More arty memories found in the files

The clearing out of the Downloads file, started weeks ago and tackled intermittently, seems never ending. However I've discovered that with the screen configuration set to preview the selected file, it's easy to see what an untitled photo is. 

by Tapies

graphite works by Penone

my "Wide Blue Yonder" books at Kiev art book fair

"Memory of Cloth" exhibition, Saltaire

 Moving away from art into other realms -

Simple and lovely tool roll, source unknown

Scaffolding structures

Birthday cake!

Preparing xmas eve dinner 2012 - sprout-stalk saxophone playing

Artisanal videos

This parody catches it all - "they perfectly nail every line, trope, cliché and camera shot of the genre. It is the perfect video, right down to the background music, the cinematography and the name of the company" -

watch it here.

Working gold

Short video about working with gold, as a jeweller, is here. It complements a free exhibition at the Goldsmiths' Centre, till 19 November.

Poetry Thursday - Alec Finlay's infra-extraordinariness

from: Alec Finlay Question your teaspoons: Stonypathian memories (Dunbar: Calder Wood Press, 2012)
reviewed here (Glasgow Review of Books, 2013)

One of those things you come across when you're looking for something else ... and it resonates.

The review starts in a resonant way, too -

This is how space begins, with words only, signs traced on the blank page. To describe space: to name it, to trace it, like those portolano-makers who saturated the coastlines with the names of harbours, the names of capes, the names of inlets, until in the end the land was only separated from the sea by a continuous ribbon of text. Is the aleph, that place in Borges from which the entire world is visible simultaneously, anything other than an alphabet?

Georges Perec, Species of Spaces (1974)

Alec Finlay – whose Question your teaspoons borrows its title from Perec – has long been something of a portolano-maker, using poetry as a means to explore space – ‘to name it, to trace it’ – and in so doing, to inhabit it."

Portolan lines, you've seen them on old charts, gridding the seas. Here they are again, in the ceiling of the courtyard at maritime museum, Amsterdam -

Alec Finlay was born in 1966. Stonypath, his childhood home, is better known today as poetry garden Little Sparta. His father is artist Ian Hamilton Finlay, who made that garden as well as Wild Hawthorn Press.

Finlay is more than "just" a poet - his work takes various forms and media, including sculpture, collage, audio-visual, neon, and new technologies; often it reflects on human engagement with landscape.

Whitechapel High Street miscellany

Whitechapel Bell Foundry - 500 years of history

This end is near the City ... building yet more office space?

Drawing Tuesday - British Museum

Instead of drawing barkcloth from the South Pacific, as planned, due to an emergency closure of the gallery we found ourselves in Africa. And made the best of it!

I've admired this carved door (Igbo people, Nigeria, 20th century) many times, enjoying the way the relief changes with the angle of the light -

Charcoal pencil - rubbed on the back to transfer to adjoining page

 Due to the lack of sketching stools, I settled on the floor behind a display case -

 ...but omitted to get details of the fabrics

Caryl revisited a metal insect -

She had drawn it two years ago (lower page), and this time had another go from a different angle, from the rear -

 The Benin Bronzes provided subjects for Cathy and for Sue -

While Cathy was drawing the bird, a child on a school visit asked her to draw one for him on his activity sheet (which she did) -

 Sue went for some details too -

 ... as well as this figure -

This statue provided Sue with two views -

 Mags was in the other room with the pottery and the throwing knives.

A closeup of one of the knives -

 Janet too was drawn to the pottery -

 ...and also to some bellows -

Water ewer in the shape of a ram - by Cathy (above), and by Janet (during previous session)

It was amusing to see the schoolgirls who were also in the gallery to draw, and also without sketching stools -

Pastures new

Off to the Land of Faery Tale...  (via)

Today, if all goes to plan, we'll be on the train to Annecy - for a house swap. Just in case I hadn't learned how to blog on the ipad, I've been preparing posts in an attempt to catch up with places seen and things done earlier in the month. (Can one ever "catch up"? Should one bother to try?)

The "toys" in my bag are drawing materials - a small sketchbook, a propelling pencil, and a pen - and my knitting, a scarf of 40% Shetland, 40% Bluefaced Leicester, and 20% alpaca. And camera, ipad, phone - and their chargers. Stitching? - hasty stuffing of small bag with fabric and thread for October journal quilt. Reading? - at time of writing The Book hasn't been decided - reading while on holiday doesn't usually work for me, nor does watching local tv. Drinking local wine - now that's more interesting ... and bracing walks to find suitable vinous venues.

Despite some research in order to find a picture for this post, I have no idea of what this place will "really" be like. Picturesque, no doubt!

New gallery

A gallery between Vauxhall and Waterloo tube stations, funded by Damien Hirst and showing work from his collection, has just opened. It's called Newport Street Gallery and was a wool factory, rebuilt after WW2, and had been studios. Big space!! Free entry, closed Mondays. There's a shop (Hirst-heavy) but no caf - though Beaconsfield Gallery nearby has a caf, and there's a pub further along, with a view of a pop-up garden inspired by a Barbara Hepworth textile design. Seriously.

Back to the gallery: the current exhibition is of work by John Hoyland (1934-2011). BIG canvases, looking good in the big space -

 The view from upstairs -

And everything is so new, so fresh - here's an architectural detail -

Outside view (via) -

Across the road are garages etc in the arches of the railway -

After seeing Hoyland