Take One Picture – creatve inspiration for schoolchildren at The National Gallery

My last post was about the Degas exhibition at the National Gallery. If you do go to see that, or even if you don't, walk through the adjacent gift shop where some excellent and competitively-priced Degas-themed merchandise is available, to a room full of art made my schoolchildren.
When visiting the National gallery I often see groups of small uniformed people sat in front of a painting listening to a teacher, or engaged in making their own drawings, and I wonder what they are up to. Well, now I understand what's going on; it appears children are shown a painting (this year it's A Roman Triumph by Peter Paul Rubens) and are then encouraged to write about and/or create some kind of art based on their observations. 

Marvellous artwork across the ages. I especially love the elephants and the white ceramics. Bottom right is from a video where children are performing a play inspired by the sacrifice and slaughter depicted in Rubens' painting.

The cross-section of results shown in this room is delightful and shows we have some great future artists running around our playgrounds.
Take One Picture was launched in 1995, yet stumbling on this room last week was the first I knew about it. Probably because I don't have children. I wish similar things were available when I was a child. I'd have been proverbial pig in the dirty stuff.
Lots more educational stuff in the Learning section of the National Gallery's website.

Demise of the House of Toby

Walking down Swinton Street in Kings Cross last week I noticed scaffolding up against Swintons, previously The Kings Cross Arms.

King Cross Arms as was, then more recently as Swintons inc some interior shots grabbed from Google Streetview (it appears you can 'drive' inside pubs!")

The interior of the building looks to be gutted – I just hope the exterior remains as is with its Charrington tiles complete with 'The House Of Toby' plaques because the Toby on this building is a particularly fine specimen.

Look at Toby – he's a corker!

It's such a shame when renovation or new ownership results in the loss of lovely details like the Toby motifs. Some get painted over, but most get chipped away completely. I can never fathom why people paint over tiles at all; they are so low maintenance and wipe clean. Paint, on the other hand, fades or chips.
I have 'collected' quite a few Toby signs across London over the past decade or so and have put them together in the montage below to show how diverse they were even within the same style or arrangement – there appears to have been no set guidelines or rules so each one may have been a unique piece of handmade ceramic.

Shown above is a selection of London Tobys some of which have been subsequently removed or destroyed. Most of these are my own pics but some are grabbed from Flickr, mainly from Ewan Munro.

Note how most are 3D, but one is a mosaic, some are flat renditions including the one on the lantern and the one on the window. Note also the subtle changes in colour on his skin and breeches and how the colours used for the legend and company name differs across the board also.
I may be rather more fond of these little fellas than most because Mum enjoyed the occasional Toby Ale and that's the name we gave our to our dog (just Toby, not Toby Ale; that would be daft).
Find out more about Toby Ales here.
Charrington & Co started in Bethnal Green in the early 18thC and had breweries  across London.

I feel thirsty now...

A Walk Along Kings Road

The groovy shops and cafés of the King's Road in its 1960s heyday have all disappeared but there are a few interesting details along the street that hint at this might have once been a road fit for a king.

Starting at the corner of Sydney Street by Habitat and walking east towards Sloane Square... 

The Curzon Cinema and some of its Art Deco details 

Opposite Habitat and the cinema there's Chelsea Town Hall, the Scottish Methodist Church and a lovely Shoe Repairers' sign
And then there's 'Antiquarius' the lovely Grade II listed Arts and Crafts billiards hall constructed by The Temperance Movement*. By the second half of the twentieth century the balls had been packed away and the building had been converted into small retail spaces, home to many boutique shops and antique dealers. These days it houses some big name High Street brands.  

Actually, I think I'll save the rest of this walk for some future posts.

Meanwhile check out this link about Kings Road in the 1960s.

* Ha ha... hope you enjoyed that diversion.
Here's a link to the 'correct' Temperance Movement.

Grayson Perry: Who are You? at the National Portrait Gallery

There is still plenty of time to follow the free trail around the NPG where you can see fourteen works created by the multi-talented Mr Perry in conjunction with his Channel 4 TV programmes aired last year.

Detailed ceramics, intricate sewn and beaded tapestries, maps, diagrams, portraits and prints – all packed full of ideas and observations. And Grayson's explanations on the info cards next to each piece are so refreshingly informal, caring and well-written.
The man is an inspiration.
Until 15th March 2015.

Previous Grayson Perry posts...

The Walthamstow Tapestry (May 2010)

The Tomb of The Unknown Craftsman (Feb 2012)

The Vanity of Small Differences (July 2012)

This image shows a few things on my mantlepiece including the lovely flyer from Grayson's excellent 2006 show The Charms of Lincolnshire, a bone that looks like a little begging beast, an eroded fragment of crackle-glazed pottery, a twisty shell innard and, just out of view, a postcard of Ulysses and the Sirens by Herbert James Draper.

Bottles and bricks on Battersea beach

Every now and then I get a group of friends together and we go for what I call "A Forage on the Foreshore".
Yesterday the weather was forecast as 6ºC but bright and sunny, so a few of us including Caroline and Malcolm met up under the south side of Battersea Bridge. Having enjoyed it there last time, this time we did the same walk in reverse, continuing westwards almost to the railway bridge and then retraced our steps halfway back again to return to street level via the slipway next to the old church.
The beach at Battersea is mostly shingly and pebbly but there are some interesting old things to be spotted by the eagle-eyed.
As seen under my shadow here, the foreshore is littered with old building bricks, and many of them have names embedded in them. At first, seeing so many with the name RAMSAY on them we thought there must have been a brick-making factory on that site, but moving on we found lots more names, including NETTLE and THISTLE (nice) so I now think these are the remains of some demolished buildings, especially as some of the fancier shaped pieces had numbers on them which, I'd assume, were identification codes for the builders as to where they should be placed. More ideas about this are welcome.

Considering how many Ramsay bricks we saw it's hard to fathom how I didn't capture one. Of the others, Thistle, Nettle, Sneyd, Douglas, Brandon and Stephenson were easy to read but the last three aren't so clear – Cliff(something)–Worth(sonething), Phorpres? and John Steve(ns/son)?

Further along, near four house boats moored parallel to the shore, we found a lot of glass – big chunks with metal bits embedded within, etched fragments, broken and tide-tumbled pieces, little medicine bottles and jars, and one ink bottle with its stopper inside.

Here are some of the finds I brought home including four clay pipe stem fragments that will probably end up in a necklace, and some nice old bits of pottery which I have yet to date.

If you'd like to join us for a forage just contact me via my other site here.

Hitomi Hosono, Perrier-Jouët and The St Pancras Renaissance Hotel

Earlier this week I spent a pleasant hour sipping champagne and admiring the work of Hitomi Hosono at the Chambers Club within the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel.
Hosono is the winner of this year's Perrier-Jouët Arts Salon Award. Having seen her intricate work on line I was keen to go an view it in person. Also I love the building and its sympathetic renovation and rebirth (see here) and any excuse to get inside a room I have been in before is a bonus!
Hisono's work is amazing. Her work is inspired by botany and nature with titles such as Chysanthemum Bowl and Wisteria Tower and each piece takes about a month to make as each delicate flower or leaf has to be cut out and applied by hand. Some of them have hidden storage; barely visible horizontal cuts open up to reveal gem-like gold or silver leaf interiors.
I was also impressed how the pieces really suit the club's environment, as I noticed that the ceiling roses echo the same botanic shapes.
If you would like to see these for yourself, please note that the Chambers Club is a members only lounge so you cannot just wander in to have a look when you are passing. Appointments can be made by calling Caroline on 07590 262370, and you'll get a free glass of Perrier-Jouët bubbly when you visit.
Some of Hosono's work can also be found in Fortnum & Mason, the British Museum and the V&A, as well as in the homes of the rich and famous. I really do believe that these are treasures for the futures.