Category Art
As one turns 40
Somewhere across town the London Symphony Orchestra is performing Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet for an audience of n minus 1, as I think the expression goes. That’s because instead of occupying seat C42 in the Circle, I’m sitting cozily in my living room, enveloped in wool and candlelight and the sounds of a Beethoven symphony […]
Ceramics and rain in Oxford
Remember how last year I brought that (allegedly) 18th Century Chinese dish home from the Cotswolds and used it for eating burrito bowls until I broke it by tapping it gently on my granite countertop? Well, it occurred to me (and some of you — Susan!) that this might be an interesting opportunity to try […]
Lungs and late at the Tate
Sometimes a play’s title sheds light on what’s to come. Sometimes it doesn’t. Last week I saw a play that fell into the latter category: Lungs, at the Old Vic. I still have no idea why it’s called Lungs. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it! Ninety minutes of Matt Smith and Claire Foy […]
Rainy London with ceramics, art, and even a little protest
I’m having a homebody moment. After all of the travel the last month, it’s nice just to be here in London. Coming into this weekend I had no plans, and when I sat down to make some I discovered that these two days seem to sit weirdly within a gap in the performing arts season […]
Look what came today…
Art! It definitely seems bigger in my living room than it did in the gallery — which I think is actually a good thing because hopefully that means it will be the right scale for my living room back in Seattle. But here’s something I didn’t know about Real Art: it doesn’t come ready to […]
More art! Wandering around Frieze London
Now that I’m a fancy art collector I have to hang out with other artsy people and cultivate my “eye”, if that’s the term that I want. Where better than at Frieze London? I had never heard about Frieze London before two days ago when I read an article about how it was a major […]
Art! I may have bought some…
The James Freeman Art Gallery is a little gallery just around the corner from my flat. I walk past it every day, and it almost always has something that draws my eye. But, you know, galleries are intimidating and art is expensive — and, well, how am I going to achieve my life goal of […]
La catedral de Sevilla
In terms of volume, it’s the largest cathedral in the world (beating out the Hagia Sofia after a thousand years in the top spot) and third largest church (after Saint Peter’s in Rome and some other church I hadn’t heard of until I read about it on Wikipedia). Noteworthy, I’m sure, but to be honest, […]
El Alcazar
I think Islamic architecture may be my spirit animal. It just speaks to me in ways that nothing else does. The patterns and colours and elegant shapes laid out symmetrically and with water everywhere. It feels both maximalist and minimalist at the same time. Balanced and beautiful. That’s what’s behind the walls of the Real […]
When you work in east London . . .
. . . sometimes you see performance art with dough on the way home. The theme of the show was “folds” and literally every other person at the gallery was (a) a hipster and (b) French. Sooo artsy.
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 