Arty London // 4 creative things to do in London

London is, in my humble opinion, one of the best cities in the world for experiencing the arts. There is such a rich, varied history of culture that continues to this day so there's no end of wonderful arty things to do. Of course, there are the obvious choices but I've tried to list my favourite slightly-underappreciated creative ventures in the capital.

My favourite creepy artworks

It will come as a surprise to nobody that my favourite artworks are those that are a little creepy in some way (they're also all postmodern sculptures because that's my thang). With Halloween approaching, I've decided to pop a spotlight on some of my favourite spooky sculptures. 

Marc Quinn- Self

Source
This is one of my favourite pieces ever. It's a simple sculpture of the artist's head. Just your basic self-portrait. Except it's made from eight pints of Quinn's own blood. It's frozen inside a refrigerated unit so it retains its shape and, interestingly, Quinn makes a new one every five years. Talk about commitment! Until it was loaned out, one of my favourite things to do in London was hover next to the sculpture and watch people's reactions as they realised what it was made of.

4 easy ways to get involved in art

Since leaving uni, where I specialised in art education, I've hardly been involved in art at all. Even when it comes to exhibitions and galleries, I've only been to a few in the past 4 years, as I mentioned here. However, I'm making plans to change that! Here are four super easy ways to get involved in art, regardless of your abilities!

5 exhibitions I must see this year

One of the first things I did when I started earning a monthly wage was to buy an Art Pass. In fact, it was one of the goals in my original 101 in 1001 (you can see the -horrendous- post about it here). With this little card, I can get into most major exhibitions for half price, although sometimes I can even get free entry. Although it renews annually, I haven't made the most of it for a while, so I'm determined to milk it for all its worth from now on. 

Using the Art Fund website, I've created a list of my top five must-see exhibitions this year. Since I'm a southerner through and through, they're all London-based, but will hopefully be useful to anyone who's looking for some creative inspiration! I've included some interesting UK-wide exhibitions at the bottom too, for those who aren't near the capital.

What is art?

In my last (and first- that's a weird combination of words) art post, I pointed out that all the art I love is of the "I could do that!" variety, and it got me thinking about how we define art. For so many people, it's about things that look aesthetically beautiful. The Mona Lisa, for example, is obviously painted extremely well. I get that. It's art, of course. But for me? It does nothing. It's a painting of a woman. Yawn.

My favourite artists

Art is a big part of my life. At least, it used to be. Since I started my teaching career 4 years ago, the closest I've got to art is ordering backing paper in my role as art co-ordinator. The glamour! Now that I'm cutting down my hours at work, I'm hoping to devote more time to art, especially as I can now drive to hard-to-reach galleries and sculpture parks. This also means I'll be able to write more about my passion, developing a weekly art series. So, to kickstart this series, I'll be writing about my favourite artists and explaining why I love them.

GRAYSON PERRY

Grayson Perry "Who Are You?" at the National Portrait Gallery

Grayson Perry is one of my favourite artists, as I've mentioned a few times over the years (see here, here and here, for example). I absolutely loved his Channel 4 series Who Are You? back in October so I was really excited to see the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Unlike most exhibitions, Perry's works were dotted throughout the first floor of the gallery, interspersed with those on permanent display. For me, this was a really interesting way to display the works as it had such a submersive effect. I also loved the little map that was provided, showing the recommended route to view each of the pieces. It was a bit like visiting a really high-end Ikea!

Comfort Blanket is a vast tapestry based on a bank note and designed as a portrait of Britain. In every nook and cranny are words and images relating to Britain as an identity, from fish and chips to Cliff Richard.

Each portrait in the gallery concerns the identity of a different group of people and what it is that makes up that identity. This tapestry, Britain is Best, was based on Northern Irish unionists.

The pot shown here is named Modern Family. The two men featured are a couple who have adopted an African boy. In the documentary series, their struggle to retain their son's African heritage, despite them both being of white British descent, was clear.

This piece, named The Ashton Hijab, was one of the most interesting for me. It portrays Kayleigh Khosravi, a white British girl in her 20s, as she converts to Islam. The hijab shows Kayleigh turning towards Mecca and leaving behind the temple of consumerism, Ashford Designer Outlet.  

The Huhne Vase was concerned with something very different: The disgraced politician Chris Huhne, who was jailed for perverting the course of justice after his wife took the blame for his speeding offence. After completing the vase, Perry smashed it and then gilded it back together to show Huhne's vulnerability and how the experience has fundamentally changed him, no matter how much he protests otherwise.

A third tapestry, The Line of Departure, depicts soldiers who have been injured in warfare. The shadows cleverly show their identities both as men at home and as soldiers.

I am a Man is a triumphant statue in the form of Alexander White-Huggins, a man who was born female. His love of Peter Pan inspired Perry's work, showing Alexander as a proud, youthful boy. I like to interpret it as him blowing his own horn and showing the world how amazing he is!

I don't think I've ever mentioned it on here, although I sure have on Twitter, but I am a huge Rylan fan. Ever since his first audition for X Factor, I've just blooming loved him, so I was really, really excited to see the exhibition's smallest piece. Although it's absolutely tiny, it was positioned and lit in such a way that your eyes were immediately drawn to it. 
Named The Earl of Essex, Rylan's portrait was based on the miniature's of Elizabethan court. Perry was interested in the cult of celebrity, and how somebody can go from being completely unknown to being recognised everywhere they go in just a few weeks. You can actually buy limited editions of these in National Portrait Gallery shop but, unfortunately, they are £5000. 

Jesus Army Money Box has been portrayed as a chasse, a medieval religious casket, and shows the Christian group who inspired it taking care of the homeless.

The final piece in the exhibition, The Deaf, is one of the most striking. When talking to people with hearing difficulties, Perry was interested to learn that they think of themselves as a cultural group, rather than a disabled one. Within the group, one of the men had metal spiked hearing aids to match his punk roots and this inspired the depiction of this work as a band poster.

If you're heading into London soon, I recommend you pop into the National Portrait Gallery and take a look. There are some really interesting pieces and it got me thinking about my own identity. What makes up who am I and how could this be portrayed? I might just give it a go!

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red: Tower of London Poppies

Last week, I was fortunate enough to visit the Tower of London and see the poppies- an art installation named Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red. Consisting of 888,246 ceramic poppies, the installation marks the centenerary of the First World War and each flower represents a British military fatality during the years 1914- 1918.

Although the artwork is beautifully poignant, it's very difficult to appreciate the true impact due to the atmosphere surrounding the Tower. Crowds pour out of the tube station in such great volumes that it is very difficult to move comfortably and is a struggle to reach the barrier for an unhindered view. 

Due to such huge volumes of people visiting, there are inevitably people who don't seem to understand the significance of the art. What should be an opportunity for reflection is instead turned into a backdrop for smiling, jovial selfies. 

Ultimately, the artwork itself is a hugely moving piece that truly puts into perspective the tragedies of war. I just wish the Tower of London had implemented a system to allow visitors to reflect on the military sacrifices. 

Grayson Perry Live! at Southbank Centre

Or 5 Things I Learned About Blogging From Grayson Perry

Southbank Centre is one of my favourite places to attend what I suppose I'd have to call lectures. As well as seeing Malala Yousafzai speak there, I have also attended the Vogue Festival twice, once seeing Alber Elbaz and, earlier this year, attending a discussion on taste with Lily Allen, Jasper Conran and my favourite artist, Grayson Perry. Since Southbank Centre holds such interesting events, I usually keep a close eye on their calendar to see what's coming up. However, it was in the Evening Standard a few months ago that I read about Grayson Perry's event and it seems as though everybody else read about it there too, because the seat selection was limited to say the least.

This was where I ended up. I could see nothing. As I'm sure you can imagine, it was even worse when the people in front found their seats but it's not as though I needed to see the stage. I was there to hear him speak, after all. 

Jude Kelly, Southbank Centre's artistic director, introduced him to the stage but, unfortunately, she seemed to fumble through her introduction. Perhaps the murmur from the audience when she told us that Grayson Perry was awarded the Turner Prize in 2013 alerted her to the fact that she'd made a mistake (it was 2003), as she definitely seemed to splutter and stutter her words from that point forward, relying on the note sheet in her hand.

When Grayson (I'll call him Grayson from now on. It seems strange but calling him Perry is just too formal, and typing his full name each time is starting to look odd) entered the stage, I think it's fair to say we were all blown away. Of course, being a rather eccentric transvestite, you expect something crazy but a satin clown suit with lilac pigtails was definitely not anticipated! I saw him for all of 2 seconds as he walked on stage, and then I was reduced to catching glimpses of a lilac head every few minutes.

It seems that when he was booked for the event, he didn't have a specific talk in mind. Although it was synchronised with the release of his new book, Playing to the Gallery (which we all got a copy of with our ticket), there was no point talking about the book as none of us had read it yet. Instead, inspired by his daughter who has just started working at BuzzFeed and wrote this post, he decided to talk about 13 ways to be creative. The actual name of the lecture was something along the lines of 13 Ways to be Authentically Unique and Spiritual- a dig at those words people are obsessed with at the moment.

Essentially, the hour turned into Grayson Perry careers guidance: He was telling us how to make it in a creative industry. Perhaps it was the wrong subject matter for the mostly grey-haired, academic-arty types in the audience, but I doubt he worries himself about things like that. The great thing about this, however, was that a lot of his advice applies to blogging. 

So, allow me to present 5 Things I Learned About Blogging from Grayson Perry:

Don't try to be original
Yes! I have been saying this in every single Twitter chat since I can remember. People always worry about being original. Don't. What ends up happening is you try too hard to be unique and suddenly it's not you anymore. Just be yourself and, as time passes, you will develop your own style.

Don't worry about appealing to everybody
You will never please everyone. There will always be somebody who dislikes you. This doesn't make them jealous, or a troll, or a bully. It just means they don't like you and you can't control that. So do what makes you happy because there will still be a lot of other people who do like it.

There's no shame in wanting to make money
Hey, we all have bills to pay. If you've found something you enjoy doing, and you've discovered you can make money out of it, you grab that opportunity by both hands.

Allow yourself to make mistakes
Everybody makes mistakes. Sometimes these are just a pain and there's nothing you can do about it. Usually you can learn from them and change things for next time. On occasions, the mistakes actually turn out to be better than the original idea. Feel free to take risks. If it doesn't work out, you can probably still get something out of your mistake.

Post-rationalisation is OK
Ever feel like you just want to post about cupcakes? You don't know why, and it doesn't fit your niche, but you just fancy it. Do it. Afterwards, you can rationalise your thinking. "Oh, well, you see I wanted to do a cupcake-themed lookbook and thought it would be good inspiration to bake some cupcakes first". Sorted. Basically, what I'm saying here is don't feel like you need to have a reason for anything. Just do it, and if you still feel like you need a justification, you can worry about that later.

As always, Grayson was a hugely warm, relatable speaker with an incredible sense of humour. His pace is breathtaking, and I have no idea how anybody can speak that quickly without asphyxiating. I'm sure everybody in the hall was completely transfixed by him and, before we knew it, the hour was up. 

If you're interested in art, not even Grayson Perry himself but art in general, I would strongly recommend trying to catch him speaking at some point. I promise he will change the way you look at it. 

National Portrait Gallery London

When I visited London last week, I had a spare couple of hours so I spent them doing what I do best- Spending some quality time gazing at art. The National Portrait Gallery, just around the corner from Trafalgar Square, is a fantastic gallery devoted to portraiture of all kinds and is divided into three floors, each one corresponding to a different time period from the Tudors up to the modern day. Size wise, it's just about perfect: I cover the whole thing in an hour or two.

Anne Boleyn by an unknown artist (circa 1533).

I was really drawn to this portrait of Charles Fitzroy by Sir Godfrey Kneller (circa 1703) because of how effeminate he is. He really stands out in the wall of other aristocrats.



For its time, this self portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds (circa 1747) is very unusual. The lighting in the gallery is perfectly positioned so it looks as though the subject is really alive.


Seeing the unfinished process of this painting of William Wilberforce by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1828) is fascinating. 

This is one of my favourite pieces in the gallery: The House of Commons, 1833 by Sir George Hayter. It's hard to see from this photo but the scale is massive (17ft x 11ft, according to the website, which seems impossible!). Standing in front of it and looking up, I get dizzy, the way you do when you look up at a tall building. There is so much detail in every single face and I see something new every time I visit. 

 Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart by Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen (1919).

This is another of my favourites because it absolutely blows my mind. It looks like a photography but when up close, you can see all the individual brush strokes. It's incredible how anyone can paint this realistically.

The painting, Paul Nurse (Paul) by Jason Brooks (2008), is also on a pretty large scale, which just makes it even more impressive. 

Michael Rosen by Lee Fether (2011). 

There was a small exhibition featuring photographs of Vivien Leigh, supplemented by mementos such as magazines showing Leigh on the cover and film posters from her starring roles. I love seeing little glimpses of everyday life in the past, such as the newspapers and leaflets on show. 

Left to right: Padre by Maria Carbonell, Carolina by Robert O'Brien and M.F.Husain by Yanko Tihov.

My visit finished with a visit to the BP Portrait Award Exhibition. The talent absolutely blows me away every year. 

Luciana by Javier Palacios.

Mother #1 by Yunsung Jang.

 Yep, that's a portrait of Timothy Spall, painted by Tim Wright. 

Tony by Jelena Bulajic.

 I really recommend The National Portrait Gallery to any art fan visiting London. The central location is so convenient, and it's right next door to the National Gallery too. It's the perfect size and really easy to navigate, so it's ideal for slotting into a day of sightseeing. 

Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

Yesterday, I shared the first half of the Oh! Bedbug Day of Fun with Leona. After wandering about the shopping centre, and stopping for a Harry Potter chat in Costa, we decided to hunt down the dinosaurs. We took a bit of a roundabout route, relying solely on Leona's iPhone, but we got there in the end. It was a pretty walk though, so I was happy.

Hospitals in my neck of the woods aren't this pretty! 

A very cute church and hotel.

The most gorgeous public toilets ever! There's a sign saying that they are permanently closed. I wonder what Bristol City Council are going to do with the building?

I love the shot of colour through the chimneypots. 

The beautiful university building. Imagine studying somewhere like this! We stopped here to catch our breath after the upwards trek. 

Pretending to be in Hogwarts. 

Myspace poses!

How creepy is this gargoyle?

Look how ornate the front of the building is. It looks like a cathedral. 

The museum and art gallery is stunning. The place is like a bloomin' Tardis. You enter into a small foyer with 4 doors but once you head upstairs, it just goes on and on and on. Like the entrance to Narnia or something.

This man is massive. Massive and imposing. 

I have such a weakness for beautiful interiors like this. Especially beautiful interiors with huge planes. 

There was a great exhibition on featuring art from international artists. 

A Ton of Tea by Ai Wei Wei. So amazing to see more of his art up close. It smelled really strongly of tea too (obviously). I love the concept of using different senses in an artwork. 

This is awesome! 

These little Sphinx rubber ducks were dotted around inside the exhibit cases. I loved them... and I might have bought one. 

We spotted what looks like a Banksy and I discovered that it's a brand new piece of art that has just popped up this week. It's not confirmed to be Banksy yet but still pretty cool either way.