Monday 31 October 2011

Was it the Art...or the free wine?

Last Wednesday I was lucky enough to be invited to the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland for the preview of this seasons new exhibitions. As I mentioned already, I'm currently trying to broaden my artistic horizons with some contemporary art, with this in mind and with the promise of free wine, I and some friends decided it might be worth a look and headed along.




There were two exhibitions opening, 'CIVIC', an exhibition of billboards art and posters, showing across three galleries and 260 feet of commercial billboards and 'The Wonders of the Visible World', which brings together the work of 21 international artists who use photography and video to explore the relationship between the visible and the invisible worlds and "capture physical phenomena that defy belief, or defy description"...apparently!


John Kippin 'The Poor Are Always With Us',
CIVIC, is showing at the Reg Vardy Gallery and The Place as well as at the NGCA and on billboards around Sunderland. Each exhibition has a different theme - at the NGCA, a sequence of floor-to-ceiling photographic prints "examine the recent resurgence of interest in the romantic landscape in artists' photographs"...my favourite was the close-up of a muddy football! I'm not totally convinced by the over-arching theme but if nothing else this exhibition showcases some interesting and aesthically pleasing images and on this occasion, wine in hand, that was enough!

Ulla von Brandenburg 'Geister (Ghosts)'

The Wonders of the Visible World is a far more complex exhibition! To begin with the white-cube gallery space has been divided and sub-divided into a labyrinth of small brightly lit rooms showcasing a multitude of photographic works and practically pitch-dark spaces where visitors can recline on sofas whilst viewing the film installations. The sheer volume and variety of works on show makes it almost impossible to describe...but I'm going to try! The exhibition opens with Mark Wallinger's video work 'The Magic of Things', showing found footage from the TV series 'Bewitched', in which scenes of witchcraft-inspired magic "create a taxonomy of archetypes", then there's Camillo Paravicini's photographic series 'Somnambulist with Wall' documenting the alarming phenomenon of extreme sleepwalking. Jason Dee's video 'Medium' reveals the strange metamorphoses that can occur when time is slowed down in film and by far my favourite works, Georgina Mascolo's photographic series 'The Phenomenon Treatise' examines the unexplained occurrences at a former Army medical college on Millbank, where strange events from levitation to magnetism have been recorded.     
Mark Wallinger 'The Magic of Things'

Camillo Paravicini 'Somnabulist and Wall'
Jason Dee 'Medium'
Georgina Mascolo's 'Phenomenon Treatise III - Magnetism'

Moscolo's works are memorable, at least in part because there display is so different than that of the other works in the exhibition. To start with they're hung not in your average white-cube space but on walls painted a deep heritage green, there's even an antique table and a vase of fresh flowers. Accompanying the photographic works is an essay describing how the artist found the photographs, along with written reports on the experiments they document, in a former Army Medical Centre. Whether there is any truth in this or whether its all part of the larger work is down to interpretation but for me that's part of what makes this work so fascinating!

My friend Paul enjoying Georgina Mascolo's 'The Phenomenon Treatise'

If you're in the area I would definately recommend this thought-provoking exhibition! 

'The Wonders of the Visible World' is open until the 4th February 2012 and 'CIVIC' is showing until the 13th November, both are free entry. 


Friday 28 October 2011

Barrista in Training




So I work in a little independent coffee house called Biz R and this week (after 5 years) I've been learning to make coffee...wish I could say I made this one but alas my skills aren't that advanced yet! I'm getting there though! (my lovely friend and colleague Paul this for me.)

Monday 24 October 2011

It’s that time again…already!



Around this time every year I have a lil’ tradition…I bake a Christmas cake! Not just any Christmas cake, this is my Nana’s Christmas cake! I’ve been making it for as long as I can remember, first with my Mama’s help and now all by myself and though I’ve tweaked it over the years, I always stick to my Nana’s same basic method because its fool-proof and my family and friends love it! And there’s another reason…my Nana passed away 4 years before I was born. She was, I’ve been told, a born homemaker and a wonderful baker! The recipe I work from is in her own hand and making this cake, following her recipe, makes me feel close to her! I guess that’s the emotive power of food – it can be comforting, it can cheer you up, make you feel nostalgic or in this case, become a family tradition that’s passed down through generations…the fact that it tastes yummy doesn’t hurt either!



Enjoy!
Xx

Ingredients:

5oz (140g) Softened Butter
5oz (140g) Soft Dark Brown Sugar
3 Medium Eggs
6oz (170g) Plain Flour
¼ tsp Salt
1 tsp Mixed Spice  
1lb (450g) Mixed Dried Fruit
2oz (50g) Glace Cherries
1oz Candied Peel
1oz (25g) Flaked Almonds
Grated Zest of 1 Orange
1 tbsp Brandy
1 tbsp Water

Method:

  •    Put all of the dried (inc. the glace cherries and mixed peel) in a large saucepan, add the brandy and the water. Bring to a gentle boil then allow to cool before covering. Leave for 24 hours. Don’t forget to allow the eggs and butter to come to room temperature.
  •   Pre-heat the oven to 125°c. Grease and line your tin with grease-proof paper or baking parchment, I use a 15cm square tin but a 20cm round tin would work too,  just make sure that the grease-proof is twice the height of the tin.
  •  Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of sieved flour, beating well between yet addition.  Sieve in the remaining flour, along with the mixed spice and the salt - just fold in, don’t beat.
  •    Stir in the soaked fruit, almonds and grated orange zest until combined.
  •   Pour into the lined tin, making a hollow in the centre. Bake in the middle of the oven on 125°c for 1hour, then reduce the temperature to 115°c for a further 1 hour 30 minutes before reducing the temperature to 100°c for a final 1 hour. By now the cake should be golden brown and firm to the touch.
  • Remove from the oven and allow to completely cool in the tin (if the cake has cracked cover with a damp cloth). Once the cake is cold, remove from the tin, wrap in tin foil and store in a cool, dry place until you’re ready to decorate…I usually ice mine on Christmas Eve. For an extra moist and yummy cake, prick holes in the top with a needle and ‘feed’ the cake with brandy or sherry once every few weeks in the run up to Christmas. 

P.S. I tweaked my cake this year by adding 1oz each of ready-to-eat Dates and Prunes to the fruit mixture and I topped up the brandy when soaking the fruit – 200ml…not sure my Nana would have approved of that! I also added a tablespoon of Black Treacle and ½ teaspoon of Almond extract after I creamed the butter and sugar but before adding the eggs. Finally I used Walnuts and Hazelnut as well as Almonds, still only 1oz in total and added ½ oz of finely chopped stem ginger. These are all purely optional and the original recipe makes a wonderful cake and makes the house smell deliciously festive!



How exactly do you start a blog?


I'm Louise and I guess a good place to start is to say that this blog is going to be about lots of things...the things that I love and the things that inspire me - fashion and make up, home-baking, all things retro and art...definitely art! That's not to say that I'm an expert on any of those things or anything else for that matter but I'm interested and I hope other people will be too!

I should probably say now that art is my passion...in ten years time I may no longer worship at the alter of Topshop and will probably have given up my efforts to master the perfect meringue but art will always be part of my life! Now usually I'm a Pre-Raphaelite girl but last Friday I (and about 800 other people) decided to broaden my artistic horizons and attend the preview of the Turner Prize exhibition at The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle. I wish I could say that it was amazing but to be honest I spent most of the night queuing! Queuing to get into the building, queuing to get on to the right floor, queuing to get into the exhibition! By the time I got to see the first work I was ready for a drink but couldn't face the queue for the free bar!

                                                                                    

That's not to say I didn't enjoy the exhibition! People who know a lot more about contemporary art than me have reviewed the works on show but this is effort. I'll say now that I didn't 'get' all of the works on show - Hilary Lloyd's video installation, with its pulsing, bouncing cityscapes and clock faces left me totally cold and slightly nauseated and to be honest I was more interested in the amazing view of Newcastle's Quayside from the gallery's picture window! I'm not going to try to describe Karla Back's work except to say that I liked it, I liked the pastel hues and the fact that you could walk through it and under it and behind it...mostly I liked the artist's use of Lush Bath Ballistics! But I didn't understand it...it made me think of Carebears and I'm pretty sure that wasn't what Black was going for! 

Hillary Lloyd
   
Karla Black
 There were however, two works in the exhibition that I loved! When I stepped into Martin Boyce's sculpture/installation I felt liked I'd been transported far from the Baltic...to where exactly I'm not sure but it definitely wasn't Newcastle. The work is difficult to describe and some of its magic will probably be lost in translation but in essence Boyce had transformed the gallery space into a woodland clearing by attaching hundreds of white metal leaves beneath the ceiling lights, filling the gallery with dappled light which filters on to a floor scattered with artificial autumn leaves. The centre piece, a big concrete table with a mobile hanging over it just confuses me...apparently its modernist-inspired but I don't really care...I just like being in this space!

Martin Boyce
George Shaw's works make up for all the queuing! All of the paintings are of one thing - Tile Hill housing estate near Coventry, where the artist grew up. There are no people, no animals, just graffitied-shop fronts, roes of shut up garages, wet tarmac and scruffy woodland. Shaw paints a very specific place, but it’s so generically British it could be anywhere! I love the nostalgia of Shaw's works, I've never been to Tile Hill but when I look at his paintings they make me think of home, like somewhere half-remembered from childhood or somewhere The Smiths would sing about! That's probably horrifically pretentious, funny as Shaw's works are anything but pretentious! Everything from his subject matter to his use of Humbrol enamel paint (usually used for painting model aeroplanes) is accessible! Everyone can take something from these paintings...I just hope those still queuing when the Gallery closed at 10pm will go back and seem them, they're so worth it!

George Shaw, The Resurface, 2010
 
George Shaw, The Age of Bullshit, 2010.
 All in all I would recommend a visit the Baltic if you're in the area, the exhibition runs until the 8th January 2012, if you've already seen it I would love to know what you thought :)

L
Xx