Art, and Thoughts on Art

At the gig on Monday, Amanda announced that the venue would be open again on Tuesday afternoon for the art, so I decided to go back.
The gallery was deserted so I was able to spend as long as I wanted with the art works.

On Monday, I'd  found myself wandering around, and every so often I would see a picture and thinks "that's gorgeous, I wonder who made it?" and then I would read the label and, about half the time, realise that it was an artist I already knew of - some, like Kyle Cassidy and Molly Crabapple I was expecting, (you can buy prints of Molly's pieces here)

Molly Crabapple's art

Others, like Raliel, I should have anticipated but hadn't,Other artists included Judith Clute, Michael Zulli, David Mack, (I immediately loved his pieces, but it took a long time for the penny to drop and to realise that he also did the art work for the 'I Will Write With Words of Fire' prints from neverwear)

Some of the artists were new to me - I immediately fell in love with Vladimir Zimakov's linocuts,(also available as prints)

and was impressed with the photography skills of one Neil Gaiman, who seems to be a newcomer as a visual artist...

I was impressed, too, with the ability of one Amanda Palmer to draw so well, in addition to the singing.

Kambriel's gorgeous 'The Killing Type' dress presided over all, with bullets (or shell cases?) in the bodice..

Alone in the gallery, I was terribly tempted to see if I could take it off the mannequin and try it on myself. I didn't, but when I tweeted about it later, Kambriel said she would have let me, had she been there. I wish she had been!

Kyle Cassidy's 'Bed Song' art

But there was one piece of art which I kept returning to. The set of 5 pictures by Kyle Cassidy, of people, naked, in bed. I kept returning to them because the pictures are beautiful, of course, but also because they felt so real - the people in the pictures. The pictures were beautiful, and so were the people in the pictures.Every curve, every line, every sign of lives lived. Seeing them on Monday night, during Amanda's show, I loved them. Seeing them the following day, in the quiet of an empty gallery, I was moved to tears.

(20.37 22.06.12) edited to correct errors)

A Relaxing Weekend

This weekend, I'd arranged to go down to Devon to visit my parents. I saw them last weekend, while they were staying with me  while they went to a dinner locally. This weekend however was a visit just to spend some time together. And the weather was nice, too.
One of the nice things about visiting my parents is that as long as I don't get up too early, I usually get a cup of tea in bed ;-)  I love that little touch of luxury.

We decided that a nice walk by the sea would be an appropriate thing to do with a bright November morning, so we went to Westward Ho!, which is an uninspiring town, but where you can start a walk along the top of the cliff, and then down to a pebbly beach.

There was an offshore breeze, and very big waves, so there were a lot of surfers out, and despite being the middle of November, it has been so mild that there were still quite a few butterflies and dragonflies around.

And a really big mushroom, right on the cliff edge!

We didn't have a long walk, as my mum and dad wanted to get back in time to go to a local history talk in Bideford, but it was very pleasant.

While the talk was going on, I wandered around Bideford, and admired the bridge, and looking into a few shops, and a little later, we all went back home for a delicious meal of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and then lemon meringue pie. All very good.

Sunday, we had a lazy morning, them they went out to Exeter for some ringing, and I came home, to be greeted by a very snuggly cat. Over all, a very relaxing weekend!



Ooops, it's been weeks!

Dear me! It's been weeks, hasn't it?

I haven't had a lot to blog about. My car got its annual service, and I got my flu jab, but neither of those is very exciting!

Last weekend my parents came to visit, as they had a dinner to go to near here. I always enjoy seeing them, and I had had a really shitty week at work and was feeling very stressed, so it was lovely to have company to distract me from brooding too much over things I couldn't do anything about until Monday morning...

On Saturday we did a little early christmas shopping, distracted only by the police doing a fingertip search of the High Street, and then on Sunday, which came a gorgeous sunny day, we went to Stourhead for a walk.

The colours were even better than when I was there a couple of weeks ago - mainly because the sun was out this time.

 In addition, we saw a heron. I don't think there is much risk it will go hungry - we aslo saw lots of leaping fish, in the lake.

There may have been a cream-tea before we went home, too.

In Which It is a Bit Chilly

We haven't  had any more snow, which is a relief, but it has been very cold, so the hoar frost didn't melt, most days, so we ended up with frost  on frost. Chilly, but very pretty!

I have spent most of the week busy with work stuff, which is time consuming but doesn't make for terribly interesting bloggage.

I did, however, get to see my parents, who came to stay overnight on Wednesday, en route to a funeral. It was good to see them,  and gave me an excuse to make a nice hearty casserole (Beef in Guinness, if you're interested)

Although this week has been relatively uneventful, I do have lots of nice things to look forward to.

Tomorrow  evening  I shall be heading into Bath to the Theatre Royal to see The Merry Wives of Windsor - the production is the one which was on at the Globe Theatre, and is now touring. It should be fun.

And then, on Sunday evening, I am going back to Bath, back to the Theatre Royal, to see Handel's Messiah . Every year, around this time, there is a performance of The  Messiah by musicians using period instruments,  in period costume, by candlelight.  I've been wanting to go for several years, but as it is only on for one night, I've never managed to be organised enough to get a ticket, before.

Then, on Tuesday, I shall be going to see the historian, Bethany Hughes, talkng about her new book about Socrates.

Should be fun.

And of course, the week after that, I shall have lovely, fiendish guests :-)

Holiday Time!

I have a week off work, which is very nice, and having been insufficiently organised to have made any other plans, I decided to travel down to Devon to spend some time with my parents.

The journey down was horrendous - pouring rain, very heavey traffic and queues on the motorway, so the journey took about an hour and a half longer than normal. However, once I arrived, all was well.

On Friday night, after a very tasty supper (cooked by someone else, which is always a treat for me!) my Dad and I were able to go out into the garden to look for meteors - happily, there is very little light pollution here, and  saw 6 or 7 shooting stars, which was a lovely end to the evening.

As Sunday came a nice day, we decided to go to Rosemoor, which is owned by the Royal Horticultural Society - there are several formal gardens - a rose garden, cottage garden, mediterranean garden, a herb/sensory garden, plus woodland and vegetable gardens.

There were thousands of bees everywhere - both honey bees and bumble bees, and there were also lots of butterflies - small Toirtoiseshells and Cabbage Whites, which one gets everywhere, but also Red Admirals, Peacock Butterflies and Painted Ladies, which are less common.

The colours were beautiful, and although I know very little about gardening, and have difficulty in recognising all but the most common flowers or trees, wandering around beautiful gardens in the sunshine, amid the bees and butterflies, is very pleasant indeed.

More photos on my flickr stream