Wood, straws, glass, pop-art, doilies, stitching

To be able to combine all of these in one day of art was a challenge, but I did it.  First with a visit to the Royal Academy exhibition " Sensing Spaces - Architecture Reimagined".  Well worth a vsit, even at half term with children interacting with several of the exhibits.  Several people have blogged about this exhibition, here and here.

Health and safety was to the fore of course and that first statement could be applied to one or two individuals I know.

Son doing just that,

before inserting his straws

This was real fun and reminded us both of our visit to the Ernesto Neto exhibition at the Hayward Gallery a few years ago.  In the book shop, a book for my wish list, Archidoodle.

Then off to the glorious exhibition of Chihuly glass at the Halcyon Gallery, on until March.  I love this glass and took so many photos that I would bore everyone by including them.  Instead, here are a few and a link to all of them.  The colours are breathtaking and this time, the gallery includes a ceiling installation which is incredible.

A quick whizz to the Redfern Gallery to see an exhibition of Brian Rice' early works - and a free catalogue, thank you very much.  So many of these paintings could be quilts.

A zoom in to the Vigo Gallery to see the paintings by Biggs and Collings, and was struck again by how easily these paintings could transfer to textiles, particularly "Human Use" shown below ( this image doesn't do any justice to the complexity of the paint).

and to finish a wander down Bond Street to get inspiration from Burberry of what to do with the large bag of doilies languishing in a cupboard waiting for an idea to strike.  Not sure i could carry this skirt off though.

And in case this is all too art - dominated, a bit of proper patchwork ( recycled shirt) and practise stitching on the train, trying out this appliqué technique, but hand stitching rather than machine stitching ( 7 inch square) .  I have an idea in my mind for the Contemporary quilt Group challenge this year, based on the word " dislocation'.  If it works, it will need a lot of appliqué.