The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

I'm trying without much success - and the summer is running away with me... to settle on my concept for next years college work and I have so many ideas I'm finding it difficult to commit - It needs to be something I can work with throughout the whole year, something I can get me teeth into - and develop - and lose myself to ....

I think may be I need a little bit of space and a bit of R&R before I make a decision that my whole years work may be based on so in the meantime I shall just wander and sketch and hope the idea evolves so with this in mind I headed to the Royal Academy for further inspiration. I went to the Summer Exhibition a long time ago and for some reason never quite got round to revisiting. I decided to make it my mission this year having seen the variety at New Designers I felt that the variety presented at the Summer Exhibition 2019 would really complement my summer culture fix!

I wasn't wrong! the 2019 summer exhibition was an eclectic mix of every conceivable art form and some of it was stunning. I particularly like some of the sculptural exhibits - two very different pieces stood out for me.

I loved the tunnocks tiger - Easy Tiger - Mach Brothers by David Mach RA (£57,000 if you are interested)

I used some tunnocks wrappers in a piece I did a couple of years ago but with nothing like the impact this marvelous beast had!

There were over 1500 pieces of art on display (chosen from 16000 entries) and the other sculpture presentation I liked was Parliament - The Voices In Your Head by Tim Shaw, this piece was made from straw and black plastic - very effective as it whispered at you....

made from Black bin liners and straw - sums up our current government!!!

There were a lot of paintings and mixed media showing that I really liked, some more contemporary than others - some more political than I might want hanging in my actual house but with strong messages and inspiring content. (Jeremy Deller - we are all Immigrant scum..)

There were gentler examples of art appealing in a completely different way - more subtle statements and some of it was just probably art for pleasure - I liked the way I had to keep looking at this one to decided quite what it was and what it was made up of... its called Isabella Bird by James Fisher.

I still haven't entirely got my ideas together - but this plan of searching all avenues will continue through the summer - its a busy one as always and I'm sure something will emerge and become the right path.. eternally optimistic ha ha ... something to do with natural patterns and layers and mixed media is calling from a distance - next stop the Natural History Museum to see what happens there!!!

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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