A Very Merry English Christmas

  

I had a lovely Christmas at the Hillier’s in Swindon, my old stomping ground. I got a great big stocking from Santa at the foot of my bed in the morning too! Beth and Lucy tried to teach me to juggle but I failed miserably. They, on the other hand, are very good.

We had a Christmas breakfast with sparkling wine and bagels and croissants, salmon and ham, then went for a great big walk around Coate Water in the snow – which was absolutely stunning.

     

The lake was completely frozen over, and some mad person had made a snow angel on the ice.

I head back to London tomorrow which I’m looking forward to. Swindon hasn’t changed much, but it was nice to visit. I’ll come back again for a weekend and have a proper look round and hopefully catch up with people.

Peace y’all x

Merry Christmas Eve, World!

I’m heading over to Swindon, my childhood stomping ground, at lunchtime today to spend Christmas with Beth and her family. Hopefully there will be a few others I can catch up with too!

  

I also forgot to say, I’ve got a job! Working as an assistant to the director’s of a small design and technology company called Metabroadcast. They work in the media industry doing lots of lovely computer programming. (Ironic that I’m working for a computer programming company, Dad?) I start in January so will start looking for a flat then too.

Tate Modern: My Favourites

 

In the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern was a huge area covered in what looked like gravel. A few people had joked about it before I went, but no one said that it wasn’t gravel – it was millions of tiny handmade porcelain sunflower seeds! It was amazing!

Sunflower Seeds, by Ai Weiwei, is made up of 100 million unique life-sized sunflower seed husks. Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen.

Part of the description beside the work at the Tate said that “Sunflower Seeds invites us to look more closely at the ‘Made in China’ phenomenon and the geo-politics of cultural and economic exchange today.”

A video showed the whole process of the clay being dug from the mines, to the seeds being sculpted and painted, baked and shipped to Tate Modern. The people who made the seeds have been porcelain makers for thousand years, previously to the Emperor’s of China. They have less and less work as porcelain becomes less coveted, but they loved the new project (which they didn’t really understand) of making the seeds, and hoped that the artist would ask them to make something else for his works.

 

 

I loved all of David Shrigley’s works, they had quite a collection. Little ink and paper drawings all over the wall.

 

Franz Roh – Total Panic II, 1937 This is a collage of etchings that was in the surrealist gallery. Having said I don’t really like surrealism, I actually liked a lot of the works there. This was in a little frame on a wall of with lots of other small works.

 

Lee Krasner was the wife of Jackson Pollock, and she painted this after his death in a car accident. It is quite a large work in real life and full of emotion, and big sweeping strokes.

 

This is HUGE, and I love the colours merging into each other, and the thickness of the paint, and how it looks like someone has cut out a little square of an impressionist painting and blown it up to be two meters tall. I had the biggest urge to touch this one. I don’t think they appreciate that at the Tate though…

 

I always wished I could paint like this, with unrealistic/brighter colours and big blobby brushstrokes. Never quite managed it so I’ll just envy Derain’s portrait of Matisse instead. Go Fauvism!

Lots and lots of snow

 

I guess you all know how lovely the weather has been here lately. NOT. Well, kinda actually. It snowed about 10cm and everywhere is blanketed (and I’m in zone 2 – almost central London!) The snow makes London lovely, quiet, and friendly. I went for a walk and people smiled and said hello, cars got stuck in the road and pedestrians helped get them going again (Lots and lots and lots of stuck cars – the car in the photo above is stuck too.) There were snowmen everywhere, and kids in the council flats across the road pelting each other in snowballs (and unlucky passers-by like me.) The tube stations in our area were shut so I didn’t make it into town to meet Kit’s sister, but Jenny and I still got to the movies by walking to Finchley road. We saw The American, with George Clooney, which was quite good (like a little Italian film, but with George). We had Pizza Express for dinner (which was not as good as I remember) and Ben and Jerry’s for dessert (which was SUBLIME, but sickly).

LOOK A FOX!!

Jenny spotted is while I was taking photos so I turned around and got about six shots of him. Not a scaredy-fox at all! We saw another one in the cemetery from the window at home as well. They have creepy glowing eyes.

  

There is an outdoor gym in Kilburn Park which was quite fun but slippery to play on in the snow! And here is a lovely picture of Jenny all wrapped up against the icy weather.

Stay warm everybody! (And slip, slop, slap and wrap antipodeans!) x

Tate Modern: Nostalgia moments

I made it to the Tate modern on Friday night for their late close. SO GLAD I DID. It’s my new favourite place. I saw so many things I loved, and a few I didn’t but these were all ones I’d known of before, and was so excited to see.

This was on the cover of one of the art books I had at high school, and I never knew much about it. The book was smaller than A5 size, the artwork itself a massive 2.8 squared meters. It took up an entire wall and was actually painted by Matisse’s assistants, and then cut up by him to form a giant collage. It was the final piece of art created by him before he died.

 

An exhibition came to Wellington at the start of the year called The Impressionist’s, and there were lots of Monet’s paintings. I’ve loved Monet’s works since high school and art history, and this was a huge piece that took my breath away!

 

Having put this picture up I realised I never saw it at the Tate. I bought the postcard afterwards at the gift shop, but in fourth form art we had to copy a portrait by a famous artist and I chose this one by Picasso. Now I’ll have to go back next time it gets put on display! It isn’t like the Picasso’s that you usually think of, but I love the brushstrokes, and from what I can remember this was painted in Picasso’s ‘blue stage’. Actually, having just done some quick research, it was painted in his ‘rose period’, after his blue period, yet in the blue period style – influenced by the death of a friend.

 

I’ve never been a huge fan of Salvador Dali – surrealism generally annoys me somewhat, but this in the flesh is amazing. The brushwork, the colours, as well as the clever mind-blowing aspects pertaining to the story of Narcissus gave me a massive appreciation for Dali. It also reminds me of my dear friend Becca – so how could I not love it?!

 

Man Ray Man Ray Man Ray! I just like his name. And it reminds me of my mum, I think she has a postcard on the fridge of it from our last visit to the Tate before moving to New Zealand. I really like the fish too…

 

Oh man, I had completely forgotten about this artwork til seeing it in the surrealist gallery. Again a high school art piece, we made similar pieces when learning about perspective and I find Da Silva fascinating. LOVE.

It’s been snowing again today

So I went to take a walk around the cemetery. The sun is starting to set now (3pm) which is slightly depressing, but it looks very pretty with the rays of sunshine over the gravestones.

     

I was hoping to go to the Tate Modern tonight, but I’ve overbooked myself for the entire weekend so I might have to do some shuffling. I’m meeting the sister of a dear friend tomorrow, and then Cally, and going to Brick Lane with Jenny, and I need to do Christmas shopping (and work out what I’m doing for Christmas), and then I’m catching up with some old school friends from Swindon too!

I’m also waiting on a job that I’ve been in the process of applying for. I went to their Christmas function on Wednesday night and met them all, nice bunch, a little start up company with great atmosphere, so fingers crossed. I can’t wait to start working, I’m a bit stir crazy – no friends during the week and little motivation to tackle the great outdoors! (Plus limited funds.. but I’m making a grand plan for next Monday about how I’m going to tackle or the free London exhibits!) I’ve done lots of baking though! I guess December is not the greatest time to come to the UK alone!

Here’s an awesome Kanye video to watch

since I’m not writing anything interesting (though fingers crossed for exciting news later in the week!) I’m going to go make Nana’s anzac biscuits I think.

Ice skating and santas

Last night we went ice skating at the Natural History Museum in Kensington which was SO PRETTY. But also insanely busy. Jenny likened it to walking down Oxford Street in ice skates.

  

And then today I went and met up with dear Katie O’Brien, a childhood friend who has grown to be much taller than I. It was lovely seeing her! I met her at Covent Garden, which was completely packed, and madness. I suddenly realised where all of my London memories are from having been to Covent Garden today! We visited the Dr Marten shop which is one of the most distinct places in my mind (the Doc Martens aren’t as cool as I remember though), and I tried to take lots of photos, but I had my new lense in, which I’ve discovered isn’t very good at taking photos of distances. I will get there though!

   

Then we wandered down Fleet Street to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery (I saw paintings by Van Gogh, and Seurat’s, and Rembrandts, Da Vinci’s, dozens of paintings we studied at school!! I’m definitely going back when it’s quieter…. and it’s free!)

BUT! As we approached Trafalgar Square we started seeing a few Santas about the place. And then!!

   

A Santa Flash mob. YAY!