{Snowmen Sunday}

After last weekend's London snowstorm, I snapped a few pics of the snowmen scattered throughout Hyde Park -- a tribute to the city's creativity and whimsy.  Enjoy the winter wonderland!

{Postcards from Corsham Court}

Greetings!

Last week I had the pleasure of day-tripping it to the small English town of Wiltshire. There in the heart of Austen-country, Corsham Court, a house built during the Elizabethan era remains home to an 8th-generation Lord, as well as to a plethora of peacocks running about the gardens, and welcomes vistors throughout the year. Within its massive walls hangs an extensive collection of old master paintings, ranging from the 16th to the 19th century. The collection's sheer size impressed me, but its inclusion of a work from one of the highest regarded woman Renaissance artists, Sofonisba Anguissola, truly amazed my eyes.  In addition to the stately home, an Elizabethan bath-house resides on its grounds in a tribute to its English history.  I highly recommend a romp through the countryside, toward Corsham Court, when you're feeling the itch to leave the buzzy streets and galleries of London's city center.

Yours,  Jenn

{Leonardo Where Art Thou}

This weekend I attended the Renaissance art event of the season - the National Gallery's exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, the first-ever exhibition of Leonardo as a painter.  Among the masses, I marveled at Leonardo's The Lady with an Ermine (1489-90), a captivating portrait of a Renaissance beauty, and witnessed the newly attributed Christ as Salvator Mundi (1499), a fascinating depiction of the Christian saviour.  What impressed me most though was his The Virgin of the Rocks I (1483-85), a Louvre loan, hung mirrored to his The Virgin of the Rocks II (1491/2-9, 1506-08), a National Gallery possession.  Such an arrangement demonstrates the artist's mindset in reworking his piece, as well as the progression of the time period's stylistic trends.

The exhibition, on until Feb 5, 2012, has sold out of its advanced-sale tickets.  However, day-of tickets are still availble for those brave enough to endure the long AM queues.  Should you prefer to avoid venturing out into the winter chill for hours of waiting in line in the early hours of the morning, alternatively, you can experience pieces of the exhibit from the comfort of your own computer via the below link. Enjoy!

Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan | An Online Look into the Exhibition

{Winter Blues}

Each January, after the holiday season ends, I pack away its presence for next December.  I gently wrap up all my ornaments in bubble wrap and newspaper, placing them in various boxes, marking each as fragile.  I de-string my tree of its lights.  Then, with a lot of help from my husband, I cart my tree out of my apartment, into the street, with all the other sapling rubbish.  Its putrefied branches shed needles throughout my living room, foyer, and apartment stairwell – which I swept and vacuumed up fastidiously.  This annual post-holiday routine consistently leaves me feeling a little blue, not to mention, with damaged nails. 

In an effort to beat my winter slump and mani-mess, this year I immersed myself in blue.  I treated myself to a classic manicure and pedicure at Notting Hill’s Coco Nail Bar.  There, in the comfort of their plush, massaging chairs, I sipped a cup of tea while pampering my hands and feet with a scrub, file, massage, and polish with OPI’s Yoga-ta Get This Blue!.  It seems that being blue isn’t so bad after all.

{See Santas Run}

Reindeer aren’t the only ones dashing this Christmas season.  In an effort to raise money and awareness for Disability Snowsport UK, a national charity helping people with disabilities access the thrill of snow-sports, 2,000 santas took to the street.  Runners donning red felt suits, black paper belts with big white buckles, and full snowy beards, laced their trainers, congregated for some quick calisthenics and ran a 6K in the full spirit of the season.  It’s a wonderful run!

{Thanksgiving Leftover}

As an American expat living in London, Thanksgiving continues to hold a special importance.  While my family in the states, congregated together on the fourth Thursday of November, my anticipation for the holiday steadily built up for that following Friday evening (when “Londoners” are finally released from their daily duties).  In the spirit of food and friendship, I travelled across town to my friend’s flat for a celebration with other expat Americans (and peculiarly, a few French – the consensus being that they too appreciate good food).  There, we relished my home country’s culinary traditions: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, greens, cranberry crumble, and fresh rolls, followed by pumpkin cheesecake and various delectable pies.  We engrossed ourselves in our plates, wine glasses, and conversations, with the omnipresent thought that there is so much to be thankful for...

{This year, I am very thankful for so many things.  To name a few: the opportunity to continue my education, a husband who encourages me in all my steps forward, my family in the states, the new friends I have made, as well as the old ones I cherish.}

My husband loves Thanksgiving because there is no added pressure of gift-giving.  I love Thanksgiving because its spirit persists past sundown, into weekend, and through the winter season.  And with that in mind, I made one of my all-time favourite meals – the post-thanksgiving day leftover sandwich – made possible by: my friend Maria’s amazing cooking and a loaf of fresh bread from Clarke’s bakery – both to which I am eternally grateful.

Hoping your Thanksgiving was dually happy and healthy!!!

{Trick or Treat}

Given the choice I almost always opt for “treat.”  This Halloween I am indulging my sweet tooth with red velvet cupcakes from The Cupcake Company, a boutique bakery operating out of a small bay-windowed shop in Kensington.  Their cupcakes, draped in delicious frosting, are some of the loveliest I’ve ever seen.  Check out their new storefront window, all dressed up with edibles in the holiday’s spooky spirit.

Happy Halloween!

{Degas Takes The Stage}

'The Dance Lesson', by Edgar Degas, c. 1879.
(National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon)

Poised in front of two large opaque glass doors, ticket collectors scan patrons’ tickets, allowing them entrance into Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement at the Royal Academy of Arts.  The doors swing open, into an octagonal room, where an oversized tufted brown leather ottoman, centred in the room, invites attendees to sit before the stage and watch dancers’ shadows spin in arabesque, high along the back wall.  Per the museum’s docent, this shadow “puppetry” mimics a technique that Degas practiced in his own studio in order to study and understand light, form, and movement.  Displayed on an adjacent wall, a map of the gallery depicts the exhibit’s progression.  Viewers, armed with their gallery guides as playbills, are ushered “backstage”.

Immediately, Edgar Degas, famous for his impressionistic depictions of ballet dancers, greets viewers as a life-sized black and white photographic portrait where he stands looking stoically at the camera – an ironic introduction given that Degas’s strength in imagery lied in his ability to capture what photography could not – moments of dancers in advanced and strenuous positions.

While Degas’s finished paintings and pastels draw crowds to his ‘stages,’ preliminary sketches of the dancers pirouette around them paying tribute to the artist’s special attention to line and form, as well as to his precise artistic process.  Joined with the artist’s works, television screens illuminate throughout the rooms, playing roughly filmed images of dancers.  Degas briefly experimented with photography using the emerging medium to develop his own techniques in displaying movement.

The final room of the exhibition, a dark theatrical space with rows of benches arranged in front of a large screen, plays a looped 30-second black and white film, Ceux de Chez Nous (c. 1914-15) by the documentary director Sacha Guitry, of Edgar Degas as an old man walking down the street in Paris.  Here, the artist becomes (moving) art – another ironic note.

Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement proves to be more than an exhibition about an artist and his subject, but rather an exhibition of evolution, full of clever curatorial jokes.  As viewers walk through the exhibition space, from the ‘stage’ to the ‘cinema’, this impressionistic exhibition becomes one of postmodernism, using the audience to reinforce the idea that motion is inherent in all of Degas’s works, as well as in art as a whole.  And with that, the curators wink.

Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement, on until 11 December 2011, has been curated by Richard Kendall, Curator at Large, The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, USA; Jill DeVonyar, independent curator; and Ann Dumas, Exhibition Curator, Royal Academy of Arts.

'Two Dancers on the Stage', by Edgar Degas, c. 1874.
(The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London)

{A Wee Bit of Dancing}

Friday nights, just outside the northeast perimeter of London’s Regent’s Park, Celtic music echoes through the neighborhood’s quiet residential streets.   Each week, the Cecil Sharp House, home to the English Folk Dance and Song Society, hosts The Ceilidh Club.  Ceilidh (pronounced “kay-lee”), the Gaelic word for gathering, is just that, but more – rather it’s a Scottish country dance party, inviting people of all nationalities, ages, and dance experience levels, to partner-up and pair down the line.

I was initially a little intimidated by this venue, as I don’t own any tartan except a long, oversized nightgown.  And despite being an American, I have never once attended a square dance.  However, my fears were soon relieved after I saw that much of the attending crowd donned jeans and tees, and knew as much about Scottish line dancing as me – which was nothing.

After a quick pint of beer and an even quicker instructional session, given by the band, I joined the party, hand-in-hand, with my husband in Black Watch trousers to my left and a random man in a plaid kilt to my right.  Linked together in an eight-person circle, we ran to the right, then to the left, intermittently dosey-doeing and jigging in the center.  The next 20-minutes were a visual and mental blur, leaving me exhilarated from the fun and thirsty for another pint.  Overall, a wee bit of dancing = quite good fun!

Here are a few snapshots from my Scottish soiree experience…  See if you can spot me!

{A French Affair}

 "Jane Avril au Jardin de Paris, 1893."

Poster by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.



Last week I attended an event at The Courtauld Gallery, featuring a night of French flare – music, dancing and Toulouse-Lautrec. 

Located just past the hubbub of Trafalgar Square, this small museum might just be my favorite in London.  The gallery’s rooms, homes to the works of Rubens, Van Gogh, and Manet, among many other famed artists, are actually works of art themselves, given their painted walls, intricate white moldings and ceiling murals.

This summer, The Courtauld Gallery proudly presented Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril: Beyond the Moulin Rouge – an exhibition that I was thrilled to catch.  I am a huge fan of Toulouse-Lautrec, ever since college, after I studied his works for a graphic design class.  His figurative studies, color combinations, and depictions of Paris’s bohemian nightlife in the 19^th century continually romance me.  Having attended this exhibition, I have a new appreciation for his works and a further understanding of his subjects – specifically that of Jane Avril. 

Jane Avril, a frequent muse to Toulouse-Lautrec, was a prominent can-can dancer at the Moulin Rouge.  Toulouse-Lautrec, an aristocratic trained artist, was hired to paint adverts for the nightclub.  His carefully constructed depictions of the dancer catapulted her into stardom.  However, aside from the Moulin Rouge’s posters, Toulouse-Lautrec also painted various portraits of the dancer, both in the club and in her home, proving an inherent intimacy.  The artist and dancer were depicted in various group portraits together as well, further showcasing that their kinship was beyond a working relationship. 

Although tickets are no longer available to this exhibit, I want to share with you a brief but fascinating article from the gallery that highlights their research and insights into this “new found” relationship.

{Beyond the Moulin Rouge}

With this all this information, one has to wonder… what drew the artist and dancer together?  A love to party?  A romantic spark?  A je ne sais quoi?

Having perused the collection, it occurred to me that both Toulouse-Lautrec and Avril suffered from debilitating physical ailments – he from bone development issues; her from a neurologic disorder.  While each was drawn to the glamour of boho Paris, each identified with a deeper understanding of life and its challenges.  It seems almost natural that she, who is famed for her legs, and he, who is famed for his hands, would bond to together as kindred spirits.

And with that thought, I moved along through the gallery and lost myself at At The Moulin Rouge.

"At the Moulin Rouge, 1892-95." Painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

{Row, Row, Row Your Boats… to the Thames River Festival}

With the end of summer comes the beginning of autumn and with that – the annual Thames River Festival, a weekend “block” party celebrating art, culture, food, and of course, the Thames.  Along the waterfront, from Westminster to Tower Bridge, pennant flags wave over the south bank.  Market vendors, pop-up theaters, and interactive art installations line the bank’s perimeter.  Swarms wander along the route, popping in and out booths, perusing the handmade crafts and homemade food.  Kids wearing brown paper hats fashioned à la Dr. Seuss, dart through the crowds, laughing, as they pull each other into designed “play” areas.  Friends relax at tables on Blackfriars Bridge, overlooking St. Paul’s Cathedral, while indulging in a cup of Pimm's and some paella.  A parade of boats ensues, capturing everyone’s attention.  Bagpipers on a barge sail by, filling the air with music, urging the merriment on, all weekend long…

Here are a few pics of my Saturday afternoon along the river, moving gently down the stream…

…merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.