The Signature of all Things

I enjoyed Elizabeth Gilbert's popular book "Eat, Pray, Love" in which she compared the power of food, spirituality and love as recovery strategies for her break-up. Sadly, the movie which starred Julia Roberts was disappointing, as was her follow up novel "Committed". So I was ambivalent when lent her latest 500 page novel "The Signature of all Things". It was well recommended and reviewed, so while it took me a while to get into, it certainly delivered an amazing escape from about page 150 onwards! This is unlike anything else she has ever written; a historical family epic with contemporary resonance conveyed in an engaging and chatty style. The story spans the 18th and 19th centuries through the lives of Henry and his daughter Alma Whittaker and their interactions with all the good and great from Captain James Cook to Charles Darwin. The writing is dynamic, descriptive and remarkably informative, suggesting an enormous amount of historical research across an amazing breadth of topics. Yet the big themes of the power of science and faith coupled with women's roles and contributions are sensitive and very well developed.

The English colonial plan to collect and collate plants from across the world provides an unifying function and many powerful metaphors across the years. While Henry moves on to harvest key plants in order to develop and sell pharmaceuticals, Alma stays focussed on understanding mosses; apparently one of the most resilient and ignored plant forms. They seem to demonstrate both a fatalistic acceptance of destiny and an ability to resiliently adapt and survive despite all obstacles. In turn, Alma mirrors the universal twists of love, science and missed opportunities through her idiosyncratic and vaguely eccentric life. In all, a captivating read...

Appreciating art in Oxford

I love the annual Art Weeks in and around Oxford, where artists open their houses and group together to display their work, so we can visit, appreciate, discuss, learn and invest. It is such an honour to see inside homes of creative people and their families, to appreciate their skills and insights and to learn about what has inspired and maintained them. Several years ago, I was impressed by the silver jewellery of Becky Morgans - and I first bought a series of flat silver bracelets and it took me a few years to buy one of her classic rings - a luminescent green piece of sea glass encased in chunky silver. Later I also invested in the creative genius of Lucy Poulson, for an complementary flat interlinked silver chained bracelet.

Sadly, I cannot invest in everyone I love and I have been watching the amazing wirework of Rachel Ducker. I also was greatly tempted by Bridget William's pottery; using simple designs in blue for functional kitchen objects and creating some amazing angular vases. I was inspired by Susan Moxley's new paintings with block of blues and greys.

This year I have continued my jewellery theme and have chosen the amazing silver work of Claire Acworth. She lives on a beautiful barge on the Thames and makes jewellery beside her kitchen sink. I was appreciative that she could create small topaz and tourmaline rings for my little fnger, separated by a textured single silver band.

I was also impressed by Tess Blenkinsop, particularly the brightly coloured bracelets and earrings that she has done for Tate Modern. I was impressed by Zoe's home workshop where she teaches in small groups. I have set a goal to make a silver necklace, perhaps over the winter months? I loved visiting the most stylish Guen Palmer to see the amazing ways she has brought stones together with shiny and patterned silver and gold. One day, I will buy something else to complement the small ring I bought several years ago! Yesterday, I made my final purchase of an amazing agate and aluminium necklace and bracelet created by Ann Collinson. It is so much fun to dream of being an artist and to support those who are living their dream...

Two faces of January

Success at the Berlinale fuelled my fascination to see this period and classicly inspired film; two faces of January. Early on, we see holidaying Americans Chester (Viggo Mortensen) and Colette (Kirsten Dunst) walking around the Parthenon in 1962. We soon learn that they have escaped for the summer, and while it seems they are the prey for a small-time con artist called Rydal (Oscar Isaac), we quickly realise that Chester is on the run from some of his own shady business deals. There is a hint of frisson between Rydal and Colette as he helps her to try on a bracelet, while ripping off her husband as he buys it. Then the aplha males spar for position and her attention, as a tense battle of wits takes us from Greece to Turkey, and finally to the back alleys of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. Visually and intellectually entertaining...

Tracks...through the desert

When I agreed to see this film about a woman's independent trek across half of the Australian continent, I didn't realise it was a film about Robyn Davidson's 1977 camel trek! As a young latent adventurer growing up in Brisbane, I remember Robyn leaving Alice Springs with her dog and four camels to walk 2,700 kilometres to the Indian Ocean.

I cherished the National Geographic story, with amazing photographs by Rick Smolan. This film was faithful to Davidson’s memoir, written by Marion Nelson, and it documented how she had accepted help and companionship along the way from the locals. The media, as expected, wanted to know why, and suggested typically, that it was a way of mending the heartbreak of her early childhood. However, it seemed unimportant for this film, which conveyed that the journey was her own adventure, and the reason was probaby because she could. Robyn is played by the enigmatic Australian actress Mia Wasikowska, after both Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman had been linked to earlier, unrealised versions of this film. The camels were stunning and it must have been a challenge to tame them sufficiently for filming!

Drawing with scissors; cutting colour

Not many artists reinvent themselves in their 60's after a major health scare and while the rest of the world is at war... I am so appreciative that my all time hero, Henri Matisse, had a second chance. It seems that he was unable to stand at his easel, so he learned to cut out sheets of paper pre-painted in bright and solid colours, from his bed. He then used his bedroom walls to display and re-configure his designs!

Tate Modern's new exhibition Matisse Cut-Outs brings together works from a large number of important museums throughout Europe and America, together with some private collections, in what is an extremely comprehensive retorspective of his last 20 years. It is an amazingly well curated exhibition, where we observe the importance of constructing an image from key objects.

A highlight is a complete set of original works and prints of his large illustrated text Jazz - a kind of adult fairy tale of images and profound messages, created against the backdrop or war. He created amazing images with colorful and stylised cutouts and wrote an accompanying text in his very floral handwriting - o I wish I could access my schoolgirl French with ease!

I also loved seeing his 4 blue nudes, coming together from the Musee d'Orsay, Centre Pompidou and the Fondation Bayeler near Bern. It was truly amazing to see all 4 together. Individually they are impressive and capture the female form in such simplicity. But to be able to compare these images, also with some simple sculptures was an unbelievable indulgence...

And the final piece d'resistance pour moi, was to see some of the preparations for his final Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, in the south of France. This was one of my most unexpected spiritual life events - to see the sun streaming in through his amazing stained glass windows, contrasted against the white simplicity and his stunning drawings on the walls. OK the Tate has not been able to do this, but to present some of his early drawings enabled me to transport myself back in time and place...

so how to conclude from such an exhibition that brings so many memories together in a unified appreciation of an old man that has changed the world of colour and form - all I can say is that he has inspired me to read his catalogues and varied books, and to get out my scissors and coloured paper to recreate my creativity...o wot fun it will be ;)

Banksy makes a man homeless

I was attracted to the tiny Burton Taylor Studio to see this one man play. It was advertised; In 2011, UK graffiti artist Banksy spray painted ‘This Looks A Bit Like An Elephant’ on the side of an old water tank in Los Angeles. The disused tank was home to a man called Tachowa Covington who, in his seven years there, had furnished it with carpets, a stove and even CCTV. The tank instantly became a work of art and was taken away to be sold. By making a statement did Banksy end up making a man homeless? So this play occurs against a backdrop of 2 recent art pieces in Bristol, Banksy's home town. One piece, portrays the image of 3 trench-coated spooks holding bugging equipment around a classic red phone booth, on a side road leading out to the GCHQ headquarters. The other piece, titled Mobile Lovers, was prised off the wall by the neighbouring youth club, to be sold at auction to ensure their future. So Banksy has moved into the realm of wealthy and famous contemporary artists, although it does not seem that is what he set out to achieve by his disruptive and smart street art. So this single act play kind of played out another parody of fame - in writing a somewhat meaningless statement on an empty water tank, Banksy bought unwanted fame to the long term occupier of the water tank. He lost his home, and for what? Although we were attracted to the play for the link to Banksy, we are engaged by the story of the man, whose life was ruined by the artist!!

Cezanne and his friends in Oxford

The Guardian's review suggests this is the first full-scale exhibition of the private art collection of Americans, Henry and Rose Pearlman. Their interests in landscapes, still life and portraiture gives us a chance to see a different collection of the modern greats. I was able to enjoy this exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum after hours on Saturday evening. The first room was a delicate display of Cezanne's unfinished watercolours; sensitive and subtle in his use of colours and texture. In the second red-walled room, it was amazing to see a range of brightly coloured oil paintings by Cezanne's contemporaries such as Degas, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Manet. Two brilliant oils by Cezanne were almost hidden; a splendid, classic view of Mont Sainte-Victoire, and the shadowy forest scene Cistern in the Park of Chateau Noir. And then the final room included wonderful portraits by Modigliani, textural paintings by Chaïm Soutine, the sensual and tropical motifs of Gaugin, and minimalist scultpures of Jacques Lipchitz. Aesthetically satisfying...