reading the signs

as a language teacher I have this thing for signs and I have to confess a little bit of the Lynne Truss, except my zero tolerance is for spelling on signs rather than punctuation.  I have a teacher like urge to underline and SP anything misspelt out there in the world on a sign…these were just some of my latest funny ones. And fortunately somebody has finally figured out cocktails does actually need a K, not sure where the builders diversion arrow expects pedestrians to walk unless we have suddenly all possessed spiderman super powers to scale walls...and as for the family run restaurant (malta wanderings) just because a business is family run doesn’t mean it’s going to be all cosy and glowing with the warmth of love…as we all know working with your family could be a potentially disastrous enterprise for all those involved, including the customers…

it’s a small world and bristol is even smaller

it really is very very small…bumped into none other than sculptor again Barry Lewis from the exhibition You are What you Eat with. Crossing the road he was off to BBC Bristol to do an interview for BBC Bristol Radio to be broadcast this saturday….so check it out if you liked what you saw of the exhibition… With such random meetings or carefully planned it does feel like I’m living in a Murakami novel sometimes…

you are what you eat with

before i got struck down by some hideous cold/flu like bug last week and took to the sofa under layers and layers of duvets to sound like darth vader trying to breathe, I did have the chance to go to the opening night of the November exhibition at the Grant Bradley Gallery  in Bedminster, Bristol.  Favourites of the night had to be Welsh sculptor Barry Lewis’ works in metal, floral and fauna sculpted from refashioning everyday metal objects. Things you’d find in your kitchen-pots, pans, toasters, ovens and some more heavy duty items like cement mixers.

The alternative to the mounted head of hunting trophies were amusing and ironic, especially the boar being sculpted from gravy boats and a meat mincer.  the sea scape framed by an old cast iron bed frame held suspended hammerhead shark, sawfish and various other wonders from the sea, a collection captain nemo would envy . it also reminded me of the huge victorian wooden and glass cases of stuffed animals held still in field museums and here in Bristol’s City Gallery and Museum.  Displaying old relics of victoriana with their beautifully landscaped background paintings, attempting to recreate the natural landscapes the hunted and stuffed animal in the foreground would have originated from. Certainly showing how our morality towards nature and art has so changed in a century.  Particularly evident in Lewis’ recasting of an ivory/bone tusk from all the cutlery, letter openers etc that the tusk was originally cut and carved and fashioned into…

even talking to the artist left you with that impression of mystical victorian attraction to collecting and cataloguing floral and fauna and even further back with the story of Durer’s rhino, the woodcut (1515) .  based on a sketch of an Indian rhino, Durer himself never actually seeing the rhino, it had been the first living example of a rhino in Europe since the Roman times.  However, as the story goes the touring rhino was put out of its misery perhaps when it was lost in a shipwreck off Italy. And yet Durer’s depction of the layers of armour of the rhino echoed throughout the exhibition’s pieces with their metal layers of protective and defensive armour, even on the gladiator, (a living model- very nice chap).

on one level quizzical recycler, making art out of disused metal, another the egalitarian- all of the items could be found in an average kitchen:these are the artist’s materials and then still a traditionalist- art inspired by nature, made by man, made by items made by man….

caravaning: green style

caravan holidays are not for everybody but i have the fondest nostalgic memories of caravan holidays in devon and cornwall in england as a child.  as an organisational freak i love the design of everything being so compact: changing dining tables and benches into double beds, integrated fire heaters and shelving and storage and mini kitchens and french doors… and i have the clearest memory of reading my first edgar allen poe story when about 11.  seeing Towering Inferno for the first time whilst sitting out a colossal rain storm inside the caravan with the rain beating down so hard on the metal roof that it felt like it was boring holes the size of tennis balls in it… So with this geeky tendency its not surprising that i totally fell in love with this person’s own personal interpretation of the caravan: except this one is a far greener way of caravaning..

why are we still waiting for more trees and colour?

if still no one is going to plant them or think about urban planning that does not carry with the synonymous ‘grey’ of urban, then we are just going to have to take matters into our own hands…who could disagree that a bland grey concrete wall is more attractive than this…why are our urban planners deliberately trying to keep their residents in a perpetual state of ‘greyish’ coldness and melancholy, I mean really we have the English weather to take care of that for us…

Revolution in fairyland

i love how sometimes, just sometimes everything seems to connect in your life and no I don’t mean everything is happy as larry I mean how signs and themes seem to come together as if it was really all one carefully laid out plan. Of course the other way of looking as it is that it is in fact simply a series of random signs and occurrences which we make the connections between because we have made a conscious effort ‘to notice’ how it is connected? is it all just serendipity? I was reading my Vertigo comics FABLES edition, volume 2, an amusing postmodern reworking of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and it amused me that since I had just returned from travelling in Malta, and a week of intense historical input regarding the Knights of Malta, there they were in my comic- the hospital in New York City…Now if I hadn’t been there the week before I would probably never have even ‘noticed’ it I suppose but sometimes it does seem like an elaborate plot is being laid out before us, like the intricate workings of a plot novel, you just have to ‘notice’ the signs… Volume 2 was devoured in a pretty short space of time though, Goldilocks as a vicious mercenary bitch was amusing, as was the twisted sisterly relationship between Snow white and rose red… Typically I will miss another appearance and book signing at Forbidden Planet too, first it was the writer Bill Willingham and now travelling again I miss the illustrator Mark Buckingham, Forbidden Planet this saturday 27th October 1-2pm Bristol if YOU’re around… 

the headless musketeer

i was always a fan of The Three Musketeers when I was little, the films for the simple fact that i had a thing for Oliver Reed, who wouldn’t with his voice? The tongue and cheek parts kept the fencing duels in balance so it comes as no surprise to me that I should fall in love with another piece of street art I found behind Nelson Streetparticularly as it is next to the most awful modern (medium sized) high-rise in amongst gorgeous classical and gothic architecture of the old walled area of Bristol. i love the movement and strength in it, so much that it distracts you from the ugly edifice of the building right next to it.  the graphics of black and white square tiles have always hypnotised me too, escher meets a giant chess game of players and their duelling moves…If you’ve read Agatha Christie’s Pale Horse, then you’ll remember that if the viewer does see a rider on the horse they are to imagine it is themselves as the rider…can you see yourself as the musketeer?

pandas on the loose in cardiff streets…

so the ourdigitalplanet exhibition moves today boo hoo and leaves its public open space in bristol to head for cardiff, if you are local take some time between shops to check out the pandas… and see what the project is all about…basically it’s exactly what you and I are doing right now…

suicide shoes…

struck by this photograph today that is part of an outdoor photographic exhibition, smack bank in the middle of consumer chain store heaven. not just because the anorakgirl used to live in san francisco and loves this bridge but also because it reminds me of all the suicides of bristol’s clifton bridge as well and the ever telling samaritan signs on it too listing their phone number if you need help… so there is a pair of shoes represented in the photograph for everybody who has jumped from the GOlden Gate since its construction…  

bristol babocha

so my favourite part of my saturday strolling around bristol in the sun, even though still cold and crazy people still in shorts? (no without tights or leggings) brrr cold drafts blowing, was my mango and pomegranate Taiwanese bubble tea from BABOCHA. yes it was amazing and the bubbles do explode in your mouth, obviously this required a wide enough straw (v cute mauve one) for the little bubbles to slowly make their way into your mouth for that perfect fruit explosion. yes bit of a sugar rush but got me up the long hill of a walk of park street.  so if you feel like wandering about on nelson street and seeing the new graffiti, get a bubble tea from babocha.  Its under Shanghai Nights restaurant further down opposite the Lanes.  These are a couple of my new favs from Nelson Street street art, although I’m still mourning the loss of the old ones painted over to make room for the new.