In which London is brutal

I sometimes visit London and share typical photos of the glorious buildings like Houses of Parliament or Tower Bridge. There are other times when I hunt out the least city-like areas and home in on Hamstead Heath, and the pockets of wildness within the capital

But last week we just went for serious and ugly London. Real architecture and tower blocks and concrete in the Barbican area. It's kind of hideous but I still loved it. In amongst all the chaos we found amazing moments of beauty, and it reminded why I think architecture is amazing.

So we started off at St. Paul's. Yes it is a typical beautiful London building, but then right behind it, scaffolding. It's never done, there's always something being worked on in this area as though we're obsessive painters trying to add one more detail.

 Then on a random street we found this beautiful garden next to an old church and some modern flats.

This was what we actually went out to see. It's called Postman's Park, and it contains a memorial to 'heroic sacrifice'. There were many tile plaques listing those who had given their lives in saving others. If you are in London, I would recommend it. There's so many small stories.

 The book benches in London are a temporary addition. Like spine bent books, the benches are all painted and themed on books set in London. Next week Andy and I are thinking of doing the full trail and trying to collect as many as possible! There are 50 to find.

  It's like a mini Tardis!

 And what was with this church? It looks like it should be in Doctor Who, randomly placed amongst the Brutalist architecture, like a disguised alien spaceship.

 

The next thing we came out to see was this area where all the buildings are made out of horrible rough concrete, but then decorated in flowers and greenery. It's a style generally known as 'brutalism', and has a lot of hatred. I couldn't live there, but for a brief moment I was tempted especially by the magnificent open pipe water feature attached to the main flats. But then these buildings just went on. We carried on round corners and across roads, but they were everywhere. Matching blocks with pink and red flower boxes. It was all a bit overwhelming after a while and I was ready to go back to the country again!

 Are you a fan of the mixed-up London architecture? Have you been to Barbican, and like it or love it?

In which there is art and fashion on Oxford Street

This afternoon Andy and I took a trip to Oxford Street. If you're reading this outside of the UK, iIt's one of the more famous streets in London. Where the H&M flagship stores towers, designer clothes beckon, and immense department stores steal your afternoons and betwitch you with macarooms. In the winter the whole place is shiny shiny shiny. Everything that can be is covered in lights, in a celebration of glitz that only just errs on the right side of tacky. I love it.

Andy I spent most of the time today in Selfridges, one of the big department stores like John Lewise or House of Fraser. He'd never been there before so we wanted to soak it in together. It's slightly more real than Harrods. It's almost as though we might actually be buying things there. Wereas at Knightsbrige we like to go in the furniture section and pretend we're really in the market, commenting on how the sofas aren't soft enough for us...

Back to Selfridges. It had so many things my fellow bloggers would love. In particular, a Tatty Devine shop with Tatty Devine crackers! Gah. And I touched a Vivienne Westwood jacket. I even tried on a hat that cost more than twice as much as my wedding dress. It even looked fantastic on me, before I gently put it down on the stand again and backed away in awe. I know, I know, I'm so lame, but I delight in the dreaming. And then I actually bought something from the toy section, so there. :P Even buying a present which was the original purpose of going there.

We've just about got our Christmas shopping done now and I think we've found some really nice things along the way. Although we didn't do Christmas cards. Maybe if I am really good we can do it on my day off. But Christmas really caught me by surprise. I'm trying really hard not to think this weekend about how much is going to have to get done at work in the last week before the break. Eeek.

But one more week and then I'm in Yorkshire with all my family again, and I just can't wait. I hope it snows.

 

 

I really love this outfit. I just bought the jumper on a complete whim from H&M and I feel like a David Bowie backing singer in it. 

Out and about in London we did see a number of strange and beautiful artworks. The mural we spotted to photograph by was down a side street from Selfridges and utterly beautiful. It seemed to be advertising a shop somewhere else. I really love and admire all the work that went into it. I felt like a real model posing in front of that glorious picture I have to say.

 Then in Selfridges there were crazy suspended mirror balls, lifting up and down continuously and casting bubble lights on us.

 An entire shop devoted to crackers:

A toy shop with Monster High dolls out you could actually play with. I stayed there for a little while.

An indoor circus with some sinister costumes:

I a giant shoe sculpture made out of saucepans and saucepan lids:


And a giant pair of headphones surrounded by miniature Santas.

Actually it was all quite an assault on the senses and we both collapsed into watching anime until about now!

How are your Christmas plans going?

In which David Bowie makes everything better

 A lack of inspiration has meant that I haven't blogged in a little while but I'm back! To be honest I've been feeling a bit depressed and that makes me want to be closed off or aggressive. I wrote a couple of angry draft-posts about life frustrations and they helped me a little, but that isn't how I want this blog so they don't get posted. However, the four day weekend has been really good. I'm not looking forward to the mountain of work and stress to return to but it was inspiring and I got things done.

I was feeling down even about my outfits and fashion, like I was just re-wearing the same things over and over, so I set myself a challenge of finding a way of wearing one of my dressiest of dresses in day time to get myself out of a rut. I love asymmetry but so far I have only worn this for special occasions, all done up with heels and my classiest accessories, it was so much fun to go round London in a dress like that all day, especially a windy day with it floating out behind me.

Plus I wore it to go to my favourite museum, the V&A, to see an exhibit about one of my favourite artists: David Bowie. I feel all art-refreshed now. The exhibition was fantastic:, original costumes, clips of Labyrinth, music supplied on headphones for you to listen to as you walk and original artwork. Just what I needed!

It was actually snowing at the same time as taking these so we only got brief flashes of sunlight. When that little bit of light arrived all the visitors rushed outdoors and got out picnics, and there were kids playing in the water, even where the temperatures were still around freezing. I think everyone is longing for it to actually be spring at last and have real sunshine again!

 And oh David Bowie, how I love you.  Noel Fielding and Lady Gaga would be nothing without you.

 

 

(My) Outfit details: 
Jacket: XXI
Shirt: Andy's, borrowed
Dress: Inlovewithfashion
Tights: Two pairs layered over each other, black spots and turquoise from H&M
Shoes: Office

In which I should be making art

I have been thinking about Art a lot. These thoughts have been mostly along the lines of I’m not good enough/I don’t do enough of it. I have been dwelling, in a fairly meloncholy way, on jealousy and a sense of failure. I used to do a lot of art in a structured way: art lessons at school, creative writing lessons or projects, running my jewellery business, or even the way my degree inspired writing. All of these creative outlets have dropped off along the way and I am really in need of a new kick. I need to make things and share things and just see how it goes.

I have lately found myself surrounded by good advice on how to do just that. I think everyone with an interest in creativity should be following Brain Pickings, one of the most beautiful blogs on the internet. It is a well of inspiration, but amongst the thoughts it reaches out with (of love, Lego and lost letters) are words about writing and making. There are so many snippets of advice about originality, audience and self-doubt.

The advice is generally: just do art.
Like Neil Gaiman says in so many ways.
Sometimes like this:
“When people come to me and say, ‘I want to be a writer. What should I do?’, I say, ‘You have to write.’ And sometimes they say, ‘I’m already doing that. What else should I do?’ I say, ‘You have to finish things.’ Because that’s where you learn from; you learn by finishing things.”
(Sometimes like this)

Like Vihart says:

 
Like Tanya Davis says:

.

I find myself humming
‘Art, art, art I want you.
Art you make it pretty hard not to.
And I’m trying hard here to follow you,
but I can’t always tell if I ought to’.

A few months ago I left a job and bought a sketchbook. For me a new sketchbook is a world of possibilities. So I wrote a couple of poems and sketched some maps, designed some Lego figures. Then that little burst of energy was gone. So I am going to do my best to take all this advice and just sit down and write. Me and the boy are going to set aside some time every week to do out Things. His with his viola and me with some writing or crafting or drawing.

 I hope it works!

In which I say why I like graphs

Ok I'm going to begin by saying I just did that thing that everyone does and it drives me crazy. I typed out the whole post here, clicked preview and then click back instead of closing the preview. I lost everything I had typed. It's especially annoying as usually I put it all into an Open Office doc first and then copy and paste in. Sigh.

Anyway. I wanted to talk about how I like graphs. It is really odd that I like them because I've never really been into Maths. I did an English degree and have always been into art and reading and maybe politics and history second, but never maths. I hate the hard facts, it kind of prooves that having superpowers is impossible so I ignore it. However I do love the pretty side of maths, the graphs and charts. I like being able to look at long term progress. I like being able to see that dips are just tiny irregularities in the chart of my life. I love seeing upward trends. It also means I'm addicted to google analytics for my shop...
The things below arn't actually charts but they do show progress. I like to be able to put all the data in one place and say 'Look, I've learnt.' I worry that now I'm not studying I will stagnate, not learn and my brain will fall out. However I did the bottom photographs this last month and they comfort me. The earliest pictures are from a few years ago. Please feel free to laugh.

P.S. I am sorry they are so very small. I can't seem to get them any bigger. If you want to see them in beter quality try seeing them on flickr here and here.