Domestic details

Monday, the start of the work week - which means running a load of washing, and settling down to get our "jobs" out of the way.

Tony is putting together his school magazine at Mission Control Central, and I've established a satellite work station, miles away in then next room.

The need for a satellite station arises from my computer being old and cranky - it won't accept wifi and therefore needs an ethernet cable, which means it needs to be near the router, and to a power source ... I'll spare you the saga of getting a power cable (left mine at home...).

This morning I hope to get very, very near to finishing the CQ newsletter, and with any luck we'll make our way to the Bruecke-Museum this afternoon.

Modern life needs so many chargers! (each with an adapter)

My view from the breakfast table in the kitchen

We're trying out various kinds of Broetchen

I'm enjoying using this cup

Enormous tree in the courtyard

Bins and bikeshed in the courtyard

Fledgling jays hanging out around the bikesheds - they're
rather dozy, and we see the parents flying into the trees often

Across the street is cafe Double Eye - deservedly popular - delicious coffee!

Monday is recycling collection day - snazzy truck and coordinated outfits

Original details in the flat - ceiling mouldings in some rooms

A lovely handle

Big hinges on huge doors!

The smooth bend of the stair rail

Fish-eye view of the stairwell

Berggruen Museum

Arriving at the museum late in the afternoon, we had time only for the old building, the Picassos, and hope to return to see the exhibition in the extension (Matisse, Giacometti, Klee). There's a short introductory video for the museum here; an image gallery is here.

The exhibition "Sideways" had a selection of works by Klee and a mobile or two by Alexander Calder - the highlight was a delightful film of Calder's circus, made in 1961 by Carlos Vilardebo (see it here).

Among the Picassos - rooms and rooms of them! - were some African sculptures, including this "Large Kalao Bird" (Senufo; Ivory Coast), which I quickly tried to draw -

Other favourite Picassos -

Self portrait 1904 in its lovely frame

Striking hatching 

Are they ghosts or are they "real"?

"Our" street

Of an evening

By day

Another stretch

Acacia blossoms on Akazienstrasse

Berlin miscellany, Charlottenberg

Railings round Carl Schumann sports centre (he won 4 medals at the 1896 Olympics)

Satellite tv

Historic Feuermelder 

6pm, Charlottenberg palace

"Two sun loungers to give away"

"Walking pace"

After finally sorting out our monthly travel passes, and it being a lovely summer's day, we set out for the park behind the Charlottenberg palace - getting lost in the Bismarkstrasse shopping conglomeration and finding ourselves eventually at the shady cafe attached to the Charlottenberg-Wilmersdorf history museum (not visited). At the Berggruen museum we sorted out the annual museum ticket (50 euros for entry to 19 state museums in the city) and saw what seemed like all of the museum's 120 Picassos. Then another cafe visit across the road at the palace.

Wheat beer with raspberry (could become addictive)

The trip home was enlivened by an encounter with a good-natured but tipsy passle of Edinburgh lads, getting in the mood for the Champions League match the next day but having problems with navigating. The maps on line U7 include other lines, and indeed the carriage has a map of  different lines on the other side of the aisle, so what with the long station names and the smallness of the print, it was no wonder the lads were confused. We told them to get off at the stop after us, but one of them managed to get off with us, somewhat dazed - his mates hauled him back in.

Other highlights of the day were a visit to Hilaneh von Kories gallery round the corner, showing photos by Bill Permutter of Europe in the 1950s; falafel "sandwich" from the shop downstairs for lunch (quite a queue; 3 euros, delicious); and on the way home, discovery of two turkish supermarkets nearby, where we got the ingredients for watermelon and feta salad for supper on the balcony.

Olive section, turkish supermarket

Scene in passing

Balcony on Belziger Str, Schoeneberg

Poetry Thursday - "Cut Grass" by Philip Larkin

Cut Grass

Cut grass lies frail:
Brief is the breath
Mown stalks exhale.
Long, long the death

It dies in the white hours
Of young-leafed June
With chestnut flowers,
With hedges snowlike strewn,

White lilac bowed,
Lost lanes of Queen Anne's lace,
And that high-builded cloud
Moving at summer's pace.

-- Philip Larkin (via) - hear him read it here

"Captures the transient beauty of a June day with a wistful perfection" says the Journal of Experimental Botany (from which the photo comes). 

The website of the Philip Larkin Society says: "This is sometimes thought as in some ways a companion piece to ‘The Trees’, and another tying Larkin elegiacally to an England somewhere in the middle of the last century. But ‘The Trees’ is a discussion and a reflection on mortality, the possibility for change, the impermanence of life, and the possibility of renewal, another use of the image of a tree as a life force (as in ‘Love Songs in Age’). A bundle of tightly compressed metaphors. ‘Cut Grass’, on the other hand is almost pure imagery. The poet is completely invisible. ... The observational detail is total, unmodulated, unrefracted by any thought of the writer."

Philip Larkin (1922-1985) worked for many years as librarian at the University of Hull. Born and educated in Coventry, he fared quite badly in his School Certificate exam at age 16 but went on to get a First at Oxford. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945 and foreshadow the unique sensibility and maturity that characterizes his later work. In 1946, Larkin discovered the poetry of Thomas Hardy and learned from Hardy how to make the commonplace and often dreary details of his life the basis for extremely tough, unsparing, and memorable poems. With his second volume of poetry, The Less Deceived (1955), Larkin became the preeminent poet of his generation, and a leading voice of a group of young English writers that came to be called 'The Movement'.

Blogging in Berlin...

... is postponed until we find a computer shop and get a power lead for my laptop. How, how did that get left behind?

And what else will be found to be missing?

As soon as Mr T gets his computer set up - and gets dressed (first things first) - we're off for one of those grand German breakfasts -maybe this very one.

On the way

Today we travel to Berlin, arriving early this evening. I've been all-but-packed for weeks, clothes ready to go in the suitcase and a list of "playthings" to take along. 

New (small, wheeled) suitcase and minimal wardrobe, bulked out by more shoes than usual. Into the backpack go the playthings - the computer, the ipad, the smartphone - and all their chargers, and adapter plugs. A book to read, something to sew, bottle of water, maybe some snacks for the journey. And the sketchbook/notebook, which provides a dilemma - use a new one for the duration? Or simply continue in the current one?

There are always a few last-minute things to do, to finish off, to fit in before leaving. Check and recheck the list - but these are the things that weren't on the list, weren't really necessary!

Do you find yourself doing crazily ambitious things before going on holiday? I got involved not just in the Moth War but in several smaller skirmishes, clearing out drawers and whittling down heaps of papers. It does seem the right time to do these sorts of things - there is a "stopping time", when you have to get yourself and the suitcase out the door. Never mind if it's not finished, it's time to GO.

What's a £1 coin worth?

Can a £1 coin be worth £10,000? Jason File spent his £5,000 grant, or rather £4,999 of it, marketing and publicising his show - of a £1 coin. Around the walls are invoices, in the centre is The Coin. Add an art-world markup of 50%... and you've got another example of the emperor's new clothes, an illustration of the arbitrary workings of the art commodity market.

"This thought-provoking exhibition stands alongside all those who’ve ever questioned how an unmade bed or a bunch of spots could be worth so much money. Ironically, on the flipside of the coin, those same people may be angered by File’s artwork. Poking fun at the art world while stimulating an intellectual debate on the value of art is what makes this is a brilliant exhibition" says
The Londonist.

The video of the introduction to the exhibition talks about "the transparency of making art work" and "what is at stake in the construction of the work" - the possibility of the production of meaning in an object. The idea resides in the concept of the work, not the work itself. Consider the interconnections, things that might be invisible - and the value of what is being offered, and the afterlife of art: the value of cultural capital.  It also links this show to Hans Haacke's "Gift Horse" on the fourth plinth.

Drawing on Tuesday - 20th Century galleries, V&A

Intending to draw the chair and its shadow, I found myself drawn to the coffee service ... it was the perky handles that did it -

Starting with a (faint) blind drawing, and moving the sugar bowl closer in to fit across the page (just about), I spent a happy hour looking more carefully and readjusting proportions, angles, just about everything ... but not quite enough, somehow - the jug was my starting point and now looks too large. Sometimes it's a good idea to rub out and start again. At this stage I was ready to do some rubbing out - but nothing too drastic -

 I loved how the lines of the decoration reinforced the structure of the objects - the blue lines whooshing up along the handles, like a roller coaster on the rebound. By drawing the decoration, it's easier to draw the shapes ... you can't say that of all crockery. This design, produced in 1900 for a short-lived outlet called La Maison Moderne, also came decorated in roses ... hard to imagine...

Adding colour was the final step -

We were able to sit in the garden and watch the children ("little cherubs") splashing in the pool, amid the new installation by Mexican architect Frida Escobedo -

(via)

Imagine those platforms filled with people enjoying the noonday sun... and of course the "cherubs" in the water....

The 20th century galleries provided a tremendous range of items to draw. Najlaa filled pages with "useful" items like teapots - and this fanciful Mercury from a poster -

 JanetK explored a bench -

 JanetB's sketchbook has quite a few radios, including the Fada "Bullet" Streamliner model 115 (1940), made in a plastic called Catalin which, unlike Bakelite, could be produced in a range of solid, mottled, translucent, or transparent colours -

 After producing an astonishing number of pages of drawings, Caryl  worked into this one -

Click on the photo below to read the story of Lufsig, which Jo took from the exhibition label - this Ikea toy became very popular in Hong Kong, mainland China, and even Canada -

During June the Drawing on Tuesday sessions are taking a break, resuming in July. I'm hoping to continue drawing on Tuesdays in Berlin throughout the month ... why not pick up a pencil, wherever you are?

End of an era?

The recent Moth War has brought to light some items hidden at the back of the closet. It's always unsettling to go delving deeply into closets, cupboards, or wardrobes (look what happened to Edmund, Lucy, and the rest). In my case, it's brought on a certain recklessness.

Sitting beside the bins is the suitcase that I brought to the UK in September 1971. Its catches are rusted and the pale-blue, quilted insides are littered with moth detritus, thanks to it having been home for the past 10 or more years to some memorable garments, including two voluminous wool skirts that I loved to wear in the 90s and couldn't bear to throw out. (They will undergo washing, and the freezer treatment, as soon as possible - meanwhile they are sealed up in plastic bags. Though having written that, I do wonder why I still want to keep them ... simply because it's so hard to bin fabric that might "be useful" somehow, somewhen?)

 Suitcase, goodbye.

Tap shoes, goodbye - maybe someone else will find you in the charity shop and be inspired to give tap dancing a go. I certainly enjoyed my brief skirmish, and am still thinking about trying again, to see if remembering the sequences gets any easier, if the body can get better at making the moves.

But reality bites. My foot is blue and bloated due to a mishap - I can walk (hobble) but not dance.

Reality bites in the fabric department too, every now and then - there simply isn't time to use it all! One box from the closet revealed the makings of a "lilac" quilt - dresses gathered from jumble sales in the 80s, some fabric lengths -- they've just been put on freecycle.

Having suffered from recklessness (in the foot department), I'm trying to use "creative recklessness" to clear out what's of no immediate use to me. "One door closes and another opens."

On the downside - also found were two shoeboxes full of museum postcards, carefully filed by subject. Seeing that, I simply put the lids back on and put them back. Something for a rainy day. Or to be rediscovered during a future Moth War.

Moan on Monday - why can't they spell?

The principal problem is ... it's a matter of principle.

Though some people would argue that spelling doesn't matter if the meaning is clear.

Hmph.


....update...
Here are some gaffs on sighnage around Lodnon - http://londonist.com/2015/08/yesthosearedeliberate