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Monday 6 May 2013
Capri Blue hair .(scribbled at 22:33 )
Just a quick post to say that I took the plunge a few weeks ago and dyed my hair blue. I hastily snapped this image on my webcam shortly after dying it. After being pretty damn pleased with the results I got from the 'Candyfloss' shade of Crazy Color Hair Dye a few months back, I tried out their 'Capri Blue' shade and it's barely faded at all in 10 days! I only had to leave the dye on my hair for 10 minutes until the desired Marge-Simpson-Esque effect I was hoping for began to take shape...It's a ridiculously deep shade of cerulean:
I'm off to France next week, so unless I start drowning in Eurostar confirmation tickets and work emails, I'll try and squeeze a reasonably-sized blog post in before the weekend is here!
Labels: Blue Hair, Capri Blue, Crazy Color Hair Dye, Crazy Color Review, Crazy Colour Hair
Wednesday 10 April 2013
Pretty in Peckham .(scribbled at 08:30 )
Londoners, have you seen Pae White's installation at South London Gallery yet?
If not... then why the heck not?
Especially as:
a. Admission at South London Gallery is FREE
b. …and opens until 9pm on a Wednesday
c. and because Peckham really isn’t that far away (celebrations all round since TFL extended the Overground!)
Her site-specific installation in the main gallery space is. Just. Incredible.
Born in 1963, California-born White has work owned by numerous public collections, including Tate and MoMA. This piece was inspired by her recent periods of insomnia, and a heightened awareness of mortality to some extent. At one end of the gallery hangs her jogging t-shirt, which connects to this altogether in that her ceasing to carry on with running, has been a catalyst for this insomnia. I was beginning to comprehend just how long it took the team of technicians to install the work when I read up on the placement of the stack of Pizza Boxes that are placed next to her jogging T-shirt in the Gallery space… these are reminiscent of the many meals that the technicians ate whilst they spent 10 days installing the piece. A brilliant element to the installation, I assure you.
Spelling out the words ‘Unmattering’ and ‘Tiger Time’ in a collection of blue, red, black and purple threaded yarn across the walls, which are completely illegible until you’re actually standing there in the Gallery. It’s monumental, and works so well with SLG’s high ceilings and airy spaces.
...and after flicking through a few old copies of Stylist magazine whilst sorting out my room, and browsing through a few SS2013 Moschino Cheap & Chic images to get me in the mood for summer. I’ve tried colourful eyeshadow for the first time in YEARS. It was quite a terrifying ordeal, opting for something other than a flick of mascara or a heavily smoked eyelid. But with the sun shining, I opted for a pretty look in Peckham, donning light blue eyeliner with a floral blouse. Ah, le printemps est là.
I’ve thrown an instagram-style filter over this image to disguise a blemish or two, but this is an old Bourjois khol liner. But the new Rimmel Scandaleyes stick in turquoise would probably look far better. Blue eyeliner also reduces the appearance of red eyes, and is mightily handy at perking up your peepers when no amount of coffee/bb cream will seem to work.
Labels: Blue Eyeliner, Boots Blue Eyeliner, Pae White, Peckham, Pretty in Peckham, South London Gallery
Monday 8 April 2013
MUSTARD ON WHITE .(scribbled at 09:00 )
...or hot buttery toast. Either way, this 1963 Lichtenstein work is now adorning my bedroom wall in the form of a 65p postcard. The frame is a bargain I picked up from an Oxfam up in the Midlands when I went home to visit my parents' houses the weekend before last. I do love a bit of museum and gallery memorabilia. From Stedelijk Museum Oyster card holders to pin badges from dOCUMENTA 13, I am literally a walking advertisement for every gallery gift shop out there. It's a bit embarrassing.
Here is just some of the cheesy stuff I picked up from Amsterdam, hahah. (From left to right): Rembrandt-shaped eraser, Rembrandt-figure pencil, Modriaan Cup, Vermeer mug, Vermeer Umbrella. The teabags on the left are pure cinnamon and the package on the right of the Vermeer mug is a gift that my youngest sister crafted for me in her Design Technology lessons. It's pretty adorable actually; a rather abstract looking metal pendant which is attached to packaging that she made herself (and even made a 'Tate' logo on the back, haha). I wish my classes in secondary school would have been that cool... my lessons didn't extend much beyond learning how to make a net for a cardboard box.
I'm posting this because I'm proud of the enthusiasm I had for hanging my own pictures after 8 hours at work taking frames off walls. I had to trim the mount for
Youth With an Ivy Wreath , which I picked up at the
Leonardo: Painter at the Court of Milan exhibition at the National Gallery a few years ago. Yes, that exhibition was all the way back in 2011 and I've only just bothered to dig it out from a cupboard. The other works are all by Ed (
http://mrmoltonium.tumblr.com/) , the top one being a gift and the other two I bought at last year's Zine Fair at the New Art Gallery in Walsall.
So, my sister is studying Pop Art as part of her GCSE in Art, so I offered to have her stop the night in London so she could catch the Lichtenstein retrospective at Tate. Which isn't a huge deal of effort on my part, as the 141 bus stops literally outside my house and goes directly to London Bridge, but it involved a huge deal of effort to not implode each time she referred to Lichtenstein as 'Roy' ...as if they were on first name terms. I mean, if you're friends with Damien, Tracey, Jake & Dinos then refer to them as that by all means. But I'm beginning to get a little angry at the GCSE Art syllabus if its condoning referring to artists by their first name. Arghhh. Thankfully, after 30 hours of me reminding her that Lichtenstein died whilst she was barely a 6 month foetus, I have now taught her the ways (ha.). Regardless of all this, I'm pretty damn flattered that she's chosen to draw me repeatedly for some of her GCSE project work:
It was a pretty crazy couple of days, but I managed to give her an insight into what I find so cool about London in less than 30 hours. Starting off at Shoreditch High street to explore Boxpark and the surrounding shops, we walked down Brick Lane via one of the 24hr bagel shops to grab a few cheese bagels for breakfast. My sister is now hooked to those, and the oreo cupcakes that are sold at the café a few doors down from there. Although my sister wants to be a florist (!), she's also got a thing for Rachel Whiteread, and instantly snapped up one of her Olympics 2012 posters (you know the one with all the circles on?), so I thought it only made sense to walk past Whitechapel Gallery so she could see her sculptural work in the flesh, on the Gallery's façade.
I'm a little obsessed with Tower Bridge, so we walked over that and then snacked our way through Borough Market up until we reached the Tate Café, where we stopped for a spot of Earl Grey before enduring half an hour in the queue for my sister to collect her ticket. Hardly surprising, but she spent just as long in the gift shop buying Tate publications as she did actually looking at Lichtenstein's paintings. I spotted a book with a Maurizio Cattelan's Untitled (2007) on the cover (a horse stuck in a wall, basically), which is about the various elements that make up the contemporary art world, so I'll pop by next weekend and pick that up. I hate it when you see something you like in a shop, and how you can utterly obsess over it in your head for days/weeks until you get it. I have no willpower or self control with these things. I only lasted 2 weeks obsessing over investing in a high quality bag before I caved in and bought a 14" Cambridge Satchel in their Covent Garden store. I got a 'V' embossed on its front though, so I guess my first born child will have to be called either Violet, Victor or Veronica so I can pass the bag on to them.
There's this room at Tate where you can arrange your own text and image to create your own Lichtenstein inspired wall piece. It's aimed at anyone under the age of 10 really, but a good 15 minutes was spent there at the beginning of our visit:
We walked over Millenium Bridge and marvelled at St. Paul's before heading back to make pizza (from scratch, obvs.) and pig out on cream scones and trashy horror films. Parfait.
I'd taken a day off work the following day, so after a lie in we made time to bake (some of Jus Roll's, ha!) croissant pastry. Sammy and I both filled ours with an entire bar of dark chocolate each, to replicate a more rich take on
Pain au Chocolat. You can pick it up from Sainsbury's for under £2, bargain! We'd planned to start our day at the
Treasures of the Royal Courts exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, so we hopped on the number 19 bus, which travels on a very architectural-friendly view of London on its way to Knightsbridge. I might start getting this bus to work actually; the views of Westminster would be so beautiful at 7:30am every morning!
Sammy's croissants were to die for!
Freshly squeezed orange juice as part of the David Bowie Is exhibition.
After checking out the Tudors and Stuarts exhibition at the V&A and a few quick gift shop purchases, we hopped over to Harrods for our mid-morning patisserie fix. Sammy opted for a delicious glittery glazed doughnut, which lost most of its icing in the bag, unfortunately:
I on the other hand, had my heart set on making a lego building of chocolate and scoffing it all. These are adorable and admittedly, a little overpriced, so I couldn't afford to build/scoff anything larger than a 2 bedroom semi.
The rest of the Easter weekend was mainly spent eating a ridiculous amount of desserts and buying lots of
new homeware things from H&M, like this new duvet cover (I feel middle aged for getting excited about new bedding...) but I did make time for baking a batch of Slutty Brownies. These are
so easy to make, and theoretically it is cheating as the ingredients don't extend much beyond a few packets of Betty Crocker cake mix, but they are worth baking if you haven't already! The recipe is from
Rose, who writes for my favourite blog; The Londoner. Her posts are quite literally
beautiful. I was a little short on time to take proper recipe photographs, but these should give you the gist of how wonderfully moreish they are:
Labels: ART DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, Baking, Baking and Patisserie, London Blog, Mustard on White Postcard, Slutty Brownies, tate
Saturday 6 April 2013
Amsterdam: Day 1: Donderdag .(scribbled at 15:19 )
The best holidays are those that are filled with an abundance of galleries, wine bars and an entire good chunk of apple tart. In a nutshell, that’s all I got up to in Amsterdam, but because I like a good internet nattering, I’m going to stretch out a few blog entries devoted to my Netherlands gallivanting because I know you all just can’t resist seeing photographs of me sizing up pieces of my own birthday cake, non?
Unflattering photograph of me stuffing my face over, let’s continue in what was the sugariest few days of my life. Prepare for many a photograph of cake and contemporary art over the following few posts. Admittedly, the breakfast I baked for my mother and I before checking in for our flight
should have been a little healthier, but I was so proud of my home baked croissants* that I just couldn’t resist scoffing these on the Piccadilly line to Heathrow. If you see the previous post, I should have mentioned that I had one or two brownies left over from birthday cake shenanigans at work, so I wrapped my croissant dough around these for a new artery-destroying take on
pain au chocolat. They were so immensely divine, it almost made waking up before 6am to try and cram everything into my weekend bag seem kind of worth it.
Although the inevitable feeling of travelling is quite exciting at the time, I hate packing. There’s just something about trying to plan each outfit and
exactly what you’ll need for a set period of time that doesn’t quite put me at ease. Especially when you’ve got to cram it into a 12kg hand luggage allowance imposed by your airline. Thankfully, royal Dutch airlines (KLM) are pretty lenient when you go to check in, and I developed a crush on them after the complimentary
stroopwaffel and brilliant red wine they serve on board. There is nothing quite like trying to navigate a new foreign language and airport when you’re a wee bit pissed.
I’ve been back in London a month now, and I’m already longing to visit again just by writing this post. The architecture is brilliant, and peeking into an estate agent window or two in Amsterdam revealed that these 17th century canal ring houses are much more affordable than any Georgian terrace in London.
The Dutch are a particularly friendly bunch too- locals actually went out of their way to ask us if we needed directions to somewhere in the city, which is utterly mind blowing. Generally, if a tourist approaches a Londoner for directions they run in the opposite direction at full speed, as their hectic schedule simply does not allow time for helping a tourist in their own city. What was more impressive, is that 10minutes into arriving at Centraal station, the hottest Dutch man
ever asked to take a photograph of me when he noticed my mother was still trying to get the hang of using my DSLR. This made my
day week month. Unfortunately my hair looks ridiculously white against the background...
We spotted these seats outside our hotel, that run along adjacent to the Stedelijk Museum. They're so comfy!
We took it relatively easy after checking into our hotel on Museumplein, and stocked up at the local Albert Heijn for more stroopwaffel. Not exactly a necessity, but syrup-filled waffels are worryingly addictive in Holland. I wish a branch of this supermarket would open in England. Not only are all Dutch supermarkets stocked with an amazing amount of artisan chocolates, but this one actually stocks a wine called ‘Fat Bastard’. Oh, how delightful it would be to pop into Waitrose tomorrow afternoon and ask for a bottle of that.
I was utterly delighted that I was living next door to the Stedelijk for the next few days, so I wandered around its vast collection for the remainder of the evening. If you’re on short on time and can’t justify the €17.50 entrance fee, then pop into the gift shop for sure. There’s a plethora of bookcases dedicated to art and design, and they have a really cool selection of unique gifts for
anyone. My mom was a little entranced by their home interiors section, and after buying a few little museum souvenirs I found myself leafing through a publication about Alvar Aalto.
The museum has a brilliant collection of furniture and design. This is Milkflessenlamp (Milk Bottle Lamp) by Tejo Remy, who hails from the Netherlands. Although I prefer this version that the Stedelijk have in their own collection, you can buy singular milk bottle lamps from the designer, for somewhere in the region of €120. To see his work a little closer to home, I suggest you head over to the V&A and gorm at 'You can't lay down your memories' for several minutes. It's in the National Art Library over there, and his use of reclaimed existing furniture is pretty impressive too.
I really like Joseph Kosuth's
"Five Fives (to Donald Judd)" (1972. Above photograph). And there was a pretty garish wall drawing by Sol LeWitt in their upstairs gallery too, which made me feel pleasantly sick. Through the rooms
dedicated to suprematism and German Expressionism, I was thrilled to walk into Matisse's "La Perruchet et la Sirène" (The Parakeet and the Mermaid, 1952-53). One of his gouache on paper works, this piece was made around the same time as
his famous
L'escargot.
I was somewhat against believing all those tourist guides I’d read prior to traveling, that had said to book tables in advance wherever possible. I’m pretty happy I went along with my gut instinct, as my mother and I had no problems at all in getting a table anywhere in the city for the entire 4 days. However, I should have followed The Lonely Planet Guide’s advice in which it states that not many restaurants open past 9 or 10 at night. Of course, I’d spent far too much time with the Futurist paintings and now we were utterly famished, and restaurants were few and far between at this time.
Well, there’s this place a little further South West than Museumplein called ‘La Falote’, and it was pretty much down to the pun in the name alone that we ended up dining there...and partly because I'd spotted a few Thonet chairs at one of the back tables. Leaning towards mainly Dutch cuisine, La Falote was somewhat of a haven amongst the usual touristy streets of Amsterdam-Zuid. A cosy and intimate space, the walls are adorned with various Amsterdam ephemera and letters to Peter van der Linden , the restaurant’s owner and chef.
I was nearly swayed by vegetarian salad, but I gave into the enormous plate of potatoes that came alongside the daily special of ‘Grandma’s Fried Chicken’. Whilst I’m aware of how unappetising the name of that dish sounds, I physically can’t describe how utterly delicious it was. Based on a unique recipe concocted by dear old Peter the most incredible piece of carcass arrived drenched in a sea of rich sauces and herbs. I have never tasted roast potatoes that were this damn tasty. I’m afraid I’m not cool enough to instagram everything I eat, so you’ll just have to take my word for it!
The restaurant was pretty quiet on this Thursday evening, which meant that the waitress gave me and my mother her undivided attention (and endless baskets of garlic bread- hurrah!), but the best part was getting to know Peter van der Linden’s other craft: music. In between visits to the kitchen to check on how the chicken was cooking, Peter would come out and start playing his accordion! I thought I was fairly skilled at multitasking, but I am now sold to the next man who can cook me dinner and serenade me at the same time. Although the selection of desserts sounded pretty tempting, all those potatoes had given me a food baby so I passed on the pudding. If you’re planning a visit, I should warn you that it’s a little pricey (Grandma’s Fried Chicken cost a whopping €17, 50 each!), but totally worth it. Words cannot describe what it’s like watching your mother get serenaded by an accordionist as she tries to delicately nibble on a chicken leg.
Ps: If you remember my earlier posts at the beginning of March and the end of February about how much I was aching to try Cocomaya’s Liqorice and Hemp Dark Chocolate… Well, I persisted for 4 days straight trying to finish this bar and I couldn’t even eat more than a few lines of it. It tasted absolutely vile, and after a brief spell trying to not regurgitate it, I can safely say I’ve been put off liquorice altogether. That said, Cocomaya do a Paris Tarte Tatin Chocolate too, so there’s always room for further chocolate based experimentation.
*okay,
so they weren’t entirely homemade. I’d discovered Jus-Roll’s ready-to-roll
croissant dough in Sainsbury’s a few weeks ago and I do genuinely believe this
has changed my life for the better.
Labels: Amsterdam, ART DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, KLM, Sartorial, Stroopwaffel, Travel Blog
Wednesday 6 March 2013
Off to Amsterdam/See you next week. .(scribbled at 23:05 )
A few years ago, I had a job at a contemporary gallery which largely involved arranging itineraries, transportation and accommodation for an artist. As demanding a role as this sounds, it was actually one of the best experiences of working in galleries that I’ve had. The artist was an absolute pleasure to work with (and shared a love of patatas bravas, which can only be a good thing! I now work in a very different department, which is equally incredible, albeit a tad less glamorous at times:
Now, fast forward a few years and it is a whole different story. I am meant to be on a flight to Amsterdam in 12 hours, and I have literally spent my entire evening pigging out on cakes and brownies due to stress. Along with the internet intermittently breaking, I am actually finding it somewhat impossible to check myself in for my own flight. This is ridiculous… I have become somewhat inept at confirming my own itinerary, but could manage someone else’s at complete ease a few years ago. Anyway, I was suddenly thinking about how this reminds me of my friend Lucy’s blog post, which is aptly titled “Stressed is Desserts Spelt Backwards”. That said, as much as I wanted to be a good blogger and post about a cake I made to help relieve stress, I’m going to have to ‘fess up and just admit that I ate a box of Sainsbury’s brownies and an entire Victoria Sponge to myself instead (see photograph*). Yes, as much as my waistline is not thanking me for either of those, at least I stayed loyal to the name of my blog, right? Hopefully, tomorrow afternoon will be spent with both Vermeer and Victoria Sponge at the Rijksmusuem. That’s if I manage to finally manage to navigate this online check in process….
In the meantime, it is my birthday this weekend and I’m currently in a quandary of what to treat myself to. It’s a pretty big birthday (boo!) but that means that splashing out is entirely justifiable. I’ve wanted a McQueen skull scarf for a fair few years now, but for the past few months I’ve became a little bit obsessed with the razor blade motif. I love this one fromHarvey Nicks, although I really can’t decide if I should be looking at an investment piece, like a watch, or something that I actually need.
I think I’m becoming too sensible for my own good.
*The rest of those delicious cakes in the photograph weren’t actually all scoffed by me. I shared the coffee and chocolate cakes with folk at work, for a bit of pre-birthday celebrations. The other box of brownies I gave to one of the homeless guys on Euston road.
Labels: Amsterdam, ART DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, Baking, Stress
Sunday 3 March 2013
Pink hair and other paraphernalia. .(scribbled at 14:35 )
It is a good day when a blogger can tick 4 things off their wish list within a couple of hours. And whilst my wish list doesn't consist of MAC lipsticks, Essie nail polish or Disco Pants from American Apparel (why do these crop up on blogs ALL THE TIME?!), I have happily spent/wasted money on material things. But BOY DOES IT FEEL GOOD.
 |
| The Silence Room at Selfridges, designed by Alex Cochrane Architects |
First and foremost, I have pink hair, which is honestly the most cost effective way of brightening your skin and enhancing your mood without resorting to spending £100 at the Dior counter. I am going to be so gutted when this fades out altogether, as I just can't get enough of it. I'd rather not admit how little I've washed my hair in the past week, as with all Crazy Colour hair dyes, they tend to fade at an alarming rate. I'm only 1 week in and it's already gone from the same shade that Katy Perry sported in October 2011 for InStyle magazine to (currently) the same shade as Helen Mirren's barnet. I am pondering a shade of blue or turquoise for my next hair-destroying adventure, but candyfloss-tinted hair attracts so many compliments that it's quite hard to give up. I went to the Manet: Portraying life exhibition on Friday night, and every Front of House team member there stopped to tell me they loved my hair. Admittedly, I went to the exhibition purely for two reasons alone;
1. To see The Portrait of Carolus-Duran (1876). Many years ago when I was still at school, I used to spend many a weekend volunteering at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts. Nearly every lunch break was spent admiring Manet’s über-cool brushwork (and Carolus-Duran’s dashing riding boots too, for that matter). I heard that this painting was on loan for the exhibition, so I had to go see it to relive some pretty fond memories.
2. To try and distract myself from wanting to move to another city. I often visit galleries to remind myself that I moved to London for its brilliant art scene and how I should be really making the most of that, instead of harking on about how I want to move to Paris/Liverpool/Manchester (delete as appropriate). Now, although I knew Manet spent most of his 51 years in Paris, I didn’t think reading about that in the exhibition would make me pine for Neuilly-Sur-Seine at all. How very wrong I was, by the time you reach the third gallery space, you literally walk into an oversized map of Paris, with ‘AVENUE DU ROULE’ shouting at me in all its classiness. Even though my time in Neuilly was exceptionally brief compared to my current London adventures, I miss waking up on that classy road.
Shortly after penning my last wishlist, I caved in and bought a new square-ruled Moleskine sketchbook, which even fits into my oversize studded clutch bag, meaning it will accompany me everywhere. I also caved in and bought the Hypnôse Star mascara that I spoke about, which is a ridiculously expensive purchase considering that I fly off to Amsterdam on Thursday morning and I currently have about €5 to my name sitting in my European purse. I had some pretty good career-related news last week (I’ll blog about this nugget of information next month), but my brother bought me a congratulations gift of a new Rouge in Love lipstick, in a delicious shade of Rouge St. Honoré (also known as 181N). I’ve been a slave to their Violette Coquette shade for so long, but this red is really wearable, and somehow compliments my pink hair really well! My previous go-to red lippie was the sultry-looking Caprice from Lancôme’s L’Absolu Rouge range, but they don’t feel as moisturising or rich as the RiL shades do.
Whilst I'm aware that it is March already, I'll be writing a new 'Liste de Tâches' once I'm back from Amsterdam. Before I set off for Heathrow, I’ve got a fair amount of ‘personal admin’ to be getting on with (e.g- find my mislaid passport), as well as going to a meeting at The Photographers’ Gallery on Tuesday and finding time to bake a batch of croissants because admittedly, that did not get ticked off my To-Do list for February.
Thankfully, some areas of my life are in better organisation. I did buy some of Cocomaya's 'Amsterdam' chocolate earlier in the week (in the background of above image), which I'm going to scoff for breakfast with my mother when I meet her at Kings Cross next week before we head to the airport. I picked this up in Selfridges, as Cocomaya’s European-City-Chocolate is now being sold at the Oxford Street branch. Ah-mazing! This particular infusion contains actual hemp extract (!)
To skim over everything else that's happened since my last post:
I spent last weekend lazing around in the delights of Sutton Coldfield, eating apple pie with my grandmother, which set me up for this week’s madness. I was at the V&A on Tuesday evening for their Design Cultures Salon, which is part of a series of events where a set of speakers talk about Design Theory and how certain external elements are affecting the Design community. This particular discussion was thematically concerned with the notion of Design Activism. I have a lot to blog about with these, but I’ll be writing a full write-up of the events once I’ve attended the following 2 sessions, which are ‘How does design function during a recession’ and ‘How does design produce new publics’. The last of the series isn’t until the end of April, so pop back to have a read about the sessions once May is here.
The following morning, I set off for Birmingham to interview candidates for a Project Assistant role at Ikon Gallery… I met so many talented people that day, it was pretty inspiring! This was a chance to sample the delights of Café Opus, which is the newly opened restaurant that sits on the ground floor of Ikon. After an afternoon drinking delicately-crafted flat white coffee, it has firmly cemented itself as the best place for a caffeine fix in Brum. And for a light lunch too, for that matter! I opted for their tasty Salmon & Chive Cake with watercress and wild rocket leaves (£6), which was followed up with an equally as tasty glass of house red wine that evening, which was very reasonably priced too. And the best part of Café Opus? ITS DAMN GOOD TASTE IN FURNITURE. As soon as I figure out where they get their designer chairs from, I will devote an entire post to how utterly beautiful they are.
I met my mother that morning for a Krispy Kreme breakfast at Selfridges to finalise Amsterdam plans (okay, so I’d scoffed a whopping eight croissants at London Euston prior to boarding the train that morning, but who can resist those doughnuts?!) Anyway, we popped into Zara and my mom spotted this blazer which I snapped up in an instant. As something that isn’t grey or black, this is quite a sartorial leap for me, but it’s really versatile, and the print seems very Netherlands-y. Ish. I had to crop my legs out of this photo as no one wants to see a pair of pale bruised legs after devouring a Sunday roast dinner. I’ve managed to (sort of) resist wearing this until I go on holiday, but this is what I wore to the Lichtenstein retrospective at Tate Modern yesterday.
This bottom of these images is an automatic drawing machine, which was mind blowing, quite frankly.
...And it is only as I now hit the 'publish blog post' button on Blogger.com after inherently waffling on about how much unnecessary stuff I’ve bought do I now realise that:
a- I’ve forgotten to pay my rent for the month
b- My oyster card has a mere 60p on it
Merde.
Labels: ART DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, Cafe Opus Ikon, Candyfloss Crazy Color Review, Ceri Hand Gallery, CLOTM, Lancome Maquillage, Manet Portraying Life, Sartorial, The Barber Institute, V and A Salon
Monday 18 February 2013
Bayswater Road: Fine Art Sundays .(scribbled at 22:19 )
It’s all too easy to become comfortable with where you live, and easily forget what it’s like to be a tourist in your own city. I have a bucket list of things I need to do/see in London before I move to another city. It varies from rowing a boat across the Serpentine (completed last Summer) to having a mooch inside Battersea Power Station (may never actually be completed). Anyway, I’ve been ticking it all off pretty slowly in recent months, so was delighted when the opportunity arose for a wander around Notting Hill to eat lots of pastry. Seeing Notting Hill is on said bucket list, but I just haven’t got round to it I guess. I have been out in West London on 2 occasions prior to this, if you count being a member on a studio audience actually 'going out', that is...
Well, Notting Hill is pretty damn nice actually. In addition to the
amazing Coronet cinema, there’s the usual plethora of nice cafés, discounted book stores and overpriced charity shops but what really made it for me was
Recipease, one of Jamie Oliver’s restaurant-cum-café-cum-grocery store. I cannot even begin to describe what it’s like to go food shopping and see a chef out the corner of your eye whipping up a sponge cake a mere few yards away. I totally died and went to foodie heaven. That, and coming across my first ever branch of
Butlers , which is a German home interiors shop were definitely some of my weekend highlights. I have just realised how middle aged I sound now, so let’s move on.
It’s only when your Sunday morning is spent trawling through the abundance of greasy spoons in New Cross that you begin to realise that you might have overdone it on the previous night’s Cuban Daiquiris. Hangovers are becoming more prevalent now than ever, but a stroll through Kensington Gardens and along the Bayswater Road was exactly what I needed. Well, that and the 2 paninis and loaf of brioche I scoffed in W2 that afternoon.
Every Sunday, Bayswater Road plays host to a number of artists across London, all looking to sell work along their individual pitches on the pavement. It’s comparable to Montmartre in Paris, albeit with less mimes and artists asking to create a caricature of your face.
After a considerable amount of browsing, I’d pretty much fallen for
this work by Liz Lees, one of the artists there. Her illustrations are so adorable, and with Mother’s Day approaching scarily soon, I reckon you should opt for a unique gift like this, rather than caving in to Thornton’s the afternoon before Mothering Sunday. I’m not making a trip to Habitat for frames for another week, so I’m going to keep this painting firmly in its brilliant packing until then. If I can, I’m going to salvage this Bayswater Road Tape that Liz used for the wrapping.
Also, I made a Friday night jaunt to the new Rosemarie Trockel show at The Serpentine Gallery, and after my previous ravings about how good the Jonas Mekas retrospective was, it’s a bit weird saying that this show is just as brilliant. But really, it is. I did only spend 10 minutes in the first gallery mind, but the rest of it was awesome. From stop frame animations to beautifully illustrated books, this is definitely one of those shows that I imagine I’ll keep revisiting until the exhibition closes on April 7th. If you are over that way fairly soon though, I recommend you take a really close look at the 12 handmade notebooks in the glass vitrine. Seeing exhibitions in their opening week is always an interesting experience anyway; when I arrived it seemed that they still hadn’t quite decided on how much light they needed projecting through to the gallery space so every now and then I was sporadically plunged into momentary darkness.
Before I forget, I’d like to share something that happened in Koenig shortly after, which peeved me off a little. Koenig is the Serpentine's tiny little bookshop that sits in its foyer. Like everyone else, I was innocently having a mooch through the artist monographs on sale when suddenly, this couple of young twenty-something hipsters walked in, and the guy hipster pounced on the unsuspecting bookshop assistant. Now, it's a very small bookshop so you can hear everything regardless, but said hipster is one of those that speaks unnecessarily loudly (and sounded quite toff-like...). Their conversation went a little like this:
Hipster: You work here?
Bookshop Assistant: Eum, yes... can I help you
Hipster: I'm on my way to the airport and it's a long flight. I need a book. Recommend one.
Bookshop Assistant: What type were you thinking?
Hipster: An art book
Bookshop Assistant: Yes, I assumed that, but what kind o-
Hipster: Something readable, I don't have time to browse.
Bookshop assistant quickly scours the shelves surrounding him.
Bookshop Assistant: Well, Gombrich's Story of Art is a classic, and really readable
Hipster: Are you being serious?
Bookshop assistant: My god (!). I read that book when I was fourteen. You cannot be serious.
....
at that point, I was itching to interject and say "What, you read that a whole 6 months ago?". but I managed to restrain myself. If there's anything that annoys me in retail, it's a rude customer (and this is coming from someone with zero retail experience). But what made it so much worse was the snobbery and arrogance executed by this egotistical somethingorother. I mean, how was the Koenig guy meant to know that anyway, he was only being helpful. After stating that the Koenig guy was inept at helping him, the two hipsters remained in the shop, with the other hipster bragging loudly to the other about how utterly amazing she's doing in her Art History major. Eugh. Yawn.
Anyway, another weekend over in what seems like 2 shakes of a marmoset’s tail and I'm already anticipating this forthcoming one, which is going to be spent eating obscene amounts of Victoria Sponge with my Grandma. Brilliant.
Labels: ART DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, Bayswater Road, Bayswater Road Fine Art Sundays, Hipster Run Ins, Notting Hill, Serpentine Gallery
