Catching Up with Myself

I am a bit behind in my thoughts and typings. So here is briefly the Dublin trip: Lugged up a few bags of coral to the Science Gallery, a lovely collection from myself, and fellow crocheters from the Kerry area. (Special thanks to Jan, who helped gather them all up...)

I did my usual trip to the Chester Betty Library, my favourite museum, and saw a fantastic exhibition on Narrative and Figure Drawings 15th-20thCentury from the Shanghai Museum. I spent ages looking at the beautiful drawings, the skill in the costumes, the delicate patterns, folds, flow of the fabric. I have always been drawn to this style of artwork, not just because a lot of them were painted on silk, but because of the layout, the simplicity, the presence in just a few lines of ink. And what is great, is that for the first time the Library also has an online exhibition of all of the works, so you can enjoy it too!! Visit www.cbl.ie/china/



I paid a visit to Chapters Bookstore, and was amazed at how many crochet books were for sale!! Too many for my purse, so I just bought one book Finishing Techniques for Crochet. After that I whizzed into the Hugh Lane Gallery to see the Francis Bacon exhibition. Now, he has never really been my cup of tea, (too much angst, I have enough of that already, thanks!), but I wanted to finally see The Studio. There is a fantastic story behind it, which I will give very briefly...

Hugh Lane was an art collector of a lot of Impressionist paintings, and other arty stuff. He was going to leave everything to the Irish State, on condition that they would be housed in a purpose built gallery. Irish politicians being what they are, didn't get it together, so Hugh said he would leave everything to the Tate Gallery in the UK. Then the Irish got it together, said they would build a gallery, and before Hugh had time to re-write his will, he popped his clogs, drowned on the Lusitania. So, dilemma, morally all his stuff belongs to the Irish, but technically they belong to the Tate. So, a lot of paintings are actually just on lone from the Tate, making it a curatorial nightmare. Anyway, back to Bacon, who was Irish, but well, hated Ireland, lived in the UK, he popped his clogs, and well I'm not 100% sure whether he left his studio to Ireland, but his lover who was now holidaying in Thailand, said, the Hugh Lane could take the lot. So, well, they took the lot, the whole studio, including the stairs!! The Tate hearing that the Irish were about to bag the Bacon studio, tried to get a preservation order on the Studio, Reece Mews. Before the Brits had time to say whatdaf***, the Irish had moved in a team of Archaeologists, and disassembled the whole studio, dirty rags and all. Even found an unknown painting buried in the pile!! So, now the Studio resides in the Hugh Lane, and it well, just looks like a messy art studio. Don't know what all the fuss was about. But I like the story. Tate Vs Hugh Lane, one all so far. Interesting to see what happens next..

Please note this is my version of events, the Huge Lane and Tate will probably deny all rumours of a rift..