Inspiring women in art and architecture

Only a few days left to see this incredible exhibition. I love how these timeless women look like someone you'd like to hang out with. Refreshing to see paintings of strong, inspiring women in an appealing painterly style.


Meanwhile I went to visit the new Serpentine gallery on saturday with the unmistakable Zaha Hadid extension. I loved the smell and sound of the loose brickfloor with freshly finished interior. In the cafe the brand new tea pots were melting and sticking to the brand new table tops as the sun poured through the new glass surrounds. It looks beautiful and is amazing that this is her first permanent building in London. While in the queue I hear two people talking about how 'people here just dont apreciate her'. Is it because her designs arent fallic glass and steel structures that compete to be the tallest?

Day of the Dead

my window sill on sunday

On Sunday Mexicans from across London gathered in my neighbourhood to celebrate Dia de los Muertos.

I really love this Mexican version of Halloween which goes back to Aztec times. It has some purpose to it, rather than just a fancy dress theme.

The idea is to bring mementos, photos and favourite drinks or food, of the dead that you want to remember. These are added to an altar along with flowers, fruits and symbols of death/life. The atmosphere in the community centre where this was held had become a magical, calm space.

Remembering and celebrating the dead isn't ghoulish, its an important part of the cycle of life. I love rituals with timeless relevance like this.  Its a shame we don't have many opportunities in British modern culture to honour the dead. We have national moments such as Remembrance Sunday, but no tradition for remembering your family, friends, idols or even pets. The Wellcome Collection's current exhibition, Death: a Self-portrait, explores some of these issues - how we confront or hide from death. As my mother said when I gave her an apron with day of the deal skeletons adorning it - 'Oh i don't want to see those, they just remind me that I will be one soon!'

Aside from the solemnity of the occasion, the mariachi played with such enthusiasm they continued through a fire alarm, and the colourful decorative skulls and catrinas (images of dressed up skeletons) make it a visual feast too. In fact the imagery of the day of the dead is becoming more and more fashionable. The skulls providing a more democratic, folk, human version of Damian Hirst's cynical bling diamond skull.

The altar

women dressed as catrinas

Internet inspiration

Just in case you missed this inspiring story from t'interweb.

When a Sikh woman was ridiculed on the social news site, Reddit, for having facial hair, she responded not with anger or shame but with a calm and enlightening explanation. Heck she even apologised herself if her looks were confusing for some people.

It got even better when the idiot that posted the surreptitiously taken photo then apologised with humility. The power of her straightforward acceptance and lack of concern about her looks is amazingly refreshing and inspiring.

I'm not embarrased or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positve] that this picture is getting because, it's who I am. Yes, I'm a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body - it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will. Just as a child doesn't reject the gift of his/her parents, Sikhs do not reject the body that has been given to us. By crying 'mine, mine' and changing this body-tool, we are essentially living in ego and creating a seperateness between ourselves and the divinity within us. By transcending societal views of beauty, I believe that I can focus more on my actions. My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body because I recognize that this body is just going to become ash in the end, so why fuss about it? When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can. 

The response from the guy who posted the photo was also a delight to read:

I've read more about the Sikh faith and it was actually really interesting. It makes a whole lot of sense to work on having a legacy and not worrying about what you look like. I made that post for stupid internet points and I was ignorant.

So reddit I'm sorry for being an asshole and for giving you negative publicity.
Balpreet, I'm sorry for being a closed minded individual. You are a much better person than I am
Sikhs, I'm sorry for insulting your culture and way of life.
Balpreet's faith in what she believes is astounding.

Walthamstow Tapestry

On Saturday it was brilliant to see Grayson Perry's beautiful, huge 'Walthamstow' tapestry hanging in the newly refurbished William Morris Gallery. I had recently watched Grayson Perry's fantastic TV series on class taste, in which he observes the ubiquitous Morris decorations in the homes of the one of the middle class tribes along with the other identifiers of organic vegetables, Le Crouset dishes, the Guardian, recycling containers and full bookshelves. (Sounds too familiar for my liking) I long for more Grayson Perry documentaries, he is such an eloquent and funny narrator.

The William Morris Gallery sits in a gorgeous Georgian house where the Morris family once lived, in the middle of a moated park. We sat under a tree and observed with Perry's class lens the trendy young parents (we were guessing ex-Hackney dwellers). The tribe markers being skinny jeans and converse for the women and men with rolled up jeans, a scruffy band t-shirt and kid dangling off an arm nonchalantly while drinking a beer.

Pixelated nature

This striking image taken of the cells in a bee hive, show the patterns made by the variety of local plants and flowers harvested by the bees.

 
 
It reminds me of this stained glass window installation on the High Line in New York. The windows were made from pixelated images of the Hudson river. Beautifully murky!