomes polit-ical; penetrating a US spy base. But Sarah is political in her views; left-wing. She views the mid-nineties world around her myopically - even her own partner, one of the first editors of Time Out Mag-azine, is un-tainted by con-nection with the easy money of arms sales, for instance.

She feels her generation sold out. The peace-activist, Erin, the woman Sarah has to listen to, is immensely political and definitely has not sold out: so through that connection we can go into the base itself; an entire American community in the middle of a North York-shire moor. I talked to people who’d been inside the base, and at length to some of the peace activists who’d beenarrested and taken in-side the perimeter and so on. Many incidents in the story are based on fact.

To what extent were you able to draw on your suc-cessful BBC writing career in the writing of the book?

I think I drew more on my time as a Radio Producer/Director rather than later as a writ-er. I left the BBC before the mid-Nineties, when the story is set, but I talked at length to a number of ex-colleagues and friends who reported a dreadful period of staff-cull-ing and deep creative mis-ery, so I knew what it was like and what was happening and how it felt. There were many unhappy people around the BBC then. The same sort of thing was happening in the Ministry of Defence around that time; whole departments were being privatised, there were huge opportunities for staff to walk away with big contracts. Again, it’s the start of where we are now.

How do you think we feel about surveil-lance in a post Snowden, post Assange world?

Interesting question. The dif-ficulty is that we do need a sys-tem of state defence and ob-viously there has to be some surveillance within that. The problem has to do with, a) the state denial that it happens, and b) the fact that makes the activity unaccountable - we, the electorate haven’t given the government the mandate for mass intercepts, to do that

laws would have to be passed - but it nevertheless goes on, outside the body of law. And the power that gives to the de-fence sector is not just vast, but total. Surveillance tech-nology demands the support of tech companies which are not part of the government, but private organisations, so you have a net-work of priv-ileged “insiders” with huge freedom to abuse the system; which only they know how to operate. This is what Ed-ward Snowden has exposed. I guess we feel ambivalent. It’s easy to see the state as our benevolent parent, looking after our interests, ours not to question why etc. But people are surprisingly in awe. I’ve met people who don’t like to even refer to RAF Menwith Hill, as if by so doing they might find their own phone is being tapped. That is worrying. It’s a sort of intimidation. I think “we” are probably thoughtful and fairly frightened. “We” are in danger of becoming what the politicians refer to as “ordinary people” ie. powerless. So I think “we” are a bit cautious right now and keeping a watchful eye. At least I hope we are.

What’s next for Clare Taylor?

I wrote a novel before LIS-TEN as part of my Fiction MA from Sheffield Hallam Uni-versity called ARE YOU WARM ARE YOU REAL another mix of thriller and personal jour-ney - not political, but defi-nitely on the side of the true glad heart. I also have some short stories ready to go - all centred on the dark side of rural life. So those will be coming out later this year.

KIT-RICE

Kit Rice is not only a truly versatile artist with a wealth of musical knowledge be-hind him but he is a gradu-ate of the prestigious BRIT school, established song-writer and classical violin-ist making him an emerg-ing talent to really watch out for in the coming year!

Kit’s first iTunes release, Not on My Time EP was self – produced and released in December 2011, followed swiftly by Lies EP in Febru-ary 2012 which attracted at-tention from music agents based in Central London.

At just 21, Kit’s debut album Stay Gone was completed with well known produc-er Cam Blackwood who is known for his work with art-ists including; Cee – Lo Green and Jamiroquai. His first single BYOB, was released on November 11th 2013 with the music video attract-ing wide spread attention from both the UK and the US.

Kit has performed numer-ous gigs at venues around the country including celeb spots such as The Ice Bar and XOYO. Kit was crowned the winner of The Bedford’s Song Slam in 2012 after wow-ing the judges with original tracks from his album and he has played live acoustic ses-sions on main radio stations including BBC Radio London.

Kit took time out for this exclusive interview with After Nyne Magazine.

Kit, you started your for-mal musical education at the BRIT school; can you tell us a little about your experiences there?

I really enjoyed my time at Brit :) I met some amazing peo-ple, made some really great friends & I grew so much be-ing surrounded by people with the same goals as myself.

When were you actually bitten by the music bug?

I think I am a music bug :D I’ve been play-ing music since I was 4.

Who were your own in-fluences at this time?

I love Prince, Brandy, Gaga, Luther Vandross, Mary J Blige! Too many to mention :)

What inspired you to self-produce your first EP?

I didn’t have enough cash haha :) I’m a fast learner & we had learned the basics at BRIT. After producing that EP I pro-duced 150 more songs my-self which I didn’t release. By that time I had found Cam.

At just 21 you were working with esteemed producer Cam Blackwood - that must have been an awesome experience

It was :) he had all the things a guy could ask for! Drum ma-chines and old school fender guitars! Incredible mics and the knowledge to use them. I learned a lot from Cam.

What has the reaction been to your debut album Stay Gone? You’ve had in-ternational attention..

Everyone I have showed re-ally loves it! My best friends know all the words & I’ve had offers from TV Advertise-ment companies in the Uk & abroad. I’m waiting for the right time to release it all! But for now I have some sin-gle releases set up to blow!

You’ve performed at nu-merous gigs around the country - what do you enjoy about touring? And what are your least favourite parts of the experience?

I live to perform. I write mu-sic to perform it and when I tour my music I feel alive. The boys & I have been

touring the songs from STAY GONE for a year now and the show keeps grow-ing to new heights! There is nothing I don’t enjoy about touring. Even the 5am wake up calls thrill me :)

What’s next for Kit Rice?

My next single is out on July 1st and I really think you’re all gonna love it! :)I’m playing many gigs as-well, all can be found on my website WWW.KITRICE.COM

TOKAIDOROAD.

Tokaido Road, a mul-ti-media chamber music opera which takes its name from the Japanese artist Hiroshige’s iconic 53 Stations of the Tokai-do. It is a cross-cultural cross-arts work that will feature mime, dance and poetry as well as music and projected images of Hiroshige’s original woodblocks and con-temporary photography. It is commissioned by Okeanos, the UK’s unique Japanese-Western music ensemble and will pre-miere at the Cheltenham Music Festival on 6th July.

First of all Kate, lovely to meet you. Tokaido Road premieres on 6th July - how is the lead-up going?

Thanks Claire. Its going very well. After such a lengthy period of fund-raising and planning, it was an incred-ible thrill to finally see the score of Tokaido Road in Feb-ruary - Nicola’s music and Nancy’s words. It suddenly felt very exciting – all these ideas and characters which had only previously existed in our heads were suddenly ‘real’. We have a wonderful cast and creative team. Kimie Nakano’s set and costume de-signs are everything I hoped they would be – stylish, con-temporary, beautiful. Its fasci-nating being both a performer in the opera and watching and helping it all to come to-gether in my role as project lead. You get both an inside / outside perspective. And the relationships between the cast and crew are an es-sential part of the final prod-uct too. Its incredibly busy – someone always needs to know something. But I’m the very much enjoying the pro-cess of creating the opera.

ow would you de-scribe what you’re try-ing to achieve with TR?

Tokaido Road came about for a number of reasons. Okeanos has been performing music with a mix of Western and Japanese for over ten years and we felt we were ready to take on an ambitious project and set new goals for our-selves. We wanted to create a stage work that built on what we had already learnt about collaborative arts and the mix of two cultures. But Tokaido Road takes this a stage further. Within the 55 minute framework, we want-ed to explore the ‘complex and murky relationship which exits between the arts’. So, we have included historical art (Hiroshige’s woodcuts), con-temporary photography, poet-

ry, music, mime. That’s a lot of art forms under a microscope which have to work togeth-er perfectly. The term I find the most useful to describe these artistic relationships is ‘ekphrasis’ - a Greek word which essentially means ‘to show very clearly or make completely clear’. Today, ek-phrastic art is usually under-stood as a form in which one artistic medium relates to another medium by defining, describing or ‘commenting’ on the art form before it and in doing so, relates more direct-ly to the audience through consequent illuminations. So we’re thinking very hard and carefully about how all the art forms can remain distinct yet form part of an integrated whole. A further ambition of Tokaido Road is to take opera to new audiences – it seems that the mix of arts is help-ing is to achieve this. We’ve had interest in the opera for all sorts of reasons from all sorts of people. Some are at-tracted to the art, some the Japanese connection, some the music, some instruments, the poetry, the photography…

For me, Tokaido Road is also very much about an oppor-tunity to examine our rela-tionship with Japan and Jap-anese culture. Okeanos are not Japanese – we are West-ern Musicians and some of us play traditional Japanese instruments. Our players of Japanese instruments have lived in Japan, studied there and know their stuff, but we are in my mind - to all intents and purposes – cultural and musical tourists. And like any curious visitor to a new country, we began by being fascinated by differences and excited by similarities.

Like Britten in Curlew River, Stravinsky with neo-classicism, Bartok with folksong, Picasso with his African masks, artists have always been fascinated by oth-

er cultures, periods and art forms. We’re all cultural bor-rowers and for Okeanos, our perception of Japanese cul-ture is viewed through fresh and curious Western eyes. Italo Calvino describes trav-elling as an act which ‘serves to reactivate for a second the use of our eyes – the visual reading of the world’. There is no need to apologise for finding something so utter-ly compelling that we want to appropriate it, reinvent it for our own purposes. Ro-land Barthes’s book Empire of Signs is an examination of Western thought about Japan - culture, society, art, iconography, literature and language. It is a dialogue: in reflecting on a country’s own institutions, it in turn casts light on the authors own.

It’s a multi-media piece? How does that work in action?

We wanted to show how we could keep all the cultural and artistic components intact and discrete and, like good curating, we wanted to show how one art form can illus-trate and enhance adjoining and adjacent art forms for the audience. So we began with some beautiful Japanese, much-loved works of art: Hiro-shige’s woodcut masterpiec-es. These will be projected on to a large suspended sail / flag which takes centre stage and double as a prop (a boat, a screen, part of a tea house). They have a narrative as well as a visual function – they tell the story of Hiroshige’s jour-ney along the Tokaido. The projections are interspersed with contemporary photo-graphic images to portray the past and present. Nancy Gaffield’s poetic response to the Hiroshige woodcuts be-came the libretto - imagining the lives behind the still im-ages. Nicola LeFanu created a unique soundworld around the poetic narrative and the works of art emerged. A mime /dancer embodies the still images and brings them to

life on the stage. A trio of sing-ers and 6 instrumentalists tell the tale. All along, two cultures - one Western, one Eastern – circle around each other, exploring differenc-es, celebrating similarities.

What influenced your deci-sion to take TR on a festival tour? Is there a particu-lar reason you wanted to premiere at Cheltenham?

Primarily, it’s the best way to take art to the largest and most diverse audiences. We will cover a lot of miles and a lot of areas with Tokaido Road and all its offshoots – the opera itself, the art exhi-bition of Wynn’s photos, the outreach projects in Kent, the concert versions of the opera. Cheltenham is a wonderful premiere venue. The Parabo-la theatre is a perfect shape and size for Tokaido Road and Cheltenham are very ex-perienced in hosting works such as this. They are also superb collaborators and I think that their programming is some of the most attrac-tive and imaginative around.

Obviously it is also more challenging to tour than de-signing a model which needs just one production for one venue. So the set had to be very portable and flexible. The whole concept of the opera was flexibility – some-thing that we could put on in all sorts of spaces and not be too restricted by shape, size or facilities. Its also a very ‘chamber music’ way of work-ing (rather than an operatic one) – you tend to take a pro-gramme to a number of differ-ent venues whenever you can. Chamber music is my back-ground, Okeanos is a cham-ber ensemble and Tokaido Road is a chamber opera. It’s a natural way for us to see things, although its difficult because every show has to be effectively viewed and con-sidered as a new production.

Can you tell us a little about the team you’re working with?

They are truly creative and inspiring people. Everyone brings something very dif-ferent to the project and all are highly regarded, world-class experts in their field. I am very fortunate and I have learnt so much from them. Almost everyone on the team has previously worked with someone else on the team – on Nicola’s previous operas, with Okeanos - so there were links before we started. But it’s the first time that every-one had worked together as a single team. It’s a very sup-portive team too – we’re good friends. I think its very impor-tant to enjoy the project. The topics which have created the most discussion have been – unsurprisingly - about how the mix of arts balance each other on stage and how the audience perceives this.

What message are you try-ing to get out there with TR, and with Okeanos?

I think (hope) I’ve prob-ably covered this one!

As a musician, who are your own influences?

That’s a big one… generally, I am inspired and admire bold, clear, raw and uncluttered art (that includes architecture, painting, literature, design as well as music). I am deep-ly fascinated by combined art forms and aesthetics – I love graphic design (the im-age and the information), writers who offer a literary perspective on art, artists who model other art forms, things which are functional and beautiful. I love musical scores for this reason too – a visual item which exists to convey completely contra-dictory (aural) information – the two types of communi-cation don’t always match up.

Some of my top inspira-tional names and things with absolutely no par-ticular order or logic:

Francis Picabia, Wim Crouwel, Louis Khan, Le Corbusier, El Lissitzky, Roland Bathes, Su-san Sontag, Le Corbusier, Italo Calvino, Tadao Ando, the Bar-bican, Hendrikus Wijdeveld, Alvar Aalto. For sheer musical greatness and inventiveness – Palestrina, Monteverdi, Bach, Stravinsky, Berg, Vare-se, Birtwistle. But this month I’m playing a lot of early 20th C English repertoire with my other chamber music group (Goldfield Ensemble) - I can usually find things to love and inspire in pretty much anything I’m immersed in.

LaureHatchuel-Becker

Inspired by dot paintings of Australian Aboriginal artists, many of Hatchuel-Becker’s three-dimensional oil paint-ings focus on symmetry, alignment and colour to cre-ate simple structures. The inclusion of humble elements such as gauze or driftwood in some of her works echoes Arte Povera’s return to sim-ple objects and messages. Moreover, Hatchuel-Becker’s reliance on a palette knife to create highly textured sur-faces is but one of several techniques she employs. The relationship between form and colour lying at the heart of aesthetic per-ception is also central to Hatchuel-Becker’s practice. Her polychromatic works re-flect her passion for travel and art history. As such, her rich visual vocabulary is full of symbolism and subjectivity. Following the gallery’s con-cept of showing art alongside interior pieces, the exhibition will include a Hatchuel-Beck-er designed table in addition to other furniture and objects.

In this exclusive interview for After Nyne Magazine, Laure discusses her influences in detail, and also tells us what inspired her to team up with her host gallery for Form & Colour, Gallery Elena Shchuki-na in London’s Knightsbridge.

Laure, your work is large-ly inspired by the work of Aboriginal artists. Can you explain the origin of your fas-cination with Aboriginal art?

I grew up in an art environ-ment, my mother is an artist, and I experimented with all the different forms of me-dia and techniques with her. I very quickly had a pref-erence for oil media and was painting with a “knife”.

I had the pleasure of liv-ing in Australia for a year in 1999 and was lucky enough to meet one Aboriginal art-

ist who invited me to try out their painting experience. I really liked their philosophy of life and way of painting but I didn’t like their media so when I came back to France I decided to invent a new way of painting, 3D oil painting, inspired by the aboriginal art-ists but with my own technique in relief and using oil paint.

Tell us about the tech-niques you employ to create your works-

I have invented a special tool to pull the oil media from the canvas; it makes the oil seem like peaks of colours. A friend of mine described my work as a 3D Oil technique. Each peak is unique and done by hand; on a one metre squared canvas there is an average of thirty thousand peaks.

This technique takes a lot of time to achieve and a lot of work, but that has helped me to focus on the theme behind each painting. Also, there is the symbolism of trying to help the public reach a “peak” in their own emotions by using forms and colours. At the same time I like to continue to work with oil and a knife as it is more conventional and technical.

Who have been your own influences?

I have exhibited in many dif-ferent countries and each of them influences me in some way, my recent exhibition in Singapore was incredi-bly rich on new emotions.

This is your first UK solo show – what are you most looking forward to about the show?

I am very happy to exhibit in London as it is one of the most important cities for contem-porary art and because I have found that in England people are very open minded to dif-ferent ideas and techniques.

What inspired you to work

with Gallery Elena Shchukina?

I decided to work with Gallery Elena Shchukina because of Elena Shchukina, she is an in-credible person who is totally dedicated to what she likes and believes in and she is a very efficient professional who loves art above all things.

Working with a gallery is like choosing a partner, it is more than business, it is also about passion, sensibility and complicity. It is a long process and I am very hap-py with the decision I made.

LaureHatchuel-Becker

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