Tragedy of the Glasgow School of Art fire is its effect on creative freedom

One of my favourite projects at Camberwell College of Art when I was there in 2001 involved me rummaging through the skips of Peckham for objets trouvés — aka any old bit of crap I could lug back to the studio and use as part of what I ambitiously called a sculptural painting.

I got away with some pretty out-there interpretations of briefs on my Foundation Course, and happily didn’t do one still-life drawing the entire time. I’ve never had more fun or felt freer to express myself than I did that year.

Coming straight out of secondary school into art college was eye- opening in every way. I met more gay people! I discovered performance art! I started a collective! I worked on a fanzine! We held flash mobs at pubs in Brixton and crashed private views in Cork Street. The capital was my playground like never before.

This week I’ll be going to the University of the Arts London’s final shows. Ever since I left Camberwell I’ve tried to get to the exhibitions of student work, not just because it’s a great way of spotting up-and-coming talent but because it makes me recall so fondly the last time I was able to be creative without thinking about clients or budgets or having to “sell” my idea. I could just follow my instinct and make stuff and that was a real privilege.

The tragedy of the Glasgow School of Art burning down again this weekend isn’t just the work that has been destroyed, it is the loss for the people studying there of that unabashed, joyful freedom of being an art student. Because life as a creative in the real world is never that fun again.

Mum and Mummy, the new normal

I wonder if once our baby is born in a few weeks’ time we’ll celebrate Father’s Day, rebranding it Other Mother Day? Or will we both get gifts on Mother’s Day? I’m sure there will be all sorts of scenarios like this that come up as our child gets older, where we have to figure out our same-sex version of “traditional” parenting.

My wife and I are contemplating what we want to be called — Mum and Mummy, Momma and Umma, Mum One and Mum Two? And what if our daughter calls me Dada? Do I correct her? It’s great making up our own rules but I like tradition. We’re lucky to have so many LGBT parenting networks at hand. I hope we will create a new normal.

As a woman with a penchant for menswear, Naomi’s my new icon

I’m going to need a polka dot bow tie, a pinstriped tuxedo and a wide-brimmed trilby hat immediately because Naomi Campbell just nailed all my lesbian power-dressing goals in one catwalk moment on Saturday when she and Monica Bellucci (who also gave good suiting) walked in Dolce & Gabbana’s Spring/Summer 2019 Men’s Fashion Week show in Milan.

As is the way with Domenico and Stefano, the runway was a cacophony of camp — rappers and It-boys joined millennial social media stars and track-suited grannies plus every kind of diverse iteration of a couple you could imagine to showcase the new men’s collection. But it was Campbell and Bellucci who really set the tone, schooling the other pretenders in attitude.

As a woman with a penchant for menswear, I can tell you that if you don’t lean in to the look a trouser suit can easily wear you. But after a weekend which also saw the video release of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Apes**t, in which the pair pose in front of the actual Mona Lisa in a pink silk and mint green double-breasted suit respectively, my “How to power dress” Pinterest board is now officially complete.

* Since pivoting to a more corporate world, I’m finding things I never knew existed. The latest is a pre- meeting — a meeting about a meeting. Also new is the need to set up an “out of office” to say you’re in a meeting, or perhaps a pre-meeting, and can’t reply to emails. No wonder productivity in the UK is at an all-time low.