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Architect Frank Gehry's advice to 'treat the commercial world as a museum' is something I play with at times. It's fun to look at the world this way. I can imagine Harvey Nichols as a 21C extension to the Pitt Rivers and myself as a social anthropologist....  It's stopped raining and my favourite flowers have come out.
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..brimeth over! I set out last week to move out of my comfort zone and 'refill the well' by doing and looking at some things which were a bit different from my usual. What a week. I attended the opening of the Andy Warhol Exhibition in the newly restored Burgh Hall in Dunoon, spent a day in Edinburgh looking at three exhibitions and eating out, I met up with friends, went with my sister to a party at Glasgow School of Art and was shown round some of the Degree Show by students, and celebrated a friend's work being selected for the annual Paisley Art Institute exhibition with a visit there. Wine and canapes, breakfast out, oh the high life! l loved it all and am now glad to be home. It has rained for about ten days and I do want to ground myself by gardening (which was my original plan for June). What do you do to fill the well? And is it fun?  Not just glamour and bling! I found several good reads in Vogue including one about a British family who have taken in a refugee written by the woman of the family, and the refugee, a feature by an Italian citizen living in Britain about her view of Brexit, and one by Arundhati Roy on political activism.....
Last weekend In my search for something different I had a lunch of haggis in filo pastry with a whisky sauce, vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and strawberries, a small glass of wine and a coffee, served on fine china by charming staff, surrounded by amazing flowers (not all real but the lilies were) and lit by chandeliers! All for £19.50. I just love the over-the-top grandeur of The Dome. Well, once a year :-)     Then a quick tour of Harvey Nichols shoe department..  These shoes made me think of Cruella de Ville. £650. See more amazing shoes at unbelievable prices here. Have you done anything just for fun lately?
Can you think of something fun for this weekend? In my few hours in Edinburgh I also went to The Scottish Gallery where two very different shows interested me. The watercolours of Hugh Buchanan are accomplished and very beautiful if slightly austere and academic - an approach which however suits the subject of Georgian Edinburgh. I loved these and if I had a fine Georgian room to hang one in would have gladly spent the £6250 on the one of the chair in the light from the elaborately curtained window! You can view them here  Entirely different but also wonderfully skilled was the collection of miniature pots by Yuta Segawa. Some are less than an inch tall and they were all hand thrown on a wheel. I enjoyed talking to the friendly young woman who was working there She has bought some - they cost, amazingly, £20 and £25 pounds each. They are all different and very very well made. You can see the artist making them in this video and you can buy them online from his website. Tempting... I am fascinated lately by artists who do photo-realistic work. I got to Edinburgh in time to hear Rachel Ross's talk about her acrylic paintings. (See also yesterday's post). Charming and friendly, she talked mainly about how she does them, but the why was about her fondness for old objects from the past and wanting to give them some kind of status and presence. I felt it would be rude to ask if excellent photographs might do the same thing. Her skill is superb, and the paintings are truly lovely objects, but not really my thing (which on this occasion is why I went to see the exhibition - to look beyond my usual choices).  The exhibition is at the Open Eye Gallery and you can see more images of Rachel's exquisite work here.   Every now and then I feel the need to see something different and I've just had in intensive input of things I don't usually do or see, chosen because they were different....it does give me a lift. Does this work for you too? Three exhibitions in Edinburgh, a meal in grand surroundings, a brief look at high fashion and a copy of Vogue to read on the bus home.  Photo-realistic paintings by Rachel Ross selling well for £2000, rather academic very beautiful watercolours of Georgian Edinburgh by Hugh Buchanan (£6000). I enjoyed the fantasy worlds of The Dome and Harvey Nichols. Chandeliers and flowers and good food for a very reasonable price, (£19.50) and Cruella de Ville shoes for a very unreasonable price (£650) Some amazing and exquisite miniature pots were £20 and £25...I am mentioning the prices of everything because it fascinates me what we value things at, and how we choose to spend our money! The Vogue magazine was half price at £2. More thoughts tomorrow when I have absorbed all the stimuli.. From looking back to looking forward. I've been thinking of a wish list... I'd like to see fields of lavender growing, perhaps in Grasse. I'd like to see Vermeer's paintings. And Monet's Waterlilies in L'Orangerie in Paris. I'd love to visit Japan. What's on your wish list? One of my ice candles broke as I tried to remove the plastic cups - they are very fragile. See original method here.  The answer is to use two different sizes of cup. (so obvious really!) This has several advantages. It is easier to fit leaves etc between the two layers, it makes a chunkier candle which you can briefly dip in hot water to release from the cup, and it lasts longer. Not quite as delicate perhaps but still rather pretty. You can remove them from the cups once frozen and put them back in the freezer for instant use at any time.   I was so heartened by your encouraging and kind comments about my piano ambitions! Thank you! (And for the giggles in yesterday's comments.) I was thinking about why learning to play Bach is such a real pleasure just now and came to the conclusion it is because it doesn't really matter. It demands a lot of concentration so takes me 'out of myself' as the saying goes. No one is listening, or expecting anything of me. There are no deadlines, nothing depends on my success. I don't ever plan to perform it and if I never learn to play another piece of music that will be fine. I will sit no exams or tests. It doesn't cost anything except time and and I only spend about 15 minutes at a time on it, sometimes once a day, sometimes more. It is purely for fun and just for me. Do you do anything at all which is purely for fun and only for you? If not, whyever not? And can you think of anything you would like to try?  Tomorrow - the new improved method of making ice candles... Lotta (click to read her inspirational post) mentioned a winter plan a few days ago and got me thinking....I do love a plan! I will sort out my wardrobe, stack up some great reading, try out a new recipe for potatoes cooked in white wine and stock, make the house smell wonderful, move more, and try to be more sociable. Here are some of the books I may re-read and I have quite a few new ones on my wish list, which, if no-one buys for me for Christmas I will buy for myself. :-) (I always said I'd never use these silly smiley face thingys but, like exclamation marks which I am aware I overuse, they just do the job of setting the tone sometimes, don't you think?)  Here are the summer clothes I've only just removed from the wardrobe. Step one in sorting the winter wardrobe. Step two is to put like with like. Tomorrow. I was quite surprised to see several yellow items in there (though since I bought them I shouldn't be surprised). I find I can wear yellow in summer if I have a little bit of a suntan, but in winter when my skin tends to sallow/grey I look awful in yellow. Do you have a colour you can only wear in one season? Looking at the photograph I see I need to practice Marie Kondo style folding!  Will you share your Winter Plan - even if it's not quite deserving of capital letters yet? Let's call it fun things to do this winter.. and I think I shall find a box and join Lotta. For many years we were in the habit of creating North Points when we visited somewhere new but were never particularly systematic about recording them - but here are a few (and I must make a note to myself to keep up this little fun tradition starting with this mini one made of fallen fuchsia flowers today). See here, and here and here  ....and the friends I have made here!
Yesterday I met up with Grace who has been reading and commenting on the blog for a long time. (I hope I won't embarrass her if I say she is as lovely as her name.) We met in the Botanic Gardens (see this post). I carried a copy of the New European newspaper so that she would recognise me! It seemed a fair assumption that she would be a European at heart as she lives in Paris. I didn't have to brush up my French though as, like me, she grew up and studied in Glasgow. We had a delightfully long lunch at Kember and Jones in Byres Road (an old student haunt for us both) and a coffee sitting outside in the sun in the Botanic Gardens. Whether here on the blog or in person I do have fun in the company of my blog friends....thank you all so much.  Remember this? Have a lovely Easter weekend. The blossom of flowering currant is white if you pick it in bud and bring it indoors. So pretty.  Thank you Oh Amaryllis for the little burst of joy I get every time I look at you! Thank you Oh Larch Branches (actually I think they may be alder!) for falling just where I could find you, and bring you home to adnire fully your twiggy lacy cone-scattered decorative loveliness. I was reminded by my friend Julia of thanking our things (a la Marie Kondo). I had rather got out of the habit, and it is such a fun habit - it makes me smile every single time I do it! Try it. Go thank you favourite things. Did it make you smile? To celebrate completing our path (see here) we had a barbecue on the beach this evening.  Venison sausage, thyme and butter mash and baked beans. A glass of clean sharp vinho verde.  A ripe peach on the dying embers with a chocolate placed on top to serve, and I always save a little wine to have with dessert. It was mild and still, the only sounds gulls, eider ducks, oyster catchers and the haunting sound of the curlews...   We stayed a couple of hours. September's looking good. I hope your September has got off to a good start too. for the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.... 
I wasn't there, but my husband was! 'Very impressive' he said.
I bought a pad of bright coloured paper from the gorgeous Tate Modern shop (you can get it online here) and am having fun getting Matisse Cut Outs out of my system! Picasso said - 'I go for a walk in the forest of Fontainebleau and I get green indigestion. I must get rid of this sensation into a picture. Green rules it. A painter paints to unload himself of feelings and visions.' 
I don't really want to be Matisse of course (and neither did Andy Warhol) but I would love some of his vitality and courage! What I've learned from doing these is what a master of composition he was... Will you be going to the exhibition? ..on the No 91 bus. There was a tube strike while we were in London and the first 91 bus was packed so tight the driver didn't even open the doors. Just as we were considering what to do, out of nowhere it seemed swayed a vintage London bus with 'No 91 Special Service' on the front and a large avuncular conductor leaning off the back of it waving us all on with a big smile..  I was vaguely wondering how I could use my Oyster Card on this, and did I have enough change if cash was required, as we climbed aboard and sat at the front of the top deck for the best view as it sped down to Aldwych with a ding-ding of its old fashioned bell. (Was it my imagination or was there really hardly any other traffic on the road?)  'Here we are!' cried the cheerful conductor and we all piled off (no-one had been asked to pay) and the bus swung off to rescue another bunch of mildly bemused customers. We all looked at each other for a moment as if to say 'Did that really happen?' before setting off in our different directions to carry on with our day..
It still makes me smile.  I've found my buy for Autumn. (See post here.) Not the sweater or jacket I set out to find, but this unlined coat from Topshop. It's just the right weight, is beautifully cut and detailed and the finish is remarkably good (all seams are nicely bound, an extra button inside to make it hang well, the collar sits perfectly..). (Sorry the photograph isn't of the same standard! It's from Topshop's website)  Perfectly put together, and roomy enough for a warm layer underneath.  I thought the price of £79 was terrific for the quality, and because the popper fastenings were loose they took £20 off. Nice. Love it with these shoes. Have you bought anything new for the new season? Fun is simple, mostly. Photographing something that amuses, making things - sea monsters, tin can decorations. Even minor mishaps can be fun to relate (if not fun at the time). See under Simply Fun if you have a little time to browse - there are just a few posts surprisingly, considering how much fun I have.. Fun is an attitude of mind. Fun is writing this blog. Fun is reading your comments. - thank you! |
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