Sarah Bowman - The Rite of Spring

If I could go out tonight, and if I was anywhere near Totnes in Devon, I would go to the opening of Sarah Bowman's new exhibition.



When we were young and had disposable income (those hazy days) we bought a Sarah Bowman painting at the Affordable Art Fair. We did what you do when you buy a car or sofa and paid for the painting in monthly installments (via the fantastic own art scheme).



Owning a painting, an original that no-one else has is a lovely thing; and I could gaze at this picture for hours, it's my 'country' window - opposed to the train-track view from my real windows. Hugh and I have spent a lot of time in Cornwall; right from when we first got together, and it was very much a joint decision to buy the picture - unlike many other pictures we have that are either his or mine. (The is a rather sedated way of saying I LOVE THIS PICTURE).

For more photos of the painting in situ go here.



I like this wintery scene, very evocative of January days with the low Winter sun. There is definitely room for another Bowman* in this house... just not the budget right now.

*Strictly, we do actually have another Bowman, as we have a painting by Vanessa Bowman, Sarah's sister - which I'll have to share in another post...

The Kitchen Mantel Piece/ Dumping Ground

It's quite a lot for one little mantel piece to take isn't it?

I'm wondering whether I could draw some parallels between our lives, my state of mind and this mantel piece in our kitchen.
For starters, it's not even properly fixed into place yet - hence the rather stylish holes around the edges.

Sometimes I get an urge and it all gets cleared and dusted and prettified... then gradually the clutter manages to move in again.  There is a sort of accidental bird/animal theme going on at the moment, with a Coco-made parrot, some paper plates made into peacocks (I did one and Coco did one, mines' at the front... shows what I thought of her effort)!
Pens in the pot on the rights with carved birds on, a card bird on the flowers, flying duck magnets on the cast iron.
And a giraffe, and a tiger puppet made an the imagination station in the V&A (which is fast becoming one of my favourite London Museums to visit with kids) and butterflies of course.

Along with the normal selection of pictures and very important documents that are shoved up there. Oh and things to be fixed, like the mini rolling pin.

So there you have it.
Maybe I'll get around to clearing it up tomorrow.

Still reading? Well here are some photos of the mantel piece from earlier in the month. And I guess, if your asking, no, I don't really have a life, but I do have a camera and I like to use it.


17th January 2012

 
2nd February 2012


13th February 2012



14th February 2012

Last week...

Last week we spent a lot of time hanging around the kitchen...

We did some cooking...



and lots of colouring



We did a bit of icing (only a few E-numbers were involved)...

We hung out with my sister and made hundreds of paper pots ready for when we do some planting (I say we in the loosest sense of the word, I fully expect it will be either Hugh or one of our sisters that does the planting in this house...)

Mess was made, and tidied, and made and tidied... 

And then we did some more colouring; there was lots of cutting too (generally just resulting in swathes of confetti sized pieces of paper littering the kitchen... anyone after some 'value' confetti?)

Meanwhile Henry kept himself busy taking everything out of the cupboards.

Felt Birthday Bunting

 

Two lots of 'Happy Birthday' bunting made for two little boys... 

Henry's birthday was over a month ago now - this is slightly a sign of the times that I've only got around to posting these photos now. The older he gets the less time I seem to have to myself... a trend that I haven't quite got my head around yet.

Henry's best friend (they will be best friends - 'cos their Mummies like hanging out!) was one two weeks later so it was only right that I make him some almost matching bunting too... my felt supplies were somewhat depleted though, so Zefi only got one colour on his flags - which possibly looks a bit collegiate?

His mummy and I were college friends though, so maybe that's kind of appropriate?

The problem is that I have two other friends from the same crowd who between them have another three boys all turning one in the next few months; it's going to be a bunting factory here.

Little Winter Holiday

Some snapshots of 'our little winter holiday' as Coco likes to call it (that's the cottage we stayed in above).



It was lovely, (in a 'change is as good as a rest' kind of way) we still had to get up at the crack of dawn, and yet we wanted to stay up late too... we had to drive a hell of a long way, and we weren't 'allowed' to listen to our music (in fact for 50% of the journey we had to listen to Henry shouting). But still all worth it when we were watching the kiddo's having fun on the beach and being able to let them explore our mini cove or eating lovely food and chatting to friends we haven't seen in ages.

We're heading west for the weekend...

We are Cornwall bound for a few days of salty air and windswept hair, bracing walks and hopefully lots of laughter.

Am wondering if we'll get miraculously beautiful warm weather, or snow.


February 6th 2007


February 6th 2008


Snow on Sand, February 5th 2009


Swimming on Feb 5th 2010. Madness.

Hockney in the House

Last week Henry and I went to see the much talked about David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy.

We had a great time as we were there with www.culturebaby.co.uk (you may hear a lot more about Culture Baby around these parts as I'm now officially part of the Culture Baby crew).



Afterwards we curated our own mini Hockey exhibition, now open in our kitchen, with some pictures at my eye level and some at Henry's - although, he's mostly interested in re-arranging the displays, so I'm not sure how long it will last.

It would have been nice to have been able to bring some of the real pictures home, there were definitely a few that would sit very nicely above our mantel piece and would no doubt brighten up my day with their super dense colours.



The famed ipad images of emerging Spring really do capture that budding/bursting lushness of an English Spring scene... I'm starting to get bored of Winter now, especially when trying to communicate the importance of wearing warm clothes to a four year old and feeling like I'm constantly explaining that if you actually walk/scoot/run/MOVE you might keep warm, or get home to the warm, rather than standing still in the middle of the pavement and saying 'it's too cold'. (sorry, rant over).
Am keeping Henry on Spring watch.