Sunday 22 November 2015

New Art in Birmingham



Birmingham is great, you can find yourself encountering new and interesting art without too much effort. Today we did it by popping into the Waterhall Gallery, which is part of the main Museum and Art Gallery in Birmingham and discovering their Salon 2015 exhibition which is on until the 23rd December. The other day it was done by going for a bit of a wander and encountering the street art in the Digbeth area, around the Custard Factory.

The Salon exhibition is a selling exhibition organised by New Art West Midlands. It features work by a number of artists including well respected ones such as Vanley Burke and Boyd and Evans.

The range of styles is wide but the exhibition hangs together well and does not appear too overcrowded.

One can certainly enjoy without buying. Although if you are seriously interested in collecting interesting new art which may rise in value this is probably a good way to do it.

There were some really interesting pieces in the exhibition, but unfortunately I did not take a note of their numbers and artists. So apologies for those I cannot credit for their work as I describe it.

The first piece to catch my husband’s eye was of an Afro-Caribbean child surrounded by white dolls. It was one of the deeper pieces of the exhibition.

There was a film of a train journey taken from the cab of a train at various points in the year. This captured my husband’s attention too.

We were both enthralled by a swing which stood as a sculpture. The seat had somehow been suspended in mid swing and it was interesting to think about how that might have been achieved.

One of my favourite pieces was a small picture of Malala which was in paint and had three blocks of colour within it. The reason that I loved this was that unlike many pictures and photographs of this amazing young woman the artist had captured her youth. There was something within this which captured the teenager rather than the stateswoman.

There were also a couple of play houses where the entrances had been boarded up and windows blocked, but this was done in the same kind of plastic the houses had been made of. It was really effective and fun.

Finally there were a couple of limited edition fabric bags – costing far less than the main art. Buying one of these, which captured my sense of humour, as a part of my Christmas present was as far as our budget would go. Yet even that is still art, we are intending to hang it in our lounge.

This really was an art fair which catered for a wide range of interests and budgets and is well worth a look. Another way to buy art in Brum is to support the City of Colours Winter Jam which is a fundraiser happening on the 5th  December.

There is a great deal of street art around especially in Digbeth. A couple of weeks ago after going to see the Punk Rock!! So What? exhibition at Birmingham City University’s Millennium Point Campus Parkside Gallery. I went on a wander round looking at some. I went wandering on my own but I am aware that there are Birmingham Street Art tours available. (The Mockingbird Theatre within the Custard Factory is where I think I picked up a flyer about it them).

This varied from the strange to the very moving; the small to the massive and the amateur to the professional. Some of them worked well because of their location, some seemed out of place being placed in the midst of urban decline. Some reflected the way the arts are regenerating the area others didn’t.

There were a couple of pieces which really struck me as I wandered round, including the image at the top of this post. As is the nature of street art I don’t know the artists and so cannot acknowledge them but as I say they really moved me. with the depth of what their work was saying. 
 

The angel particularly resonated with me and I regard it as one of the most spiritual images I have been able to engage with. In the unlikely event the artist ever reads this all I can say is thank you for your work. You are incredibly talented and I hope it is ok with you that I will be using this as a worship resource in coming months and probably years.
 

Tuesday 3 November 2015

The Road to Little Dribbling - Bill Bryson Reviewed


Back in the day Bill Bryson wrote Notes from a SmallIsland. It was the tale of an American travelling around Britain and sharing his experiences. Twenty years on he has revisited the project in The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island.

As co-incidence had it I re-read Notes from a Small Island for a book group I am part of immediately before setting off on The Road for Little Dribbling.  I had enjoyed the first book but been had been forced to re-evaluate my opinion of Bryson a little when somebody pointed out he was a little bit rude and not always politically correct. I was a little taken back by this criticism of Bryson at first. After all I had been a post-grad at Durham and for part of that time Bryson had been chancellor and to suggest he was anything less than a minor deity was really not the done thing. It was probably a good thing I came to this book ready to more objectively examine the nature of what was being written a little more.

There are points when Bryson’s opinion is biting and put forward in a way which is close to cruel. There is also an honesty about his speech which is not curbed by concerns about what might be politically right to say. That said it is part of the fun of Bryson and he is now a fully-fledged grumpy old man I would argue plays up to that in this book.

However, I disagree with the Telegraph writer Clive Aslet who says this is a made up account of Britain. With regard to Durham Bryson does admit fully to having a knowledge of the city and he does not for a moment suggest that his knowledge of the cathedral, which he does say he has visited often, comes from this visit. I would also say as a frequent train traveller who holidays in the UK rather than abroad I recognised much of what he said as being true. That said I do agree with the Telegraph writer that Bryson feigns ignorance on occasion for the benefit of the laughs. One example being I have no doubt that he understands the role that the Aldeburgh festival and it’s long association with Benjamin Britain, together with its close proximity to London play in making it a sea-side destination that has thrived when others have struggled. It was where the arty types of the mid-twentieth century chose to escape to before the younger generation discovered Whitstable.

The distain he feels for British service is sometimes justified and sometimes not. I would say one only needs to watch the Mary Portas programmes where she goes in and teaches customer service as an example of why much of what he says is correct.

In terms of the changing nature of the country and the way in which some areas are being revitalised whilst others are decaying that is also not deniable. What I suspect the Telegraph writer dislikes is at various points, as when he discusses Birmingham, Bryson lays blame at the door of the government for forcing huge cuts onto local councils.

That is not to say Bryson is a rabid socialist, he is way too politically incorrect for that. No, he is quite simply a middle of the road bloke who is taking a look at what is going on and making the same kind of comments many are when they take the time to look at the impact of the policies being pursued at the moment.

One of the comforting things I found about this book is I could imagine my father, who is of a similar age to Bryson making many of the similar observations.

It is not all doom and gloom though. Bryson is very careful to give credit where it is due, on occasion naming specific individuals who have served him well. He also makes, I believe, a fair assessment of the National Trust which he does join on route.

So do I recommend the book? Yes, if you like grumpy old men mumbling on and if you want an accurate snap shot of part of Britain at the moment. No, if you are too easily offended by men of a certain age being at various points rude, transphobic and generally miserable.

On that last point and referring to page 313 of his book it did disappoint me that he displayed so much of a lack of understanding about trans issues. In the unlikely event that (a) he should ever read this & (b) he should not dismiss me as another one of those book reviewers he dislikes I should like to invite him to find out more about what it is like for transsexual people. Preferably by sitting down and just chatting to somebody who is trans and finding out why referring to “Bruce Jenner in drag” is not a cheap laugh but really deeply unhelpful and problematic.