The main reason to visit Bexhill is the De La Warr Pavilion, the modernist icon built in 1935 by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff. It's a lovely building; light and airy, even on a cloudy day, with a small but decent gallery space (currently showing a Joseph Beuys exhibition, on until September 27), and a nice comfortable-looking cafe (that we didn't actually try, as we'd brought a picnic lunch). The restoration has been done with a great attention to detail, making it feel simultaneously classically art deco and instantly contemporary — as all the best modernist spaces are. Like many seaside buildings, it sometimes feels like being on a boat — albeit a landlocked one — with its long balconies and a huge open sun deck.

There are some funny little temple-like seaside shelters in front of it, almost arcadian-looking. They seemed to be from an earlier time, but somehow don't clash at all with the Pavilion.

The same can't really be said for the eccentric terraces of houses nearby along the Marina, which are a wonderfully bizarre architectural mish-mash of Moorish minarets and classical English staidness. One terrace is clearly wealthier than the other, with a row of gardens facing the sea — this struck us as optimistic as we walked headfirst into a strong wind; especially the one with the overly manicured lawn. The other terrace is more rundown, and a quick peer into their courtyard showed lots of peeling paint and crumbling walls. There are also other different features between the two terraces, like the bay windows and mullions on the wealthier houses, and the social club and abandoned businesses on the poorer side.¹

Is that an urn with the dog's ashes in or what?

Notable things to glimpse from the bus were a cafe called The Coffee Pot with a badly-painted sign of a floating tablecloth on the gable wall, a gatepost painted to look like Toad of Toad Hall and, down on the seafront, a statue of two people either grappling or making love — the bus went by quickly, so it was hard to tell. We got off outside Marine Court, another example of 1930s seaside modernism that looks a bit like a boat. In this case, it looms like an ocean liner on the skyline, which comes as no surprise because it was actually modelled on that grand dame of ocean-liners, the Queen Mary, back when she was a young lady (as it were).

It's certainly a rather striking building, perhaps best observed from a bit of a distance (e.g. across the road), but when seen from the Hastings end you'll find it has a weird sense of perspective, where the bottom half veers away into the distance and the top half looms towards you. Beneath it is a rather sad and tawdry row of neglected shops that makes one almost long for the days when it must have been the height of glamour, especially when one considers that the kind of regeneration a place like that would get these days is to fill it with chains like Costa Coffee and Tesco Express, which would do the building no favours at all.

We wandered along the seafront and stopping to admire some lovely shelters and the Hastings weather station, which has some great cartoon illustrations on the barometer [click here to see all of them together in their full-size glory]

Hastings does have a pier, but it's currently closed to the public, awaiting restoration, so we veered off from the seafront and took to exploring some of Hastings' side streets, where we discovered a corner that could easily have been Manhattan in the early 1980s.

This insalubrious corner is in fact right next to Hastings Public Library, housed in the Brassey Institute, opened in in 1881 as a reference library by local MP Thomas Brassey. It's a rather nice example of High Victorian Arts and Crafts Gothic, although also in need of a bit of care. It would be great to see these wall frescoes restored to their full glory. (And I still don't know who Walter was; does anyone else know?) Close nearby is a rather odd-looking church and a truly hideous drinking-fountain. Also some shops and cafes, some of which still have some original features of the earlier businesses, liked curved windows and painted ceilings, which are rather nice.

On first glance, the centre of Hastings seems to have no character, being full of the same high street shops and chuggers as every town centre, but a little attention rewards you with a lot of interesting details.

Hastings Old Town has much more obvious character. We managed to arrive just in time to catch the last cliff train up West Hill (whoooosh!) to have a look at Hastings Castle, although it seemed to be closed, so we walked back down the hill and headed off to look at the fishing boats and drying houses at Rock-A-Nore.

This was the only part of Hastings that I remembered from our previous trip there when I was seven years old, and it didn't seem to have changed too much, except for the addition of a museum. That's all set to change very soon, though, with a couple of new developments going up: a new hotel building which looks intrusively out of place in the location, judging by the projected images on the hoardings (sorry no pics, I forgot to take one); and the rather more locally infamous Jerwood Project, which is the subject of quite a lot of local dissent. (It's unfortunate that the campaign website is so ugly it's not going to win over any of the design-conscious arty types that the Jerwood tends to collect, because some of their arguments are actually worth a look, especially the one that points out that they're not saying no to it all together, just in that specific location.) The location is, of course, currently home to the local fishing industry, and while it could be argued that it's not just Labour policy that's killing it (despite how the locals might feel), there's going to be a lot of bad feeling about any development which doesn't take that into consideration. (I'm curious what some of the architecture bloggers have to say about it, Owen in particular.)

For the time being it's a perfect photographic playground for someone like me, full of intriguing corners and a rich patina of weathering and grime. My camera battery was dying by that point, so it was a simple case of pointing and clicking instead of taking the time to focus on small details, but I managed to get a few wide shots that give a good idea of the atmosphere.

pic of Rock-A-Nore

Fish-and-chips by the sea is an essential part of the experience, so we headed off to the Blue Dolphin, as recommended by my friend Fiona, and excellent fish and chips they were too. It's easy to see why they're regularly touted as the best in town.

Then a stroll up the High Street for some window shopping (I remembered my phone has a camera that'll do in a pinch), where I discovered one shop selling furniture covered in Marvel comics, like this fantastic Fantastic Four one:

And finally, a horribly rain-sodden dash to the station to catch our train back to London, where I tried not to let the fact that I was forced to sit in sopping wet jeans ruin a lovely day (they were so wet, I left a puddle in the waiting room!). Hopefully it won't take me so long between visits next time.

More photos and anecdotes here.

I've known Jill Allyn Stafford since about 2002, when we first started chatting on the original SK8 Jesus messageboard. Like me, she had an interest in many forms of visual arts and funny anecdotes, and even when I stopped being active on any messageboards, she was one of the people I made an effort to stay in touch with, mostly via her Flickrstream.

In the few years since I first met her, Jill has taken great strides with her own creative life, garnering a significant collection of work, and becoming heavily involved in the running of a local gallery, Vox, in her home town of Sacramento. I'm delighted she agreed to be interviewed because I find her attitude very inspiring, and I hope you do, too.

AJ: Who (or what) inspired you to start making collages?
JAS: In 1995 my husband and I were in New Orleans, visiting a friend of his from childhood. His friend was showing us the town, and we stopped in some touristy store so he could buy stamps. I saw the postcards he was mailing and they were all self-made, and they were all collage. I thought they were the coolest things ever and figured that I could do that. About four years ago I started getting into it seriously, and participated in my first art show in 2007.

AJ: What other artists/people inspire you now?
JAS: Oh wow, so many people inspire me. I absolutely love the artistry behind David Mack's work. Hannah Höch. Graffiti artists. And all those people who push me. Charity Larrison and Jeremy Love were key in originally getting me to put myself out there. Laurenn McCubbin gives me new ideas and just really, wow, challenges the hell out of me. She's amazing in her support.

AJ: How do you decide which images and scraps go best together? Is it just an intuitive thing of trying out different layouts, or do you start with a distinct idea of what you want the final piece to look like?
JAS: I start a piece by picking out one or two images that really capture me. From there, I decide how I'd like to progress — either by color schemes or shapes, or whatever. There really is no specific method to my madness. It always depends on how I'm feeling that night.

AJ: Do you ever find yourself looking for a perfect image to tie the collage together, and having to make do with something else because you don't have what you want? Are you generally pleased with the end result anyway?
JAS: It's funny that way, I rarely run into this problem. When I'm working on collages, my brain goes into this weird kind of zen mode. I lose track of time, and basically I just play with scraps and shapes and colors until it all seems to fit. So there's rarely this idea of making do. Everything either works for me or it doesn't. If it doesn't I'll set that piece aside and work on it later, and generally at that point I can finish it to my satisfaction.

And yeah, I'm almost always pleased with my end results (and even if not, I'll sometimes incorporate that piece into another, so there's never really anything that I give up on).

AJ: Do you think of those situations as happy accidents, or are you frustrated that it isn't exactly what you were after?
JAS: Always happy accidents, everything is a happy accident. I never start out with any specific plan in mind. It all comes together as I work. Which is probably why it takes me so long to finish the smallest of pieces.

AJ: You use a lot of vintage and found images. Where do you source them?
JAS: I generally find old pictures or magazines at antique stores. My husband, though, has always made the best finds. He went to an antique store in rural Alabama and came back with some amazing war ration stamps, vintage African-American photographs, and even an old book on spells.

AJ: What's the appeal of using old images rather than more contemporary ones?
JAS: Ha, easy, no copyright infringement. That's it really.

AJ: Do you feel nostalgic for the past?
JAS: Nah. While there are certain aesthetics that I have nostalgia for — 1920s and 1940s style clothing and art for example — I much prefer the time we're in now.

To quote Gogol Bordello, "there were never any good old days, they are today, they are tomorrow, it's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow".

AJ: So, are you basically the same person you were when you were younger, or do you think your personality has undergone radical changes?
JAS: I'm definitely not the same person. I was shy, no self confidence. Somehow magically that has changed (in most arenas at any rate). When we're throwing an art show and I'm playing hostess, I can talk to anybody. Something that I never thought I could do.

AJ: The art shows are at Vox. Tell us about them — how did you get involved with that?
JAS: I got involved in Vox simply by accident. A client at the law firm where I work saw some of my artwork and told me I should introduce myself to some of the people who threw the Vox shows. I did, and they asked to me participate in their next show. I participated in a few more, and got to really like the people.

I sat in on some of their organizational meetings, and they talked extensively about wanting to be a non-profit corporation. With my background as a legal assistant in a law firm, I had plenty of experience forming corporations. I helped them set up their corporate entity, and somehow I also became an officer and a member of the board of directors.

AJ: What sort of responsibilities do you have running a gallery business? Do you have any advice for people who'd like to do something similar?
JAS: Our responsibilities range from finding artists, to hanging their work, advertising for the show, booking musicians to play, prepping the venue for the shows, tearing it all down when the show's done (we share space so we can leave work hanging for one night only), helping the artists price their work, and coming up with themes for shows.

The biggest thing I can emphasize is that you really need to go into this loving what you do. Since we're a non-profit, we personally make no money and spend so many hours making things happen, so it really is the satisifaction of throwing a great show and making a difference in people's lives that has to make it work for you.

AJ: You have limited space, so how do you decide which art you display? Do you take anyone's submissions from anywhere, or is it only people who live in Sacramento?
JAS: One of our goals is to help people who have never shown before, or never played before, and provide them with a venue where they can gain some experience and maybe some self confidence to continue putting their art or music out there. We have a really big space, so it's never been a matter of too much art. We show everything an artist that we've booked brings in.

We do accept submissions from everyone, but because we are a one-night-only venue, it's easier and more cost effective for locals to participate. That being said, we'd love to show work from all over the world.

AJ: What have you got coming up?
JAS: I currently have two pieces in the Centenary of Collage exhibition at the Arison Gallery in Manchester [more information here], and will be showing at Vox Sacramento for our April Second Saturday show on April 11.

AJ: Okay, one last question for fun: what would you do with a time machine?
JAS: I'd go back and hold my children when they were babies. Sniff their heads and just really soak them in. And then as soon as it was time to change a diaper, I'd come back to the future.

For more of Jill's work, take a look at her Flickrstream.