Jennifer Michie

Category: Beauty in the Everyday (page 7 of 9)

February 19, 2011 / 0 Comments

A Trip to the Tate

I had the great fortune of leaving the cupboard for a little while on Wednesday and I got to accompany an Art trip to the Tate. It was a treat walking around with the students, getting to sketch some things in my sketchbook and taking as many photographs as I could.

I haven’t been to the Tate in quite awhile. Mr. Michie went on a school trip before Christmas and he inspired me to want to go again after such a long absence. However, they were hanging so many things that a lot of the rooms were closed, so I didn’t get a chance to see as much as I had hoped.

One piece I did see was by the conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans. Who had a stunning, ballroom size Venetian chandelier hanging in a room; that lit up very slowly and once warmed up the lights would flash on and off. It was so beautiful and yet surreal to see in white this room, the bold colours of the chandelier’s droplets and flowers were all that stood out, against the blinding light when the bulbs reached their highest power.

My minor in College,was Arts Management and one of the courses I took was a gallery class. One area we focused on, was how do people use the space they are in and interact with the space they are in.  I always think back to that class as I watch people in a gallery/museum.

There was no way around this chandelier it was so wide and hung so low it almost touched the floor. You couldn’t miss it. Yet, I stood against a wall and watched people breeze past it, give it a wide berth, as if there was nothing of importance to see, or, they would quickly glance at it and move along. Maybe its sheer size unnerved people, they felt it was too big to interact with, it isn’t as “simple” as standing in front of a painting on a wall. Who knows? It was just something that fascinated me.

I had a lovely day out and I think the students did as well, a lot of good ideas for their exam theme of “Similarities & Differences”. I just thought I would share a few of my favourite images from the day with you:

Theodore Von Holst, The Fairy Lovers, about 1840
Michael Ayrton, The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1942-3
Henry Fuseli, Titania and Bottom, about 1790
William Blake, The Book of Thel pl. 7, probably 1796
John Linnell, The Last Load, 1853
Cerith Wyn Evans, Chandelier

I picked up these two postcards as my treat. I thought they offered an interesting perspective on “Similarities & Differences”, so I am just going to pocket them away as an idea for a student in need:

{Self Portrait with Fried Eggs, Sarah Lucas, 1996 (left) Honeymoon Nude, John Currin, 1998 (right)}

January 16, 2011 / 0 Comments

Sugar, Sugar

As I opened my e-mail this morning, there was a message waiting there for me from Mr. Michie.

He had sent me a link, stating that he thought I would love this. Well he was right! Swiss Miss is a blog that I always peer at over his shoulder and this image, just made me smile!

So, I am sending a little sweet sugar your way on this very frosty Sunday afternoon.

(Image copyright Arkadia & Co.)

November 18, 2010 / 0 Comments

Blackbird LetterPress

I adore Blackbird Letterpress.  This is a company that I have been paying attention to for a little while now. Their cards are simply beautiful. Maybe, I am so in love with it all, because I did printmaking in College?

I have an appreciation for running things through a press, for pressing patterns into paper and the feel of it in your hands as it comes out the other side. The sensation in your fingertips as they gingerly touch the depressions in the paper. Or, what it feels like to peel back the layers of padding, to see how your print has turned out, after inking it for the first time.

I love paper, I love pressed paper, it gives your chosen item a vintage air and these cards certainly have that.

The yellow grizzly bear looks as if he has crawled out of the pages of your Grandmother’s photo album as a memento she stuck in from their family Summer trip to Yellowstone. There is just such a simplistic beauty to these cards. I don’t know if I would be able to give them away to someone; they would have to be another lover of paper items, like me.

I plan on getting a few of these and framing them to hang around my house, because one’s house should never be without a fox and a grizzly bear adorning the walls!

(All images copyright: Blackbird Letterpress)

October 27, 2010 / 0 Comments

Stop the Clocks

I tweeted this post out: “Paris Flat Unopened for 70 Years”, a few weeks ago and kept the article in my Instapaper account to read over again. I re-read it this morning and I am still as intrigued as I was the first time.

The flat was owned by Mrs. de Florian, who left it and moved to the South of France before the outbreak of WWII. She recently passed away at the age of 91 and her estate came into the public eye when experts were asked to inventory her possessions.  It was through this research that the treasures in her abandoned flat were discovered.

I could not imagine having a place I never returned too. I wonder why she never did? Was it the memories that it held? Was it the memories that it didn’t? Maybe she simply had no ties there. Stepping through the door and in to that world must have been like stepping through the looking glass.

Other than the dust and cobwebs strewn about the flat, it looked as though the inhabitants had just run out to pick up something from a shop.  One of the most startling discoveries was a painting, by the artist Boldini, who’s muse was Mrs. de Florian’s grandmother. Which has been auctioned off for €2.1 million, a record sale for the artist.

What I love most about this article, is that today, even with all the technology we have, there are still some discoveries left to be found, hidden worlds yet to be opened.

October 18, 2010 / 0 Comments

Into the Woods

A little while ago, I came across an article from last year, on “designvagabond” and thought I would share it. I appreciate contemporary architecture and design, but it is not always for me. I do not like the cold,sterile feeling that some designs leave you with. But, I do love the use of lighting, windows and the idea of bringing nature into your indoor environment.

Having no window in my little cupboard, this is an office I would gladly call my own. The architect’s plans are beautifully executed. This is a little office nestled in the woods and I love the fact that as you work, you can watch the birds, see a leaf fall, see a branch burst into bloom, watch night slowly close in on you… You get to see life unfold before your eyes, you get to see one season slip into the next.

You become part of something more. More than just someone cooped up in an office, you can live vicariously through your windows and as a girl who doesn’t have one at the moment, I really like that!

October 15, 2010 / 0 Comments

The Tate

This week, Mr. Michie visited the Tate Britain with his media students. The museum lover that I am, I have to admit, sacrilege as this is to say, that the Tate just doesn’t seem to really do it for me, and maybe that is because I always seemed to end up in the Turner room with my classmates studying his pieces and I slowly came to hate going there, being stuck in that room.

And maybe, because the John Singer Sargent that I love and used to visit often, “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”, suddenly, never seemed to be up when I went, it started to become this elusive painting, I was always hunting for.

I do love going to the Tate Modern however. I love that an old power station instead of being torn down was used to create a space in which people can walk around, interact with art, or sit in a chair, look at an art book and watch the Thames float by.

But, after Mr. Michie’s adventure out on Thursday, I am starting to slowly love the Tate again, if only for this:

I will be going to visit the Gauguin exhibition at the Tate Modern in a few weeks and I am going to try to squeeze in the going to the Tate as well and I will be looking around it again with fresh eyes, as Humphrey Bogart once said, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

(Image taken by Mr. Michie, Artwork by Bob & Roberta Smith, I was Hansel in the School Play, 2008)

October 3, 2010 / 0 Comments

Paper Delights

I am always amazed by the power of paper. Something so thin it can be crumpled and tossed away, yet so sharp it can easily cut you like a knife. Something that words can be written on, inked into a page to declare love or war, joy or sadness. Something that can be folded into an intricate design of origami styled folds, yet easily shredded to bits.

On a walk down Carnaby Street yesterday we wandered into one of my favorite stores, Liberty’s. Downstairs in the Carnaby room there was a Roger La Borde display with pieces by Rob Ryan and 3 other artist.

All artist who use paper as their means of artistic interpretation. One of the artist was Su Blackwell. I could not stop staring at her pieces, the intricacies and delicate nature of her work was beautiful. One piece on display was a flurry of butterflies coming out of a book, the beautiful colors of some of them against the written words were like little beams of light shooting through a black night.

Another piece of hers existed with trees popping out of an open book, I wanted to jump into those pages, there was a fairytale magic to it. Other artists included Elise Hurst who created two “Mondoodles” for the show and Nelly Dimitranova who doodled all over paint chip leaflets. Rob Ryan had two huge images there, one of a lovely little house with angels on the roof and the words spoke of them watching over the house and everything around it, I really liked that.

All the pieces were made of paper. It is something that is so simple, just paper. But, it wasn’t “just paper”, no, it held in its fibres so much more.

(Alas, I forgot my lovely camera in the rush to catch a train and our phones decided not to help us take lovely pictures, so these images were taken from Roger la Borde’s & Rob Ryan’s site.)

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