We’ve begun our collection of animal head gear for Adam’s new niece (because all children should have embarrassing photos held against them at some point).  Our first acquisition was purchased today at the London Zoo.  Right now she’s more likely to fit inside of it rather than wearing it on her head, but at least she has something to look forward to.  Good thing I’m not easily embarrassed or this could actually work in the reserve.

The demo happened to be scheduled during the RBA’s Annual Exhibition, a group show of RBA’s members.  There were several pieces that I was drawn to but one in particular that I couldn’t stop staring at.  Of course a photo doesn’t do it justice (especially as this doesn’t illustrate the massive size of the canvas), but nonetheless I had to share a glimpse of this studio painting by Ken Howard.  Now I’m determined to see if he also teaches.  There just aren’t enough hours in the day, sigh.

No, I’m not exploiting the homeless waiting for a hot meal with my camera, although it appears that way.  I quickly snapped this photo of the line I was standing in to drop off one of my paintings for the Royal Academy of Arts summer exhibition.  The flood of other artists doing the same was quite the reminder that I’m no longer in mid-west America.  Here’s a little insight into the scale of this exhibition:

One of the founding principles of the Royal Academy of Arts was to ‘mount an annual exhibition open to all artists of distinguished merit’ to finance the training of young artists in the RA Schools. Now known as the Summer Exhibition and held every year without interruption since 1769, the exhibition attracts around 10,000 works, the selection being carried out by Academicians chaired by the President.

The Summer Exhibition is the largest open contemporary art exhibition in the world, drawing together a wide range of new work by both established and unknown living artists.

Yes, I’m competing with about 10,000 other artists to get into this show.  I’m not holding my breath. However, you’re welcome to knock on wood or cross your fingers for me.

While I’m thrilled about many aspects of British culture (including a later start to workdays and the kosher nature of chips/french fries accompanying all dishes), there are a few American things I’m pleasantly surprised to find are transatlantic.  A recent example is Roller Derby.

If someone had told me a few years ago that I would love watching women throwing elbows in while skating in fishnets, I would have looked over my shoulder to see if they were talking to a burlesque-loving punk skater behind me.  But I’ve caught the bug, which my fiance is all too encouraging of.  If it weren’t for my acute awareness of my clumsiness, I would be half tempted to tryout for a league, but then the thought passes and I remind myself that I have a half-finished knitting project next to my bed, three books on deck after “Seven Days In the Art World,” and a guitar lesson next week.  It’s still fun to watch.

There is something about very tube station in London that makes it unique.  Some stick out in my mind because three or more subway lines intersect, making it seem like an underground ant farm for humans.  Others come to mind when I think of the words “stairs” and “quadriceps.”  The Waterloo station however just makes me think of sugar.  Anticipating the Mr. Humbug Sweets stand at the top of the escalators makes me salivate.  That’s probably due as much to the fact that I only buy super sour candy from the stand as it is that anyone with a sweet-tooth would be drooling.  Don’t believe me?  Well, as their slogan says, “Suck it and see.”  Ha!  Oh, and FYI, “American Hard Gums” are not that great.

Ps - How does this woman stay so thin?

It’s amazing how being in London and having access to all of the art venues here is taking my understanding the visual arts, smashing it to pieces and resembling it.  Yesterday, I went to the Barbican Art Centre, which is the most comprehensive arts centre I’ve ever set foot in.  They have two art galleries, theatre stages, three cinemas, an art and music library and more.  It took decades to build the venue after the area was demolished during WWII.  It’s fascinating to see the juxtaposition of these new contemporary buildings next to surviving churches and whatnot that have been around for hundreds of years.

I went to see the Ron Arad’s exhibition. Arad is an Israeli born artist whose work ungulates between sculpture, furniture design and architecture.  Here are some videos from the exhibit that explain his work, which was really hard not to touch or climb on (thank goodness they had a interactive section of the exhibit to try out some of his furniture pieces).  The photo of this sculpture of his is kind of the odd duck given the theme of the show, but I seem to drawn to all things American while I’m not actually in America.

I also went to the second gallery to see Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s “Rhymths of Life,” which made me smile like possibly no other installation piece ever has.  You have to watch this video, which still doesn’t do it justice.  Birds playing hard rock, ha, I love it!

Let me be clear, I don’t need any more hobbies.  I can’t seem to balance all of my current creative interests, let alone adding some oldies but goodies into the mix.  But I couldn’t resist knitting again after buying an uncovered throw pillow I found on sale.  It’s been sitting in its naked state on the futon in my studio for a few weeks.  I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to clothe it with a knitted pillowcase.  Of course my craft box didn’t contain the color yarn I wanted, so I meandered down to a charming shop called Loop.

It turns out this knitters’ haven is owned by an American (and apparently staffed by Americans and a Canadian).  Since North American accents pierce the air here, they tend to be conservation starters.  So one “Where are you from?” conversation and several balls of yarn later, I’m back home not working, but knitting.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Now I’m tempted to join some knitting groups.  Maybe I should see how my first guitar lesson goes next week before I join something else.  I think I need an artistic intervention.

This week I went to my first art auction at Christie’s.  Firstly, I was surprised they would let me in as I hadn’t given them any promise of making a bid and therefore did not provide any financial information.  Much to my surprise, their auctions are open to the public (I’m guessing that’s not the case for the truly celebrity status sales, e.g. selling a Monet).

So there I am, making my presence known, not because I’m making a scene, but rather because I’m the only person in the room watching the audience and not the auctioneer and artwork.  I had already gone to the show room the day before to see the Victorian and British Impressionist paintings that were to be auctioned the next day, so I was much more interested in how an auction works, who attends them, what they do and who buys what.  I left with far more questions than I came with.  For example:

• Who are these people that sit or stand behind the desks and make bids for people via phone?  They’re not wearing Christie’s uniforms or name tags.  Can anyone who is a representing a bidder on the phone show up and snag a seat, first come for serve?  The auctioneer seemed to know them all by name, so I’m going to assume for the time being that I should not sit behind the desks because I seem to have two critical requirements for this post: 1. claim to know someone who may want to bid and 2. a cell phone.
• Do the mobile phone companies here list the auction houses as priority locations to ensure service?  Can you imagine that customer service call?  “May I ask why are you canceling your service with us, sir?” “Because you dropped my call while I was bidding on a £30,000 painting.”
• What if no one bids?  Does Christie’s claim to be the first bidder to get people competitive and cut their loses if no one bits?
• How do they validate the work?  They must have a team of experts evaluating each item ensuring that customers don’t come back claiming they were sold a fraud.  That sounds like a lot of overhead, but let me assure you, from my one observation, Christie’s does not seem to not hurting for money.  I lost track of sales after about 20 of 150+ paintings.

What did I learn by people watching?  Bidding on art is like playing poker, you have to have your game face on or you’ll pay more than necessary; auctioneers have phenomenal peripheral vision; when someone wants something, they’ll pay an absurd amount of money for it (see observation 1 bad-poker-face-bidders); and the recession has certainly bypassed a small number of fortunate individuals.

Many moons ago I distinctly remember an elementary school tutor giving me a birthday card that had a unicorn on it.  I think at this point I already had my 2′ tall stuffed white pony that I imagined to be a unicorn and had watched “The Last Unicorn” on VHS more times than I care to claim.

Point being, I have a great love, nourished over many years, for the fictional creatures (although I asked that tutor if she thought it were possible for unicorns to be real, to which she replied, “I suppose anything is possible.”  I of course took that to mean “yes.”).

Europe seems to have an abundance of my dream pet.  I see them in decorative building facades, in display windows and in museums.  If I can find someone to volunteer for the unflattering role of horse-rear for a Halloween unicorn costume, I could live out the dream of my half-unicorn-half-human idol from the movie.  After all, I think I have most of the lines memorized.

That’s right, you heard (read) it.  My fiance and I have come to the conclusion that despite his great love for cheese, it doesn’t love him back.  I think he’s lactose intolerant.  It literally took moving to another continent to get away from the dairy temptations our social lives teased us with and go without it for several weeks (in other words, we don’t know anyone here yet, so we’re not resisting dairy while with friends).

I’m not willing to be a puritan so I just cook without it when we eat together, but it’s really not been that bad.  Switch oil for butter, soy milk for cows’ milk, broths for creams, etc etc and there you have it (I’m still working on a cheese substitute).

My soon-to-be-sister-in-law is also plagued with being lactose intolerant and has given me some pointers.  She sent me some recipes, one of which I tried tonight, with a few personal tweaks added.  We had sausage-gnocchi soup (here’s the recipe).  It was so easy to make I almost thought I was doing something wrong.  I added spinach, green onions, spices and garlic to add kick and some color (leave it to the artist to require dinner have a complimentary color scheme).

We spread whole cloves of garlic roasted in olive oil over toasted french bread topped with sauteed oyster mushrooms.  Add a little candle light and it doesn’t really sound like a compromise.  Now, if I can just talk him into being vegetarian.  He does eat veggie burgers and tofu with me.  We’re a good match.