The last few day have been spent in Groningen in Holland.
As you come out of Groningen station you are instantly assailed by the strangest building – Groningen Museum. It was finished in 1994 with separate sections deliberately commissioned from non architects, one of which was Phillip Starck.
Too brutally modernist and spatially too harsh for my taste but you always find something interesting don’t you? I was fascinated by the fortuitous way that bottomless black holes appeared to form in a green algae pool when fresh water funnelled into it. The mix of colours, perspective and the dark piercings gave me a sinister wish to dive into them.
The town turned out to be warm and friendly, chilled and cultured, full of art, theatre and antiques. My high spot was re- visiting the museum to see Chinese digital photographer Chi Peng’s first solo show – ‘Me Myself and I’.
Stunning. A tightrope walk of politics and folklore, adolescence and the headlong growth of a country. As a non Chinese I knew I was missing references to culture, stories, film and heritage but the show was so strong it seemed immaterial. Photography is not my first love and I don’t claim much knowledge of it but this exhibition reignited my interest.
The other image I bought back with me was of the many trees with scarves tied around them. Apparently some of the trees are under threat of destruction and tree lovers have knitted them scarves to show they care. With so many scarves of so many sorts it becomes a clamour impossible to ignore…. .
The collaborative artists book ‘Quattrodecim’ that I did with thirteen others printers seems such a long time ago now, but is suddenly reappearing in my life. Thanks to the generosity of a Hastings based printer who took part in the collaboration my book is now ensconced in her Open Studios exhibition, as I think are my moth boxes from the Crypt.
This morning the postcards arrived for our Quattrodecim exhibition at the Pie Factory in Margate . Fabulous. I am always in awe of anyone with unerring graphic design skills. I have none.
Today was spent with the Farningham Hobby Horse Project – wet again. This time we were at a local Heavy Horse show when the rain came down………the only thing to do is throw plastic recycling bags over all 120 of them, load them as fast as possible, drive home and dry 120 hobby horses and wet plastic bags over my Aga.
Absolutely barking mad.
