The Artsy Side of London

View from an alley on the way to the Bridge Tower Bridge Note: Bailey and I conducted interview together and gathered audio, video, and image data on a Friday morning. Data will be marked if it is not mine. Tower Bridge was built over 120 years ago and was completed in 1894. This bridge is used to connect City of London to Tower Hamlets (near Southwark) and crosses the Thames River. River traffic is still able to move with ease as the bridge has scheduled lift times for larger ships to move. Starting in 1982, visitors have been able to go inside of the towers to discover the history and panoramic walkways, for a price of course. Bailey and I meandered on the sidewalks by the traffic like peasants. The bridge experience was fairly unexciting; it is, after all, a traffic bridge. There was a cacophony of honks, brakes, and random snippets of overly loud music emerging from the multitude of vehicles on the road. The walkway held languages , where you could hear phrases of Spani...

Borough Market Note: Bailey and I conducted interview together and gathered audio, video, and image data on a Friday morning. Data will be marked if it is not mine. Borough Market is a food market dating back to at least the 12th century but the current buildings are only from the 1850s. It has been a food market for many years, but has shifted from a wholesale market to more of a produce market. This market is open Monday - Saturday, with full stall access on Friday and Saturday. Every other day of the week is considered "limited," meaning that only some stalls are open. Photo taken by Bailey. NOT MINE Now imagine: walking through the market held different scents: seafood to raw meat to fresh fruits/veggies to the sweet smells of confections to the savory scents of meal stalls. You might also catch a whiff of coffee beans or tea leaves if you walk close enough. A constant low murmur echoes in your ears and you catch British accents everywhere. A breeze blows ...

Week 3 was a little bit slower for Carol's class. Monday and Tuesday mornings held a workshop with Stephen Wright. Stephen Wright is an independent, creative, outsider art-inspired artist. During the workshop, he challenged us to come in with no idea what we were going to do on the paper and moved the paper around as we worked. It was an incredibly freeing, relaxing, and enlightening experience. Below is the link to Stephen Wright's House of Dream and two, of four, pieces of work that I did. Tues. Art Piece http://www.stephenwrightartist.com/houseofdreams.php Mon. Art Piece Stephen Wright's outlook on life, death, and art forced me to re-evaluate my own. My own definition of art has been expanded and I believe that art should be done for yourself. Anyone can make art and can easily be considered an extension of yourself. The two pieces here are certainly not what I considered "traditional art," but I believe that this is a lesson that I will take forwa...

Week 2 in London was action packed: Top Girls , introduction to Stephen Wright, mudlarking, Tate Modern, dinner at Cafe in the Crypt, and The Play That Goes Wrong.  Pic taken from National Theatre website The week kicked off with a night performance of the most thought-provoking play I've seen to date:  Top Girls . There are three acts in this play and the only connection between the acts is the main character, Marlene. This play seemed to be a commentary on feminism, class structure, and relationships and forced me to question what I know about each. After this thought-provoking play came Stephen Wright, an intriguing artist who turned his house into a museum. This class was to introduce us to him before our workshops in Week 3. I'll leave any commentary for next week's reflection. Thursday was a long field trip day. We started off having an English breakfast at Barbarella's Cafe and walked down to the Thames River. As we waited for the tide to recede, we spe...

I apologize for the delay; here are my potential Week 3 Portfolio Photos!  This photo was taken of from the top of the Camera Obscura/World of Illusions building and contains Edinburgh's Ferris Wheel hiding behind one of the monuments. It was taken on my independent trip to Edinburgh on Friday, July 19th.  The photo on the left is of the waterfall located by the Japanese Garden Island in Regent's Park. This was an independent trip on Saturday, July 20th.   The photo on the right is of willow trees & their reflection on the Boating Lake in Regents Park. I am not really sure what inspired me to do this, but it shall be a mystery. The photo on the left is of a submerged flower in Triton's Fountain at Regent's Park. This was taken on Saturday, July 20th.   This flower photo is also located in Regent's Park and I sadly cannot remember where the bridge in the background leads....

Week 3 started off with a visit to St. Dunstan-in-the-East, which is one of my favorite outdoor spaces in London. We created emulsion lifts and began our chlorophyll prints in this space. To create these lifts, we had to first take a polaroid picture, dismantle it, and soak it in hot and cold water.  To the right is our workspace on Monday and on the left are several of the drying emulsion lifts of the class. Wednesday was a lab day, where we had the joy of jumping rooms like rabbits because we kept getting kicked out (oops!). We were working on praxinscopes and anaglyphs; well, Bailey and Jasmine were using Photoshop/LR/GIMP to create these and I assisted where I could. If I can say so myself, I make a decent cheerleader. Later on, Laura showed me how to make anaglyphs in Photoshop which was amazing. The photo on the left shows Laura testing our praxinoscope image set. (Spoiler: it was successful) Thursday was our field trip day. We went off to the Cindy Sherman exhi...