Feeding Robin -Picture of the week Ealing Gazette

Well the rain will not do plot 202 any harm..

As well as taking plenty of breaks and photo's   I've been planting various seeds and transplanting seedlings and the torrential rain of yesterday will certainly of helped them.

Petit-Pois and climbing beans are the recent additions, Broad Beans doing well - still need to get some weed free soil to move the Courgettes and Sweetcorn into.

broad beans -okay so far

Very Petit-Pois

For the Climbing beans the journey's begun

Courgettes- Waiting for a new home

[Here's my credit in the local paper and the original submitted:]

the picture published today in The Ealing GAzette

At London's National Gallery

From Easter onwards London is more than full of tourists and timing is everything with visits to galleries and Museums.

Forecourt of National Gallery

After looking in at Somerset House I went along to The National Gallery and it was busy - but still worth braving the crowds.

A few things I managed to spend some time looking at included major  works by Caravaggio (actually to give him his full/correct name Michelangelo Merisi  da Caravaggio ) :

The Supper of Emmaus (1601)

and  two paintings  by Guercino (who I learnt a little about from hearing the funny man actor  Kenneth Williams talking on an old radio programme about him- his real name was Giovanni Francesco Barbieri  the  name 'Guercino' is a nickname that refers to his squint ).

The incredulity of St. Thomas (1621)

 and

Elijah fed by Raven (1510)

I had looked at religiously inspired works and hoped to detect within them some humour or irony but must say I was disappointed, I was not though disappointed by the craft of Guercino.

I also liked  The Mantelpiece by French Artist  Edouard Vuillard (new to me)  a stylised work 'The Earthenware Pot' *(reminded me of Klimt) and the painting by him that had been split into two as The Garden and The Lunch - interesting to learn of how/why he did this and find that he was alive until 1940  .

Outside the Gallery performers and 'Chancers' abound - this guy though could play the guitar:

Play that guitar

Art for the people and sale of leaders/revenge?

In town today for another City Lit Philosophy session (more later- I promise) after this some culture and which included a stroll down the Strand, first stop though was Somerset House - not sure if the fountain within is a new addition but compared with many I've seen (including Lyon France - where I used to enjoy observing the impact it produced) it seemed a bit half hearted.

Maggi, Maggi, Maggi 

Somerset House - not the greatest water feature 

Inside though there were different stories -I'd heard of Maggi Hambling before but seeing he exhibition War Requiem & Aftermath I was struck by the diversity of themes and expressions, work used   Audio, Sculpture, Installations and even figurative paintings -it was brought to the public by King's College and I found it nicely understated.

Rather a lot of the sculptures  created from found 'items' which were enhanced  were on show in one room which made it look quite packed and perhaps devalued.


Somewhat surprised to see a reflection of some emotional themes (Mother and Amy Winehouse were both name checked) as well as there being some striking  Middle Eastern images on canvases.

Perhaps less would have been more

This Aftermath mentions 'Mother 2014'

A diverse collection includes Oil on Canvas 

After looking at the Hambling works I made my way to a Gavin Turk just at the entrance of 'The New Wing' called Now - great stuff
It's typically challenging outside at high level above the door is the  number of people estimated to be the  median of the world population this March.

Now (That's what I call Gavin Turk)

Less than a week

Seems odd that it's less than a week since the UK General Election very little evidence now to be seen in London outside of the press.

Be interesting to see how the appointment of John Whittingdale as Culture Secretary affects the BBC's future surely we're not going to see a revenge attack for a perceived (by some) bias against the Conservatives along with fresh drinks all round for the Press in the never closing 'last chance' saloon?

Well I think there might be a sale on a couple of the masks below...

Some masks have slipped

I've been framing, Dilemmas and a homage to Courbet

Today's been a mixed bag  (like most), It's only week 3 of the RACC Framing for beginners class and  for me like almost everything there's a lot more to framing than meets the eye (well mine anyway.

The frame so far (L) and two old frames 75 p each

Also like so much the learning takes place socially and by dealing with things - did feel that there's some satisfaction to be gained but lots of equipment if you intend to do all, what might be a better approach (as has been put forward in the class)  is:

1) When starting a frame, get mouldings supplies cut, this has the advantage of less capital outlay and the possibility of choosing mouldings to complement the project (rather than holding a limited supply) - seems that Lion Picture Framing (Hayes)  is the goto company for supplies in West London.

2) Use recovered frames - this is something we'll be trying I've picked up a couple of frames to try with (At a charity shop, 75 pence each).

Also upcoming will be some experimenting with mounts of different colours, staining the frame and getting glass for our first frame.

Dilemmas

There's a BBC Radio 4 comedy panel show about Dilemmas (called Dilemma), where the panellists seek to address what are (fairly unlikely) morally contentious questions - today I saw a dilemma unfold in front of my eyes.

Near Ealing Station some way ahead of me I saw a woman drop something small - it was to far for me to attract her attention and she was moving away quickly (for a bus or a train),

I had an inkling that the item dropped was  a banknote, I sped up to see and as I drew close  someone (another woman)  picked up the (£10) note.

As I reached  the point it was dropped,the other woman had disappeared, should I have confronted the woman - neither of us would have been able to return it to the person who'd lost it.

Should I have done something and/or what - I've had things happen like this before (I suppose we all have), and on this occasion I took the path of least resistance but not wholly comfortable with this.
 

An image at RACC

Learning about Modern Art at OPEN Ealing was a great experience, any introduction that contextualises stuff that's around us is good for me (Philosophy similarly) - Seeing the Photo(below) on display that reflects and pays respects to  the very important artist  Gustave Courbet (The Desperate Artist) reminded me of the pleasure I got from learning something about Art.

A nice picture -particularly if you feel (just a little) 'in the know'