I would have liked to have gone to the Baltic again when we were up there, but it didn't seem quite right for a buzzy 2.5yo and they shut at 6pm (completely ridiculous - why not open at 1pm and close at 8pm, for example, then you can go after work or get a babysitter?). So yesterday, since I had no class and wheels all day, K and I took ourselves off to Liverpool where we found ourselves at the Tate Gallery for the morning. Again, I can recommend the cafe! Unfortunately due to the insane parking fees we weren't able to spend long there so we only covered two of the four floors (both referring to "figurative" pieces). K was not at all impressed, I'm afraid - and it was rather dull for a little one, admittedly. I didn't get to see the Niki de Saint Phalle exhibition, which I would have liked to look at, since I have a book full of pics of her Tarot garden sculptures (The New Tarot
by Rachel Pollack, since you ask - appears to be OOP though). I didn't think it was worth paying a fiver when I would probably not have the time to really look properly. Perhaps another time. The shop, too, was a little disappointing - my small aubergine complex kicked in very hard at the £5 a box for a few pompoms and bits of glitter and £8 for a kid's painting apron. As ever, I was tempted by a big coffee table book about Marimekko but managed to resist (I still cannot believe anyone would pay £30 for 1m of printed fabric. A gorgeous silk, perhaps, might command that price, if the worms were fed on gold or something).However, I was thrilled to see Rodin's The Kiss in the flesh, as it were - it is absolutely amazing, such a wonderfully smooth surface with almost woolly-seeming pits. I really wanted to run my hands all over it! Gorgeous, so much flow to it you'd hardly believe it was stone. I also fell in love with an Alberto Giacometti sculpture, "Man Pointing". It was the lighting which attracted me. The sculpture itself seems to say very little, but the shadow behind it was so expressive! Apparently there was supposed to be a second figure but Giacometti decided it wasn't needed. When you look at the shadow on the wall, though, you can clearly see the poor man reaching out to wrap his arm around his missing friend. Actually quite sad, particularly for a post-war piece...there's a real sense of hidden loss there, although I would guess the lighting was completely accidental. So now I'm thinking about lighting and sculpture and shadows. I realised, too, that over the years I've trained myself to see the shadow in symbols through reading the Tarot - the way I read is to consider all the options for a symbol before fixing on the most useful; sometimes you need the complete perspective. Rather more like Lyra's Alethiometer in Northern Lights. I did not, however, like "Beyond The Pleasure Principle" by Sarah Lucas - it really was a bit creepy, shadows and all.
. I did not, however, like "We spent the rest of the day watching a very friendly squirrel in Calderstones park, eating and driving. And that's it, really. It is a time for wrapping up projects and starting new iterations of the same theme, for now - I have another dress and bag planned and I really do want a cloche hat. And, I suppose, it's time to get back to the Artist's Way - it has been suspended for a time but I think it's time to get on with it.
Oh, one more thing - I've been labelling all my entries so now you can look for stuff specifically about one topic or the other. I don't know if anyone will use that but having had a few comments about Artist's Way and so on I figured I'd better get on with it.
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