Before my holidays are gone for ever -- Part 1

Woaah, it feels strange stepping back onto my blog after a fairly long hiatus. Sorry for the silence. I can't really blame the fact that I've been on holiday, as that was only two weeks out of quite a few more than that. But it's the desire to do a holiday post that has actually delayed my return because it's just so daunting.
     I have over 500 holiday photos, most of them really poor, and they have to be waded through and weeded out. And I want to write about the holiday in some detail so that I have a good record of it, but it all takes sooo much time. Still... here we go.

The above two photos are my visual clues as to where we've been: a chance version of the flag of the first country we went to (seen on the side of a boat) and blue and yellow flowers for the other country (in a planter there). Have you guessed yet? Not too difficult really: Denmark and Sweden.

We flew to Copenhagen, the brevity of the flight bringing home just how close Skandinavia is to us in the UK. Copenhagen was founded in the late twelfth century by the dashing chap above, Absalon, who combined being a bishop with being a warrior in a way that seems entirely unfeasible today.

Based on a very fleeting acquaintance with its history, Copenhagen's golden age seems to have been between the mid sixteenth century and the mid eighteenth century. The buildings from that period still give the city its flavour, particularly the wonderful spires which dot the skyline. My two favourites are above. The one on the left has a spiral staircase up the outside of it that you can climb up (alas, we didn't) and dates from 1747 (Church of Our Saviour). The twisted spire on the right dates from 1640 and was supposed to show four dragons with their tails entwined, but as no one knew what dragons really looked like they were modelled on crocodiles. This one is on the roof of the beautiful old Stock Exchange building.

We felt very relaxed as soon as we arrived in Copenhagen. It was very laidback and we hadn't done any of our usual slightly obsessive planning of what we wanted to do. We just set out from our hotel and wandered. We soon found ourselves at Nyhavn, the old canalside street full of cafes which is really the heart of the 'tourist' centre but it didn't feel tacky, just friendly and welcoming. We went down into the sunken ground floor of what seemed to be a really old pub/restaurant for something to eat and, feeling the Skandi-love, I decided to have the herring buffet. Ten or twelve different 'ways with herring'! And just some new potatoes, bread and radishes to leaven the herringness.

I did enjoy my gigantic plate of fish but now that I've had it once I don't think I'll ever need to have it again. Under all the various sauces, it was very much still herring.

My 'slot' to photograph the Little Mermaid before the chafing Japanese tourists asked me to move out of the way

Over the course of our three days in Denmark we had a lovely, relaxed time just pottering about. It's a city I now know I want to go back to, because there's a massive amount to do but you would need to have the energy and determination to do it, travelling out of the city to various museums and interesting satellite towns as well as hunting out all the cool stuff in the city itself. There is so much great architecture to see, for starters. The building I most regret not going to see is Grundtvig's Expressionist church:

Closely followed by the Royal Hotel, designed in the Sixties by Arne Jacobsen. Now a Radisson Blu hotel, you can visit Room 606, which is the only room still furnished with Jacobsen's specially designed furniture:

 On a whim we jumped onto a canal boat cruise and thus got to see some fantastic new buildings (the new National Theatre, the new Opera House, the new National Library, a super-trendy floating hotel which I would like to stay in one day) and some beautiful older ones too, particularly the canalside area of Christianshavn.We also saw an MA art show at the Nikolaj Tower, a decommissioned church which made a brilliantly gothic art gallery:

There was art to be found all over the city, even underwater. This spooky merman and his seven merchildren gaze up from beneath the surface of the canal, imploring their human wife and mother to come back to them:

And I also liked this sculptural maze (easy to cheat, though):

We loved Norrebro, the district to the north-west of the city centre, which has streets of great vintage shops, and also the boho University district. We also went to the Danish Design Centre and saw a good exhibition about new materials.

Of course, it wouldn't be a proper trip to Copenhagen without a visit to the Tivoli Gardens, which I had been repeatedly urged to go to by my Dad, who thinks they are heaven on earth. They were very nice (but my idea of heaven on earth is to follow, in part two of this blog) and the buildings reminded me a little of the Festival of Britain back in 1951 (a very good thing):

It felt very safe and our kids were able to go off to the rides while we had a nice lunch.

My kids coming down to earth (at the top of the picture)

During this lunch we started talking to a Danish lady who told us that our visit coincided with the 'three days for Greenlanders' when lots of attractions in Denmark (or possibly just in Copenhagen) were free for citizens of Greenland, which, you may remember from that episode in Borgen, has a slightly difficult colonial sort of relationship with Denmark.

Tivoli clown statue

On our last morning in Denmark we walked in search of Christiania and went too far, finding instead the handsome old military barracks which have been redeveloped to give a home to new enterprises and also the national film school, drama school and art school. We were a little taken aback to see a naked couple swimming in the river, but also pleased because they were like a little symbol of Scandinavian freedom and enlightenment. Good for them.

Christiania is a self-declared 'free state' within Copenhagen, mostly famous for openly selling drugs. We were just curious to see it but only stayed for about ten minutes as it felt a bit paranoid and sinister. There were a great many signs everywhere forbidding photography, and I don't suppose the drugs on sale are any freer from dodginess and misery up the supply-chain than anywhere else. It's pretty amazing (to us from the uptight UK) that such an enclave is tolerated, but perhaps the city think it somehow practical to corral the hippies and dopedealers there -- not all of them, obviously, but a fair number -- and practise a kind of vigilant tolerance. I think there are signs that the authorities may try to close it down at some time in the not too distant future. A great set of photos from inside Christiania by Maja Daniels here.

This first leg of our holiday was over (apart from a last, farewell bounce on the trampolines set into the pavement just by our hotel) and so we got a taxi to take us to the train station. But when the driver found out we were going to take the train across the Oresund Bridge to Sweden, he offered to drive us right to the door of our hotel in Malmo. We had so much luggage that, after thinking briefly about how much it was going to cost, we sagged back in the upholstery and said, 'Yes please'. So it was in grand style that we crossed the beautiful and famous bridge, humming the theme tune to The Killing as we went.

Tune in next time for Malmo and Lund in Part Two... (Here's a little taster)

Paintings

Just a quick post in partial explanation of why I'm hardly posting at the moment. I've been grappling with this painting for ages and have decided to stop. It's not a great photo of it and you can see the doormat, but at least that gives a slight idea of the scale. It's 50cm x 40cm, in acrylics, and shows Dannii Minogue in the back of a car with two friends/minions.

A weekend in Hastings

Hastings bus shelter

I can't believe a week has already passed since we went down to Hastings for a weekend treat. The visit was more or less a spur of the moment thing and motivated only by my vague memory of there being strange dark 'towers' on the sea front that I would enjoy photographing.

The towers surpassed all expectations. I thought there were only two of them, but there was a miniature city of them, an English San Gimignano.

They're fisherman's shacks for drying their nets.

I'm afraid my photos weren't actually very good, so I've gone a bit overboard with the Photoshop.

The towers lend themselves very readily to Gothic fantasies.

But there was SO much more to see in Hastings. It was a fantastic town, full of interest and charm. It may have been a bit down on its uppers a few years ago but it has come right back up and seemed very alluring.

 Is is obviously a place that originated as a fishing town

Nothing I like better than a rotting hulk

The Jerwood Gallery opened in Hastings in March. We went to see the exhibition of large paintings by Rose Wylie. There was a documentary film about the artist (who has only recently come to prominence at the age of 77) playing and I got very disapproving looks from a couple of the other people who were watching because I'm afraid I laughed out loud. Rose Wylie was shown to be extremely eccentric and she seemed to me to revel in her difference from boring 'normal' people. She seemed to have an almost calculated childishness, for which I salute her. Who wants to be all grown up and sensible? I felt sure the film was celebrating her kookiness, but the other viewers clearly didn't agree.
     Then we discovered that Hastings Old Town contains a labyrinth of junkshops, with some of the yards full of stalls and insane junk stretching back behind the shop fronts into large plots behind. Some of it verged on the post-apocalyptic, it being hard to imagine anyone wanting to buy what appeared to be the detritus of a lost civilisation. But it was very enjoyable trawling through it all. I managed to keep my hands in my pockets for most of the time, and just bought an old game:

Make your own landscape with the magnetic picture elements

There were beautiful new shops too and, straddling the two, very high quality vintage shops. One shop deserves a special mention. Hendy's Home Store was just unbelievable: a Georgian house stripped back to its original features and filled with museum-quality kitchenalia, office furniture, bathroom fittings -- each room was full of appropriate things. It was stunning. You can't imagine how they could keep it so well stocked and actually bear to part with anything.

The office department in Hendy's

My photos are useless. Here's a much better set, plus an article about how the house was restored.

We had dinner at St Clements in St Leonards, just along from Hastings, and I can really recommend it -- lovely food and very nice atmosphere. Then we stayed the night in a nice, old-fashioned little hotel in Sedlescombe, which looked like a beautiful, chocolate-box village.

Derek Jarman's house at Dungeness

The next day after a spiffing breakfast (it was the sort of hotel where the waiter brings your toast and whips away the napkin that has been keeping it warm on its way to the table with a flourish), we went for a walk at Dungeness. I would absolutely love a little weekend place here, if such a thing were within our means. It is a unique, wonderful, otherworldly landscape. The wild flowers were unbelievable.

When we had been thoroughly scoured by the wind and been restored by a cup of tea at the miniature railway station, where they were having a special Thomas the Tank Engine Day, much to the excitement of a great many small children, we went on to Bexhill where we had lunch at the fabulous De La Warr Pavilion.

It must have been just before they put the 'Italian Job' style coach on top:

Richard Wilson's new installation on the Pavilion roof

More fantasizing: this beautiful house is for sale just along from the Pavilion. What I wouldn't give, etc, etc....

It was a lovely weekend. I could spend weeks down on the South coast, exploring. I could imagine myself moving their to live out my old age. Already I'm planning another trip -- there's Rye, Pallant House in Chichester, the Weald and Downland Museum, Down House (Darwin's House) -- so much still to see...

Catching up

part of my homage to Richard Hamilton's 'Swingeing London', 

acrylic on canvas, 40 x 50cm

I've been pretty invisible on my blog recently but I haven't been idle. I don't have too much time around the edges of my job, so I've been trying to use it more productively. I've been continuing with what's turning into a series of paintings of people being intruded upon in cars and other vehicles. First there was Charles and Camilla getting mobbed on their way to the Royal Variety Performance. Now I'm edging closer to the painting that is inspiring this whole project, Richard Hamilton's 'Swingeing London 67 (f)'. I've been back to some of the original paparazzi photos of Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser handcuffed together in the police van in 1967 and have painted my own version -- the first of several I'm planning to do, all different. I painted this one in black and white, which is a good challenge.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 23cm

I've also done this one, which is smaller scale, in sepia tones. I like the image because you can actually see the camera taking the picture reflected in the car window.

Skater Girl, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 23cm

Third is this little painting which is the first in what will be a short series of sunny skaters.
I recently joined the countywide artists' forum (Hertfordshire Visual Arts Forum) and it is already proving valuable as they email through lots of opportunities to submit work to exhibitions. Some of these are really tantalising, some less so.
     I am very happy to be able to report that my friends Ben Fletcher and Karen Pine liked the portrait of themselves that they very kindly commissioned me to do. The whole thing was highly enjoyable. I started off feeling that I needed to find out a little more about Ben and Karen to inform whatever approach I was going to take. As they're both psychologists, I thought it would be interesting (and fun) to turn the tables on them and do a psychological 'experiment' on them. I devised a questionnaire and printed out three copies. They had to fill in one copy each, separately, seal it up in an envelope and then complete the third one together. The idea was to explore individuality vs coupledom with a view to making that a theme of the portrait. Obviously it wasn't a serious 'experiment' in any real sense but the answers they gave me were genuinely fascinating, revealing an incredible closeness between the two of them. My original idea was to do a painting of the two of them, a single image, but split across two canvases. Each of them would dominate one of the canvases but there would be a strong pull between the two halves as they would naturally make up one larger picture. However, when I went to visit Karen and Ben to do more research and take some photos, they told me, in the nicest way, that they were hoping I'd do something other than a painting... Yikes! This turfed me out of my comfort zone but turned out to be a good push in another direction -- directions, even, as I ended up making two pieces for them.

Ben and Karen under their trees, mixed media, 20 x 29cm

The first is a montage constructed inside an enamel dish. The main individual elements are painted in soft pastel.

Ben and Karen represented, various objects in perspex drawers

The second piece isn't figurative but nonetheless represents Ben and Karen. It's a set of five perspex drawers (from the 60s, I think), about 18 x 12 x 18cm. Each drawer contains objects relating to an aspect of Karen and Ben's personalities or their life together.

It was very exciting, not to say nervewracking, showing them how I had portrayed them, but they could not have been more positive. It was unbelievably thrilling when they liked both pieces. I won't forget that feeling for a long time.

The last thing I've made recently is a completely redone version of a little book I made to go with my explorations of old postcards. It's called 'Incidentals' which refers to the people who are captured on picture postcards without their permission.

It's just struck me that it's a little bit like an arty version of Where's Wally. You get the full postcard and then a 'hidden' (or just small) person or persons, plus an imaginary monologue of what's in their head/s. It pleases me anyway. I could spend my whole life delving into the world of old postcards.

Final final thing to catch up on is that Dora and I finally made Scandinavian Kitchen's recipe for Kladdkaka and it was absolutely delicious. It looks like brownies and it is similar, but more chewy and with the slightly different flavour from the Scandinavian cocoa powder. Highly recommended, as is the Scandi Kitchen blog.

I'm stuck into another 'inside the car' painting now, featuring Danni Minogue...

Brooklyn Sketchbook Project 2013 -- yes or no?

This is just a very quick post to ask a question. To anyone reading this who made a sketchbook for the Brooklyn Sketchbook Project this year, are you going to do it again for 2013? The new project is already open for business and you can buy your sketchbook.
     I poured my heart into my sketchbook but it has only been 'borrowed' by two people on the tour so far and has only one comment on the website. There are so many thousands of sketchbooks on the tour that the odds of your individual sketchbook being taken out and looked at must be pretty slim. Too slim? I just can't decide whether to spend the huge amount of time it takes to make a sketchbook or whether to save that time for something else. The best way to look at it is as something you do for yourself, so that it doesn't matter whether or not many or even any other eyes fall upon it. However, I think we all know it feels good if other people see what you've done.
     I'd more or less decided not to do a sketchbook this time round, then I saw my little sketchbook in a video the Brooklyn Art Library people had posted on Vimeo and that has almost given me a change of heart -- but it still doesn't mean more than three people have seen the insides.

a glimpse of 'Audrey'

 I would really love to know what anyone else is thinking.
    

Poundland -- I've seen the light!

All this for £9...

When the Woolworth's on our high street closed, the shop space was empty for a very long time and it felt as though it was dragging the whole town down. Then, at last, the site was split into two smaller shops and both opened. One was a Peacock's, which closed about a week after it opened when the chain got into difficulties. The other was a Poundland, which filled me with despair as it didn't feel like the right sort of shop for the town. I only went in it once, last November, to look for things to put in the kids' advent calendar and it was depressing. I vowed never to set foot there again.
     Then... yesterday I was catching up with all the blogs I follow and saw Sue's fish slice challenge. I find it hard to resist challenges, specially arty ones, but that meant going back to Poundland to purchase said fish slice (the challenge is to transform it -- Sue does amazing things with enamelling and cutting).
     Mentally pinching my nose, I stepped back inside the scorned shop. The first things I saw were some cool Royal Family masks for the Jubilee. I'm no royalist, but I found myself thinking, 'Hmm, those would be a good bit of ephemera to buy and store away for 100 years' time...'. Then I saw a very nice stripy tea towel in the colours I particularly like. Then three packets of ibuprofen for £1. Then I found the metal utensils for Sue's challenge -- a set of 3 for £1. Surely just the metal is worth that? (Oh no, now I'm suddenly having dark thoughts about the cheap labour that makes all these things -- that wasn't part of the planned post...)
     It suddenly seemed as though I was no longer in Poundland but in a specially created Janestore, stocked with items uniquely suited to my tastes. In the weird selection of CDs I found two I liked. In the even more random selection of books was a perfect book for me by an author whose book on the Rolling Stones is next on my bedside pile. Then, finally, I grabbed three huge packets of plastic straws, just because the colours were so beautiful -- in my mind art projects spiralled out like kaleidoscope patterns.
     All this for £9 -- it doesn't seem possible. So although I know it was just the chance coming together of my profound randomness and Poundland's randomness to make a happy moment, I won't sneer at Poundland too readily in future.
     And why don't you join in with the Fish Slice Challenge? It could go viral...