Also doing lots of gardening:
And spending time on the south coast, as usual. I was most delighted to find a set of Murakami's IQ84 in a second-hand bookshop for a mere £2 and most of the summer was spent reading that - I'm about half-way through book 2 just now!
These were in Bexhill, where, in between downpours, Dingo and I found the most cheerful beach house ever:
While I do really like what the owners have done with this, it is a horribly stark reminder of the sort of crap that fills our oceans...
For our holiday proper this year, we went to Wales, to the wonderful resort of Barmouth. As you already know, I'm a huge fan of old, British seaside towns and Barmouth should have been wonderful but it rained most of the time we were there and the place was overrun with UKIP-types buying the Daily Mail and endless numbers of dogs. Fortunately, we were staying in a fantastic Art-Deco guest-house, the Sunray (highly recommended!):
This has wonderful views of the bay and the mountains:
We also took in a few castles, especially the excellent Conwy Castle in the very north of the country:
On returning home, we got a few day-trips to the West Country in rather better weather and I kicked off my autumn preserving by making 5 kilos of bramble jam!
Friday night saw the launch of our annual MA Graduate Show, this year showcasing the work of 39 students:
Held in our Margaret Street campus, the School of Art, the show is entitled "Informed Chaos" and I get the sense that this may have been born out of uninformed chaos at times! It is a very strong show and well worth a visit.
Some of my own favourites include:
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| Xiao He - work in carved stone and graphite. |
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| Gretal Ferguson - silverwares, hand-raised, in the form of stills from an animation. |
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| Olivia Marsha - work in resin and electroformed metal. |
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| Xi Tong - Anthropomorphic creatures in resin and metal. |