For the passed five years I have donated time to the human
rights organization, the Helen Bamber Foundation here in
London.
between 12 and 8pm. Entry is free. Emma Thompson…
Throughout the week my guest blogger, Tom Lynham - who
will be in New York to help out — will be filing daily reports
with images of Journey's events here on my blog.
So if you are down there say a big 'Hi' to him.
This is Tom...
Snapped on my rural journey.
What laughs in the dead of night.
Decades before Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen brandished his glue and staple guns, showing us how to completely screw up a room, there was a tranquil and beautiful space, lovingly pieced together by a man who had an intuitive ability to create an environment charged with beauty, intelligence and sensitivity. His name was Jim Ede, one time curator at the Tate Gallery during the 1930s. After a long period traveling he moved to Cambridge and in 1956 renovated four derelict cottages to create Kettle's Yard…
Along with his wife Helen, Ede made this his home for 16 years and over that period amassed a beautiful collection of paintings, sculptures, ceramics and mundane, but always well-chosen domestic items. The art is mostly drawn from the first half of the twentieth century and includes paintings by Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Alfred Wallis, Christopher Wood, David Jones, Joan Miró and many others, along with sculpture by artists including Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Constantin Brancusi, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Paintings and sculpture are interlaced with furniture, glass, ceramics and natural objects. Ede's vision of Kettle's Yard was of a place that was not
" an art gallery or museum, nor . . . simply a collection of works of art reflecting my taste or the taste of a given period. It is, rather, a continuing way of life from these last fifty years, in which stray objects, stones, glass, pictures, sculpture, in light and in space, have been used to make manifest the underlying stability . . ."
After the Jim Ede and his wife Helen left Kettle’s Yard in 1975 the house and it’s contents where taken over by the University of Cambridge and maintained to this day as Ede wanted it, a living space for all to visit.
I first visited Kettle’s Yard – a special place for me - in the 70’s and have been back regularly over the ensuing years, including the late 80s, where I used it as the perfect environment to propose to my second wife. I wanted to do it in a place that had a real meaning to me. (The spell didn’t last as we are now divorced) But the place still holds the magic. For anyone interested in 20th art, removed from the clinical and overly precious gallery environment, but instead, arranged in an intimate domestic setting with enormous charm then Kettle’s Yard is a must. But take my advice don’t propose there.
Kettle’s Yard open each afternoon (apart from Mondays)
visitors can ring the bell and ask to look around.
And on the topic of colour. This lovely combo snapped this morning. Life is a free show. It never ceases to amaze me.
The centre of London was traffic free over this weekend. The streets were awash with entertainers, there to help encourage the Christmas shoppers to part with their cash in this ever changing finacial climate. I wandered off Oxford Street - a place where you can be seen on CCTV from one end to the other in glorious detail - to stumble on this brilliant piece of street art...
I always carry a camera with me. Well, you never know what might happen. While out and about today I notice this rare view of the BT Tower…
from the south, due to a group of buildings being demolished. It reminded me that, back in the 60s, when it first opened — and then called The Post Office Tower – it had a revolving restaurant at the top, appropriately called (you guested it) the Top of the Tower. I was taken for lunch there by a printer in 1968 (those were the days). This is what it looked like then…
Long closed due to the potential of terrorist attack. Note the other icon of the period, Centre Point.
After finishing my errands I jumped onto the trusty old 38 bus. I immediately noticed this man..
who reminded me of this man…
Alfred Hitchcock famously appears, momentarily, at the beginning of
his films, often getting on or off buses, coaches or trains. Perhaps he’d been
let out of that big studio in the sky for the day?
Spotted while driving my daughter back from a music lesson...
The vicar of this church in the harbour area of Weymouth, Dorset is clearly blessed with wit, delivered from the big copywriting department in the sky.
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