Chelsea Flower Show

Last weekend was the Chelsea Flower Show, I always enjoy being surrounded by the gardens and plants. This year a lot of the gardens had a very subdued palette of colours, which wasn't helped by it being the coldest Chelsea that I've been to for some years. There had been some sunny days in the week, but on Saturday when I went the weather had turned cool and showery.


Diarmuid Gavin's pink pod flying garden (Irish Sky Garden)had been profiled in the media all week, and it was certainly rather surreal. Some visitors were having a go in the pod, with as it was hoisted into the air by a huge crane. Of course it was the crane that made it all rather unrealistic for any type of garden, but as a bit of fun it worked.

The goldfish swimming in a large glass table also qualified as rather strange or surreal in the B&Q garden. The garden also had vertical planters showing how to grow food in a small space, and a wall with all sorts of spaces and homes for insects.

I liked the Magistrates Garden, with it's bench,the word bench carved into it, structural London Plane trees and a lovely, well planted vertical green wall.

The marquee was full of great stands of plants, trees and flowers, and is always a pleasure to look round. I love the mix of perfume on the air, even though I seem to have hayfever over the last few years. One of the most amazing stands was a Thai temple and elephants, woven with flowers, from the Thai Botanical Gardens. It stood out with it's amazing colours of pink, red, blue/green and yellow.

Ai Weiwei Circle of Animals.

I got to see Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals Zodiac Heads, his new sculptural installation at Somerset House, last week.
It is an installation of 12 bronze sculptures of animal heads, the animals being the traditional animals of the Chinese Zodiac including, dragon, horse, monkey and rabbit. Ai Weiwei based his sculptures on traditional Chinese designs and they are quite striking in the courtyard of Somerset House.


It is a political shame that Ai Weiwei has been arrested and is in custody in China now, for apparent tax evasion. He has been an outspoken critic of China's regime for many years, it is testimony to the power of the arts I suppose that artists like Ai Weiwei are targeted by their country in an attempt to silence their views.
I hope international pressure is brought to bear more and more strongly on the Chinese for the release of Ai Weiwei.



The regular fountains are on again for the summer, with their sequence of rising and falling jets, I couldn't quite make up my mind whether they enhanced or detracted from the installation. I did enjoy taking a few photos of them through the water though.

E17 Designers Market this week.

I have been busy getting work ready for the E17 Designers market on this Friday at the Asian Centre, 18a Orford road, E17 9LN May 13th 7-10pm. link to site and more info here The craft markets have a really good range of products and do showcase what skilled designers we have in the area. There is also live music, wine and soft drinks and goody bags to be won, so a good evening out if you can make it
E17 Designers has a new website with more information about the designers here
I am taking my new individual collages as cards, I'm enjoying collecting all the material and making up the compositions, though the sorting of material for easy use is a bit daunting.


I'm also working on some larger collages as well, some of which will have more political comment in them
Part of my interest in collage has come from the political Agit Prop work from the 1930's onwards.
Today artist Peter Kennard carries on the tradition. Good article here about his work and his own website here.
Photographers working with a collage element also interest me, such as the recent work by John Stezaker at the Whitechapel gallery link to his work here. I have started a few photographic collage pieces over the years but haven't made up a body of work with them yet. I like both the digital and more hand made aspects of collage but my photoshop skills are not great at the moment.

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Day out to Arundel

Ruth and I went out to Arundel for my birthday It was lovely weather, blue skies and sunshine and I had my new Sanyo Xacti photo and video camera that Ruth had brought me.
We started at the cathedral at the top of the town via a short taxi ride from the station. The spire was missing from the cathedral being restored, but due back on soon.

The cathedral was finished in 1873 and built in the French gothic style. It was a little bit austere inside for my tastes, though the rose window was lovely and some of the statues and gargoles outside good.The church of St Nicholas just across the road was however lovely. We walked around the churchyard first, idyllic in the spring sunshine. Old weathered tomb stones, well cared for, with flowers, primroses and violets and other small garden patches. Old flint walls with nest sites for some birds I couldn't identify, cherry trees, a huge pine and bird song all around. It is a long time since I have felt such a sense of peace in a churchyard.

Finding out that the site had had a church since the Saxon times, and this church been here since it was rebuilt in 1380 made me understand where the sense of peace and positive energy was coming from. (despite the strange railed off inside other half of the church, which belonged to the castle)

Inside the church had remnants of original medieval wall paintings, a stone carved pulpit and font from the 14th century.
Down past some interesting antique and collectibles shops and arcades was the entrance to Arundel castle. The castle was founded in 1067 by Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Arundel and loyal baron to William the Conqueror. The castle was built at the mouth of the Arun river to protect Sussex from attack.

I really enjoyed walking round the grounds and gardens. The new formal gardens are well put together and in the style of the 14th Earl of Arundel's town palace in London apparantly.
Various gateways and pavillions are built based on Inigo Jone's designs for Arundel House and the centre piece is a version of Oberon's Palace, designed by Inigo Jones for Prince Henry's Masque on New Years Day in 1611.Inside this shell lined palace is a stalagmite fountain and a gilded coronet dancing on a jet of water. The golden coronet dancing, seemed to sum up something of the nature of royalty for me

We made it up to the castle keep just before it was closing. The tiny twisting stone steps to the top of the keep were incredible, I was trying to imagine how people could have been running up and down these stairs in battles. The view from the top across the river Arun was beautiful.


Definitely worth a day out or more, Arundel really appealed to me I hope to go back to visit soon, maybe at that Medieval tournament!