Photo-month (or Months)

On Monday I met with Jacqueline who was on a Photo exhibiting course with me last year to view some of the exhibits dotted around East London as part of Photomonth (it actually seems to be running until the end of November).

It was an interesting day - some disappointments (many places closed on a Monday) but also the pleasure of looking with another person interested in visual imagery (and much more) provided an extra layer.


Jacqueline is, it seems to me  an example of someone who is trying to lead a good and ethical life  - she is a vegan (and has been for many years) and a ( I think) a Socialist too.

She has an idea what Photography can do too as does Larry Herman

Larry's Notebook exhibition

The Flag as it is rarely hung.

We had lunch at an Ethiopian stall at we had lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant/stall called Merkamo in Old Spitalfields market

women based

One of the best venues we visited was

This reminded me of Edward Hopper

It was actually good to be in the Shoreditch area and even away from Photomonth the area is  full of life (and of art).

Art without venues is the order of the day 

of expression

A message 

Some of the weeks so far .. (including The National Gallery in London)

I'm not sure that it's a good sign that I'm so far behind on reporting what I've been up to - anyway here's something of a catch-up.

What a lovely sky and so much going on in the square

The 4th Plinth -
The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist,

On Tuesday it was part two of the 100 Paintings course and we met at The National Gallery - it really does stand so well in Trafalgar Square (by the way the 4th Plinth has another fascinating work) .



The paintings we looked at this week were again based heavily on Christianity - many of the works considered the life of Jesus from the nativity to the crucifixion (see one below).

Sainsbury Wing - lots of paintings

What I did after the group dispersed was take a sneaky look at what we're likely to encounter soon - in fact less than a 100 years after some of the work we'd seen paintings were often made using oil based paints and on canvas (rather than tempera paint on wood).



What we're going to see is perspective and the depiction of character- it's going to be good.

Virgin and Child enthroned -Margarito of Arezzo (1260's) - 

Photographers' Gallery

On Thursday I had the chance to make a couple of introductory group talks at the (recently re-branded) Museum of Brands.

The Museum of Brands -A new style and use of fonts

I enjoyed chatting with people from U3A and as well as delivering the welcome to folks from  'Evergreen' spending some chat as we walked through The Time Tunnel.

[Incidentally interested to see that many Museums and other leisure activities are starting to roll back concessions/discounts aimed at 'Seniors' - perhaps some justification as many are well able to afford the full price more than younger folks.]

In the gap between my two 'welcomes' I went along to The Photographers' Gallery - a nice split between the full on documentary (and of course Black and White)  work of the late Tish Murtha and the 'Hollywood gloss of Alex Prager.

Elswick Kids by Tish 

Alex Prager's work often has a Hitchcock-ian dimension

Nick Pearson holds forth at OPEN Ealing

At OPEN Ealing/Orchard Café this Monday and the previous one too with John Kaye.

Nick Pearson  presents 

October sun on The National 

Nick Pearson talking us through some key features of Monet and  the previous week Manet, two rather marvellous French artists .








As I was at National Gallery this morning (and what a lovely morning)  this gave me the chance to take a look at some of Claude's work - I did say that I thought (like Wittgenstein) there's an early and late - late being where he did a lot of paintings in his garden

I was taken by how Nick's close-ups revealed the technique Monet used and also liked seeing some of the work he undertook in London.

Bathers at La Grenouillére (1869)

One of Monet's Gare St Lazare  (1877) paintings  

The Thames Below Westminster (1871)

Water Lily Pond (1899)

Away from the heat (and she's still there)

A point of view

Now well into October and weather still pretty comfortable in London (and still picking tomatoes) -spent some time with one of the people I walked with during 'London Villages' walk this Spring/Summer - as many people do Jim has moved 'right-wards' politically  and now although he continues to listen to voices of the left he has (by his own admission) changed.

Plot 202 supplies us

I'm not sure that this is either a good or a bad thing but in UK generally we are free-ish to choose and not necessarily hit too hard (in terms of our quality of life)  by a change of government .


 I'm getting regular nudges to my conscience from the Daily Stoic, today I was told that ...


 Seneca marvelled at the terrible things people do to stay alive--things much worse than death. We’ll betray friends, he said, betray our most closely held beliefs, people will even sell out their own children and grandchildren--as the elderly often do in almost every election--just to keep things the way we like them. 

Now this does seem often to be the case  and renewed interest in Climate Change  (both in the News and with a new Nobel Economics prize winner) should (perhaps) prompt us to take a longer view as our individual lives are most definitely finite.

And still there..

Well I did wonder if Theresa would survive the Tory Party Conference and in fact she's done more than just held on, showing some humour and grit  but the point will come (say most commentators) that she will be victim to those who feel a change in leadership will mean the party continues to hold power - I'll revisit her stock next week.

At the V&A and Boris Bites

Group meets at V&A entrance

Yesterday marked the start of my participation on the City Lit course ' The history of Western art in 100 paintings' this is a 20 week course running on a roughly chronological  agenda.

We met at V&A in Kensington, London a favourite to many for it's wide selection of materials and Julia the course leader (who I was on a course with this time last year) was as always organised and welcoming.

What I like about these courses is the pleasure of being part of a group visiting and talking about great works in various locations across London.

Julia has warned us that Christianity will be central to the study by virtue of its dominant nature in the location and time-frame - it is something I remain somewhat ignorant of but interested in. 


The first works were not canvas based and we also looked at some 3 Dimensional items.

One of the first things we did was compare an ivory carving, The Symmachi Panel (from an elephant tusk ) to a Mosaic, it was interesting to consider how 'realism' was  part of our consideration - the colour of the Mosaic had persisted but was absent from the carving (as it would have always been).

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The Symmachi Panel (from about 400 years BC) was half of a pair that would have formed a hinged lid.















The Passions of Christ was an ivory showing some key points in the life of Jesus  -another common theme through art - this by Pellegrino di Giovanni - it was useful to be able to see (by nature of the damage) how the work was made up.

Although we can see many works 'online' the actual physical manifestation is something beyond this and so it was with the Triptych of 'Master Bertram'below, as well as the biblical representations shown withing the outer doors had works on the other sides too.

Virgin and Child

Religious Triptych

Left Leaf

Right Leaf

The Passions of Christ

As we moved through time the work was moire and more religiously based.


One of the works (not a painting) that we looked at and used to help us focus on 'The Saints' was The Osterley Cope.

A cope of Many Saints

Boris Speaks

So I'm not sure what can be said about the speech by the man who would be leader yesterday, some of what he said was true - I don't know how history will judge this period, for me something of a Greek/Roman tragedy