Apr 12

Today is Lawry's birthday. They invited me to go to a couple of galleries with them, so I was glad to go. We went to White Cube's exhibition of works inspired by Edgar Allen Poe, and the Barbican's Martian Art.

In commemoration of Edgar Allen Poe's 100th birthday next year White Cube has opened a very interesting collection of art inspired by Poe's characters and books. The collection is so large in fact that two spaces are needed to exhibit all of the pieces properly. The White Cube location has one large room full of modern art pieces. And upstairs is one room designed as a small office as described in one of his books.The second location was at the Shoreditch Town Hall. This exhibit, You Dig the Tunnel, I'll Hide the Soil, was in a basement of an old government building. They set up each room with an object or scene from an Edgar Allen Poe book. The whole basement was dark and a lot of the rooms were just black with one object on the other side of the room lit up with a pigeon in a glass bottle, or an eyeball in a wooden box, or a timepiece, etc. It was weird but very well done.

After that we went over to The Barbican Art Gallery's special exhibit, Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art. It is very cleverly designed to show how another culture (in this case Martians) may look at art of planet Earth. This modern art collection includes works by Andy Warhol and Damian Hirst among others. Many pieces have descriptions similar to those in museums containing prehistoric artefacts where the author speculates at the objects purpose. A collection of stuffed animals is explained to the reader as "employed by parents as night guardians for children" and the caption of a garment made of lottery tickets reads "thought, by some, to be good luck charms to those who carried them." It was really a great collection.

Apr 13

Today I went to the Spitalfield markets by Liverpool street. It is a decent market, but so far, not my favorite. It is fun just to walk around in London though.

Afterwards I met CR at Regents park. She wanted me to take a few photos of her for practice because she was having a professional shoot done. I thought it would be good practice for me, plus Regents Park is so beautiful, it's a great place to spend the day in.

Apr 14

Today I worked at Diorama. It was Marks last day finishing up everything he needed to before he left for Tulsa. The day consisted of double checking everything for him and assuring him that Nisa and I had everything under control.

Apr 15

Tonight I went to the Mavis Staples concert at the Barbican. She was totally amazing. She did have a throat infection though so she probably didn't sing for as long as she usually does, and let the backup singers sing more. She also let the band have two instrumental songs, which was great, because they are amazing. Every one of her band members and backup singers were amazing. One singer was her sister, and another was her niece. She sang a lot of the stuff on her newest record and she also sang The Weight by The Band. She told several stories in between the songs explaining why she loved them, why they were great songs, what inspired them etc. She reminded me a little of when I saw BB King and he told great stories about growing up in that same time period. It was a great show and venue, and I am glad that I got to see her.

Apr 16, 17, 18

I worked with Nisa organizing all the junk and storage stuff in Diorama. Chris, this guy from Raindance has been helping us out this week. It's a pretty boring time in Diorama right now.

Apr 19

I went over to the Sutton house just down the road. It is one of the oldest homes in this area, built in 1535, and most of the house (walls, floors, staircases, etc) stayed how they were when it was lived in so long ago. The walls are mostly wood paneling and there are many original portraits of the people who lived there. There was a really tiny chapel in the basement that I liked. I'm not sure why it was in their house, but I liked it.

Apr 20

Today I went to church with CR. We went to the All Souls church in Oxford Circus. It was a good service, I am glad I went. But not the kind of church I would join probably. The architecture of the church was really interesting, its worth walking past if its on your way.

Apr 21

Today I went to the National Gallery again. It is my favorite place in London. I spent probably four hours in there. I went back and looked at all my favorites and favorite areas. It is such a great place. The last couple times I went I have really been studying the four paintings on display by Hans Holbein the Younger. His work totally amazes me and is worth really looking at, the longer you look the more you realize how perfect and lifelike the textures are. He is great.

Apr 22

Today was a really nice day so I went over to Regents Park. There were lots of people there so I guess everyone had the same idea. The flowers are just perfect right now. They are all coming out and look great. The people here love nice gardens and it seems like there are flowers everywhere. I also think it is the climate now that is making everything so nice.

After that I went to the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street (as it says in the books). They had the house set up just like it might have looked at the time the books were written, and had lots of things that were mentioned in the books. Evidence and papers and books and magnifying glasses were scattered everywhere. It was decent, I liked it but it wasn't my favorite thing I have been to here.