Adolescence by Rachael Macintyre

Issue 2: Adolescence

Summer 2010

Contents 2. Editors Letter 3. Ian Cook: a wee bit about our front cover artist 4. Quantum Physics: the background behind Hannah Readeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s song 5. Young love: the highs and lows of teenage romance in 3 short rhymes by Sarah Mooney 6. When it Changed: confessional prose by Paddy Hare 8. Edinburgh Skatepark: yes, Edinburghâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first skatepark is finally here! 11. Nico Major aka Dr Beat (Featured Artist): on the virtual couch with Hip Hop artist Dr Beat 16. Keep Spinning: creative writing by Joanna Tocher 17. Fashion through Rebellion: Rachael Macintyre looks at how fashion has been a focal point for rebellion through the ages 27. I Love You I Love You I Love You: stream of consciousness by Lara Platman 28. Call out! Adulthood

Editors Letter

s the innocence of youth emerges into the cynicism of adulthood we have to go through a transition. This transition is otherwise known as Adolescence. Do we take that to mean a personal angst like the poetry of Sarah Mooney, or maybe the growing and developing media touched upon by Adam Behr? As usual our contributors never

fail to surprise us. We have an array of Adolescent inspired writing, photography, fashion and song.

Brikolage is also growing, with more contributions than we could take in! So make sure you keep an eye out for our slowly forming website: when thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s online and running we will have articles, films and songs a plenty to entertain you. Be inspired!

This summer we love...

http://www.artisanroast.co.uk/

TANT DES IG SIS

AS AG

...the smell of barbecues in the air; world cup highlights; the return of Ari Gold. Ryan Crabbe

http://www.hbo.com/entourage/index.html

M KETING ASS I

http://www.ninjatune.net/solidsteel/

...Rockness; the Meadows; THE WORLD CUP!; Solid Steel Radio. Richard Bullimore

T AN ST

R DESIGNE AD

...gardening; aloe vera and tea tree lip balm; and Artisan Roast coffee. Indira Kemp

...being dragged out of my darkened room; long hot days; and tall cold beers. Andrew Dunn http://www.drawn.ca

KETING MA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu_jLmugd0&feature=related

R NE

...sitting in the meadows and listening to upbeat tunes by Chief Redbeard, Boorbolito and his White Lightning Dog.Rachael Macintyre http://

R ITO

TIVE DIRE EA CT CR

...Animal Hospital - my favourite Edinburgh club night; and Hans Bouffmyhre.Gabriel Kemp

http://www.myspace.com/hansbouffmyhre

For our Adolescence summer issue cover Brikolage chose an autodrawing by Ian Cook. Autodrawing is a term coined by Ian to describe his unusual painting technique; that of using radio controlled cars! It all came about when he was given a radio control car by his girlfriend for Christmas and was told specifically not to get paint on it. It seemed he couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t control his inner adolescent rebellion, but without it we wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the fantastic images we see from him now. Take a look at how it all works at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x_64Sapdcw&feature=player_embedded This summer Ian will be busy at many summer events, such as the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Ian paints in public so check out his Facebook and Twitter accounts to catch the action! http://www.popbangcolour.com/ http://twitter.com/popbangcolour http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/Popbangcolour?ref=ts

On “Quantum physics” By Hannah Reade

I am ten years old. Weesa is twenty. She is our American lodger. We are sewing colourful patches of cloth together into a gusset so that I can turn my jeans into flares. It is the 90’s. I wish it was the 60’s. This is where it starts. She sings and plays guitar. Her guitar case has a Joan Baez sticker on it. I am awestruck. Weesa teaches me the ballad of Mary Hamilton. She writes it out for me in her beautiful curly writing. I am impressed that she can remember it all. She says it’s just a story in which each part is like a coloured patch which you stitch onto the next.

Ten years later she publishes a book on the history of quantum physics (1). I carry around this and another enormous hardback with me for three months, only to reach chapter four of her book. I confess this to her on the phone, to which she responds ‘Maybe it just isn’t the right time, there’s no point forcing

it’. I have been struggling to understand the physics in the book, but I love the stories she has woven into it. The other hardback argues that the development of literacy has disempowered women. In it there is a line ‘woman is space. Man is time’(2). I understand this, I agree and disagree with it. I think of Weesa and her book, and the 10 years which have passed since I made my patchwork flares, and her understanding of space and time. Slowly this story forms with a childlike logic, perhaps painting an all-too-perfect-picture. To listen to the song go to: http://wanderingswallows.wordpress.com 1. Gilder, Louisa 2008 The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn Knopf USA 2. Shlain, Leonard 1998, p.23 The Alphabet Versus The Goddess. The Penguin Press, London, UK

Young love

by Sarah Mooney

Confusion

You make me cry, you make me smile; I hate you so much yet all the while I love you wholly and endlessly too – It’s complicated being with you.

Love Lost

Every time I think I was wrong And choose to give feelings a chance, I end up screwed over by someone like you. And again lose all faith in romance.

Moving On

You will never inspire a poem again, No more drama, prose or song; I’ll forget you as I have other men (Whilst hoping you’ll see you were wrong)

when it

ou know, looking back at being a teenager, I really struggle to recall how it felt. Even when I try and get specific, and try to remember how it was being 14, or 16, or 18 I don’t seem to really get into who I was back then. I guess I remember that I still felt like a kid ‘til I was 15. Before that I was shy, hiding away in my room where I wouldn’t be bullied, and I could be whoever I wanted to be with my lego. Something that year changed EVERYTHING. Let me tell you. So, I was on a summer adventure trip, to an island called Rua Fiola on the west coast of Scotland. It wasn’t my first time away from home, and I wasn’t even alone, I was there with a life long friend, but it felt like an adventure. We had to get there on our own, and got taken to the island on a tiny wee fishing boat, bouncing off the waves. I didn’t find any of the

changed by Paddy Hare

activities on Rua Fiola exceptional, going to tell Naomi?” What? Oh no aside from the instructor free no no, I couldn’t possibly have told survival night. Even though bad her. That was lunacy. I imagine weather called ours off early it I was able to bluff it off by saying was still awesome climbing up I’d do it later or something, I truly Lunga, finding a great spot for a can’t recall. All too suddenly it was bivouac and fire, and being set for the final day, and we all had to the night. What was utterly alien go home, myself armed with new to me, but possibly the best thing friends, beginning to realise that I’d ever experienced in my life up I was already becoming someone. to that point, I remember we had It was utterly alien to me, to wait for a minibus was having conversations but possibly the best thing to arrive, to take us on topics back to Oban, and I I’d ever experienced in I’d never was chatting to Jess even vaguely my life up to that point who, being a filthy breached as gossip (god bless the social pariah I was back home. her), asked me “So have you told People asked me if I fancied anyone Naomi you like her yet?” Again I on the trip, sincerely, with no threat said no. Bravery was not a strong of veiled mockery, or them running point of mine. “Right.” she said off and telling the person that you ominously. She disappeared into had feelings for them as if you had a house and returned a moment a fearful disease. What dizzying later with Naomi. I suspect at this social heights I was climbing to. point my eyes widened significantly. Various exchanges of who fancied She shoved us around the corner who were exchanged, between boys of the house with a slightly wicked and girls (I was talking to girls!!!) grin on her face then disappeared. and an utterly terrifying question So there I was, in the rain, heart was asked my way: “So are you threatening to hammer out my

chest and hop into the sea for safety, standing face to face with a girl who was possibly the first girl I’d had a thing for looking me straight in the eye expectantly. Then it came: “So, do you like me?” Somehow, I managed to get the word yes out of my mouth. Then it happened... She kissed me. On the lips. She even tilted her head slightly. Suddenly there was nothing else there, just me and Naomi, doing something I’d never done before. She was so warm compared to the cold Scottish rain, her lips were nothing less than divine. It was perfect, timeless, remembering it warms me in a way nothing else does. I was truly in that moment, the world could have ended then and I would have died a happy and content man. Well, adolescent.

edinburgh Skatepark By Richard Bullimore Photos by Rorie Balloch

The wait is finally over! Skateboarding has come a long way since its explosion in popularity in the 80’s however one city was always lagging behind in the movement…

The City of Edinburgh Council has finally granted a new outdoor Skate Park. Following a series of petitions and rejections dating back nine years, we now have a base at the outdoor activity haven that is Saughton Park. This article closes a chapter on something that first took my interest back at college; a project I named “Geez us a Skate Park” (the clue is in the title). Before then I only participated in skating as a teenager, but never took it seriously. Over the years the influence of my more committed skating friends began to rub off on me, and in turn their struggle for an outdoor skate park within the city, and therefore acceptance, became apparent. When the time came to pick our own projects at college I had already witnessed my friends’ struggles first hand and without a second

thought I decided this was the subject I would cover. I immediately set off to Bristo Square armed with a digital video camera. I captured on film all I had stopped and admired during my days as a casual participant - the skaters and bmxers use of the steps in and around the area to compliment their jumps and grinds; the way these adolescents turned the square’s street furniture into a social gathering point. But, this wasn’t a teenager’s stone living room; it was public property. Even if this gang of skaters were tolerated by the passing students, workers and policemen, it was only because there was nowhere else for them to go. Knowing this gave them a feeling of deep frustration. They wanted something better; something most other cities of similar size had the privilege of. A skate park meant acceptance, not just tolerance.

Endless processes of signatures and meetings with council officials never seemed to come into fruition. There was hope for the Meadows, but timescales were exceeded. Then Inverleith Park was proposed. This seemed to be a more viable option as it was quite central and it contained other sporting facilities. Unfortunately, there were residents’ who were not so keen and plans were again back to square one. These results angered me. On one hand Scotland is being dubbed the most obese European nation, with claims that our kids are just eating junk and playing video games, and on the other we have a bunch of kids desperate to exercise with something they enjoy and it’s being discouraged. But finally the hard work paid off and in 2010 the first and only Edinburgh skate park was built. And what’s more, Saughton Park (sometimes known as the location of Her Majesty’s “Big Hoose”) has support from the local residents, which is a refreshing change in attitude. Visiting the park recently with photographer Rorie Balloch, I found myself observing in the same way I used to all of those years ago, but this time something was different. There was energy and an excitement bursting out from each bmxers jump and skaters grind. They weren’t just allowed to be there, they were wanted and admired.

Featured Artist: Nico Major

beats heard by the Other half of my brain by Indira Kemp

It’s the teenies... an era when mobile phone technology exceeds that of our first space rockets and everyone’s so busy that arranging a dinner date requires 20 minutes shuffling through your diary. So when Nico Major, AKA DR. BEAT - a Hip Hop dancer and graffiti artist - and I struggled to find time to be in the same room at the same time it seemed natural that we’d turn to the much-loved communication method of adolescents everywhere...Instant messaging! Indira: You seem really busy at the moment. Nico: Yeah, I’m Multitask Major at the moment! Indira: Hehehe... Will we call you that in the interview? Nico: If you wanna Indira: “I’m sitting in a cafe in Edinburgh, talking to Multitask Major on a popular IM provider... these are modern times...” Nico: Sounds good to me.. he he Indira: Haha! Moving on... you do have several alias’ don’t you? Nico: Yeah, I go by many names I guess... but with my B-boy hat on I’m know as ‘DR. BEAT’ Indira: Ok, DR. BEAT, and how would you explain what you do...

Nico: Well these days I call myself a‘freelance Hip Hop practitioner’- Hip Hop as in the culture - and more specifically as a B-boy (breakdancer / Hip Hop / Streetdancer) and Writer (Graffiti / Aerosol Artist). Covering 2 of Hip Hop’s art-forms as it were.

from the video and they just looked so cool and got so much respect from all the other cats. I always seemed to be the last one to know what was happening so I would go study the video on Top Of The Pops for it’s 2 min airplay and try emulate whatever I could remember.

Indira: Nice one. How did you get into Hip Hop culture?

Indira: So self taught until you went to breakdance classes?

Nico: Through the music to begin with... listening to the likes of Cypress Hill, House of Pain, Tribe Called Quest and many others through mix-tapes at school and a few years later I found a breakdance class and I guess the rest is history.

Nico: Kind of... there was a guy at Youth Theatre who was a few years older than me. There were only 3 of us guys going at the time so he kind of took me under his wing... He was into Hip Hop and DJed and did a bit of dancing too so he would show me a bit and lend me CDs of ‘real’ Hip Hop... the underground stuff and American imports that just weren’t getting airplay in the mainstream (UK) at that time... He really gave me a grounding and a fascination for all this “new” music and lifestyle.

Indira: What drew you to Hip Hop? Why Hip Hop; why not metal or indie or rock? Nico: I guess the music just spoke to me... I had listened to pop, rock, indie and all that chart stuff as kid and through my teens... but when I discovered Hip Hop it just automatically made sense and I found myself jumping about all over the place like a mad man... I was watching the backing dancers on Top Of The Pops and going “I want to able to do that” - this all pre-MTV and internet so info and airplay of anything decent was always rare in the early and mid 90’s. Vanilla Ice had just dropped “Ice Ice Baby” and all the older kids at school were doing moves

Indira: When did you decide to pursue dance as a job, or a career? When did it occur to you that you could? Nico: It all just sort of happened as I went along. I guess I had the right level of enthusiasm and dedication and the door opened and I had stepped through years before I really realised this is what I do now. I was being taught by Allan Irvine who also happened to have a dance company

called Freshmess. He was teaching a lot of freelance work and it was getting to the point of interest for this dance style that there needed to be more teachers to meet the demand. So I basically apprenticed with Freshmess and did shadow teaching with them as well as performing on tour with them a few years later. Freshmess basically showed me the ropes and it all took off from there. It got to the point when I decided “right I really love this so I’m just gonna be a dancer for as long as that path takes me...”. It was just a passionate hobby that evolved into a lifestyle, a career, a vocation... a calling I guess. It definitely feels like this is my purpose in this life now and I can’t imagine doing anything else right now. Indira: have you ever had any injuries from breakdancing? Nico: I have had a lot of injuries but most of them while doing simple things and not dancing... I guess a few bruises and the odd twisted ankle. I’m usually fairly focused on what my body is doing when I’m dancing. It’s fairly controlled most of the time. You get a natural sense of your current physical limitations as you dance and if you don’t push the body too hard while trying to perfect crazy gravity defying moves you usually don’t hurt yerself. I don’t take too many risks in that department but that does limit my abilities sometimes.

Indira: but extends your career dramatically, I reckon! Nico: Yeah! I’ve had two nasty injuries that required hospital treatment - I dislocated my Collarbone and also had knee surgery to remove some torn cartilage... both nasty. Both stopped me dancing for over a year each time... that was so hard... I became so depressed not being able to dance. I just had to focus my energy into my art instead. Indira: Argh! They sound awful..! Have you ever been caught for (or while) doing graffiti? Nico: I’ve been stopped by the police once while doing a Graffiti art piece on a legal wall. They’d had complaints from a member of the public about something that happened there the day before and so they stopped us to ask questions and basically try and intimidate us but we knew this site was legal so it came to nothing. That put a downer on the creative mood so we just packed and went home. I found out later they arrested someone else painting there later that day. Other than that I’ve never been caught as such. I’ve always been very conscious of ‘what’ I’m painting on since I’ve started. I never paint on personal property or ancient monuments or churches or whatever. I have a basic respect for the environment around and the architecture of an ancient city like this. Also I don’t see

the point, personally, of putting myself in jailbait situations just for the sake of it. I’m more interested in longevity in this art-form and also I care about how I represent this art-form in the public. I want to enhance my surroundings not destroy them. I want to make art that makes people go ‘WOW!’ and not just outright offend them. That’s the aim for me anyway... not all hardcore Graffiti Writers take that view. Indira: What are you doing at the moment? Nico: At the moment... wow, I have to think about that one... so much really... I am teaching dance and art classes across the country. Working on some new shows with my B-boy crew, the Flyin Jalapenos. We’re performing at T in the Park this summer as well as many other events for example... I’m just putting the finishing touches to my new website - http://www. theFWDthinkers.com at the moment.... I’m also working with a multi-disciplinary arts organistation teaching looked-after children in residential care across Edinburgh... as

well as several other private art commissions, an exhibition... I would have to look at many ‘to-do’ lists to remember all the other ventures I’m working on...! Hence Multi-task Major at the moment! Indira: And any big projects coming up that you might want to tell us to look out for...? Nico: I’ve got some big personal projects that I’m working on at the moment but they’re all kind of under-wraps ‘til I can finalise some things and get some free time to work on them... I guess the main one this year is with 7 Doors working with the looked-after children. I was teaching in 2 units three days a week over the last term and a different one this term and a more in the last term of the year. That’s been pretty intensive. I will probably be putting together another Graffiti Art exhibition for the international Hip Hop dance festival, Breakin Convention, when it returns to to the Edinburgh Festival Theatre this autumn. I’ll also be teaching all across Scotland over the next few months so keep your ears to ground for that... I also have a few Community Art murals lined up for over the summer so if you’re in the area come down and help me paint your local cafe, skatepark... ... That’ll be in Kirkcaldy and a few other places... I also want to get back into the B-boy circles; jams, club nights and just

DANCE... It’s been a while... so much teaching of recent! Indira: can we find details of them on your website? Nico: Yeah it should all be posted up there... Indira: well, we’re out of time.... so one last question... what happens to a breakdancer when s/he can’t breakdance anymore? (I’m guessing not a desk job!) Nico: Well I’m hoping I never really have to answer that one. I think I will dance to myself in some way but I guess I would shift my focus to the art more. I’ve always fancied being a DJ and making my own beats to dance to. I’ve got so many tunes in my head that no-one but the other half of my brain has heard... also by the time I ‘have’ to stop dancing I’ll have mastered beatboxing and DJ at the same time or something Indira: Excellent. In the meantime we’ll look out for you dancing and your art work! Ciao! Nico: Bye! For more information on Nico Major aka DR. BEAT and to find out when he’ll next be performing, or exhibiting, see http://www.theFWDthinkers.com. Check out the Flyin Jalapenos on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/flyinjalapenos To contact Nico Major aka DR. BEAT email drbeat@theFWDthinkers.com

typing and swearing with the same two fIngers by Adam Behr

THE INNER ADOLESCENTS OF THE WEB

odwin’s Law states that as an online discussion progresses, ‘the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1’. Certainly the comments posted after most articles on broadsheets and tabloids alike bear this out as clearly well-informed people with ‘adult’ jobs resort to playground style slanging matches. Godwin’s point describes some of the less productive adolescent mudslinging on the web- although the web itself, at a little over twenty years old, is only just out of teens and still itself something of an adolescent medium. Open to all manner of uses and abuses, it has in that time changed the state of play in a few other fields- commercial and cultural. Often enough, it seems, appeals are made to our ‘inner child’. Jungian psychologists, 12 step programmes, new age quacks, r ‘n’ b albums, MacDonalds adverts- our ‘inner child’ is a potential path to healing or fun, or creativity. Or whatever it is that we want to be but aren’t, or want to have, but don’t. It’s a familiar enough concept to be used without controversy in popular culture. We all sort of know what it means, even if we’re not really sure that we’ve got one.

But we never get the same call to our ‘inner adolescent’. This is mostly understandable. As far as the meaning of the word goes, ‘adolescence’ refers to growing and change- a period of flux between the stages of life loosely defined as ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’. In terms of a raw comparison of experience, it’s even easier to see why childhood is valorised and adolescence passed over. Childhood, for the adults making the adverts (and spending the money) stands for innocence, safety, and a carefree existence. Adolescence is confusion, frustration, arguments and acne. Kids are cute. Adolescents are a pain. Calling forth the inner child is meant to evoke picnics in the park and bedtime stories. Not tantrums in the supermarket and toilet training. But we’ve got better memories of our adolescence, so painting it as a kind of ‘golden age’ won’t wash. And good- the whole point of adolescence is that you get to be an adult at the end of it. But childhood and adulthood aren’t static either- and all of it happens in a world that’s changing along with us. So maybe it’s worth looking again at that inner adolescent to see if it can’t come in useful somewhere.

There was certainly a pranksterish element, for instance, to the Facebook led campaign to get Rage Against the Machine to No.1 for Christmas instead of X-Factor’s Joe McEldery. For all the swagger and delight in putting a broom through Simon Cowell’s bicycle wheel in his ride up the charts, though, no-one seriously believed that this was a fatal blow to the pop machinery. Had the purpose been to send a popular or meaningful song up to the top then any number of venerated artists, from Bob Marley to Woody Guthrie, would have brought weight to the proceedings. Actually, if it was really about finding a more credible alternative to McEldery’s Miley Cyrus cover just about anything short of the webuyanycar.com jingle would probably have done. But it was somehow perfectly apt that the focus was loud, sweary, I’m-notgonna-tidy-my-room rock in all its high adolescent dudgeon. It was an adolescent moment, although a large proportion of the participants were long out of their teens. In some ways, this was as much about a division between a ‘web’ constituency and a ‘TV’ one as between ‘rock’ and ‘pop’ fans. And the question of whose constituency the web was came

into sharper focus during the election campaign. Certainly events that are writ large in such times tend to recede into the small print once the hard copy votes are counted but in that most serious of popularity contests adolescent discourse came to the fore as ‘adult’ assumptions of what has previously worked fell apart. The once iconic campaign poster was reduced to instant fodder for quickly multiplying online spoofs. When the Conservatives tried to harness this trend with their ‘cashgordon’ website, an unmediated feed from twitter led to a barrage of graffiti from web-natives. Adults unleashing their inner adolescent left the Conservative party looking like a patrician teacher stumbling around the digital playground trying to join in with a game the rules of which he doesn’t quite grasp. It’s also notable that when the old guard of the right wing press unleashed its stentorian wrath on the Liberal Democrat leader the immediate backlash was characterised not by measured adult counterarguments from their counterparts in the leftleaning press but a sarcastic barrage of twitter posts blaming Clegg for everything from lost car keys and stubbed toes to volcanic eruptions and the colour of Walkers crisp packets. An effective comment on a serious

point? Yes. A mature and adult way to express it? No. But sometimes measured adult responses are just spitting in the wind or, at best, preaching to the converted. Shouting and screaming rarely helps either, beyond providing a transitory sense of self-validation. There is, however, more to adolescent behaviour than that. The note pinned to the back of the jacket, or the nickname uttered at the edge of hearing are usually more effective at undermining the headmaster’s authority than a flat-out row. Twitter and Facebook aren’t going to save anyone’s democracy on their own. Neither is photoshopping the PM into whatever random grotesquery springs to mind. But when would be vendors and leaders of all hues are trying to use an adolescent medium to guide us towards their preferred optionwhether it’s for Number 1 or Number 10- childlike tantrums of disapproval are easy to sideline or demean and mature discussion can be drowned out or mired in detail. Sometimes it takes the sarky, smart-arsed inner adolescent of people who know better to give a good oldfashioned two-finger salute to the powers that would be and show them that even if they own the playground, the rules of the games played in it are open to question.

by Joanna Tacher Illustration by Alex Judd

Spinning discs; that’s all she seemed to do. Not like a DJ, nothing as cool as that. CDs spinning in her boxy CD player in her tiny, useless room. And for all that music there was so much more out there that could have helped her. Albums that were practically self-help manuals for the brokenhearted had all been recorded but were unknown to her. One day she went for a long walk. She’d spent the morning reading his letters. They were stupid letters but only a few months earlier she’d been desperate to receive them. She’d wanted to hear whatever he had to say to her. Now they were just no good scrawls and she sort of wished she was brave enough to burn them like she habitually burned pages of her diary she was unhappy with or ashamed of what she’d written. No letter burning today though. She went for a walk. She walked out to the sea. Her house was near the beach so it only took a few minutes to get there. She often imagined the waves gently lapping closer and closer, eroding the garden and dissolving the walls of the house. She could almost picture her house slowly crumbling. Imagine watching your house fall into the sea!

They had once spent time by the sea. On a boat in fact. Boat trips were cheaper than she would have thought and one day after school she found herself on a ferry with him, staring out at the white, white nothing of the sky. He held her tight and she laughed because she wasn’t supposed to be on a boat with him. She also wasn’t supposed to be in a garden with him but that’s where she had found herself the following week; in a garden next to the local art gallery. It seemed to have been overlooked by the gardeners because there were stones and bits of old walls littered throughout the exposed tree roots and moss. He took her hand and she trembled because even as she felt something inside her she knew she had to stop this. She couldn’t have this kind of love. She was too weak and had better settle for something safer and more mundane. When she thought about how she would end things and of how completely final her decision would be, she smiled. It felt exciting. Yeah, he was in love with her, kind of, but she left him anyway and burned all the pages mentioning him in her diary. That way she’d forget everything he’d ever said to her and that way, she told herself, she could pretend it had never happened. The last page she burned had been a little sketch of the two of them on a boat with the sea stretching out behind them. She’d felt a little sad but she knew it had to go. No-one was discovering this, no way. When everyone was out she made for the stove and burned the page up with long kitchen matches. When everything was gone she crushed the ashes into silky grey powder with a used match and, resisting the temptation to scoop them up and rub them all over her hands, she tilted them into the grate and screwed it shut.

rebellion

THROUGH FASHION All clothes and accessories by Threadbare

Styling by Rachael Macintyre Photography by Rorie Balloch 19

Get it On – T-Rex

“Well you’re windy and wild. You’ve got the blues in your shoes and your stockings”

Photographerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assistant: Kevin Gilchrist Make-up and hair: Nathalie Offer Stylist assistant: Sophie Rolland Models: Alexander Auld-Smith, Marion Kelly, Tansy Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ambrosia www.threadbare-edinburgh.co.uk cecile@threadbare-edinburgh.co.uk

i love you i love you i love you by Lara Platman

I have often wondered how love and all its alchemic identities evolve throughout our lives. We are told to use it freely to our neighbours, to our loved ones and especially to love yourself, but ultimately is it the same love? The innocence of love is simply a recognition of decisions and an understanding and longing for the nearest and dearest and often we have no qualms about flirting the word around, yet inherently something is distilled upon our tiny minds that begins to build love to become a word or emotion that defaults as a secret or embarrassment. For me I remember telling my Doggy that I loved him and in the same breath loving chocolate spread. I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember telling my mother and father that I loved them although for me it was obvious that I did. Today I tell my grandma I love her and will on the next phone call tell my parents the same. Along with some friends. Yes I will tell them I love them. And mean what it is to love, in my mind at least. But this change or confidence in the word love... Has it evolved through what I have witnessed and feel or is this always the everydiffering uses of love? Just pipped forty I still feel like I am only now beginning to grasp its meaning from the very different one as a child. Illustration by Alex Judd

Have I only just now turned into something that is not quite an adult? Where cynicism has not yet encroached on my gravitas and experiencing heart ache has occurred only a few times? Am I approaching the adolescence of my being, where everything is exciting? But I just pipped forty? Where does adolescence complete and adulthood make its mark? My parents are on the seventh year of their gap year and they are about sixty five, :) and married for 45 years. Now that is love. And believe me their escapades in a mobile home certainly is not a grown up action... And they are in their silver years. Love is all you need said John Lennon. Yes i think it is. Whatever age, whatever stage of life. Love transcends all timescales and deliverencies of maturity. If only love were a being. It would be my oldest friend and my newest - it is that fluid. And yet. I am still looking for love. That special one, something that I thought in my adolescence, would appear as my lifetime chum, perhaps from the knowledge of my parentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s companionship, I too would make for a duo. But you know. I LOVE to love. Does that count? I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU!

Thank you to the Brikolage team and thank you to all of our contributors. Without you there would be no magazine. Our team has grown a bit since our first issue and it is stronger than ever before! Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve also gained a few new contributors as well as keeping a few loyal ones: thanks for joining us and thanks for staying with us! This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theme is Age. First we had Childhood, then Adolescence and with autumn comes Adulthood. What does that make you think of? How does that make you feel? From playfulness to the angst of growing and then to what? What is Adulthood to you? Whatever way you are creative, be it fashion, music, writing or dancing, take inspiration from Brikolage. Be it a poignant article or an abstract image we want to hear from you! For more details email Rachael Macintyre or Indira Kemp at info@brikolage.co.uk Check out our website for more details at http://www.brikolage.co.uk