Poetry Thursday - Poetry House Live

"To a human being a house is not just a house, it is also a place of meanings, associations and memories. This is even more true of the houses where great poets have lived, the settings for their lives and their stories. Poetry House Live uses physical theatre to bring to life these meanings and these stories, in a show that is by turns funny, trai and surreal" (Graham Henderson, chief Executive, The Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation)

"An original production featuring seven stories about seven famous European poets and exploring the places they called home at key moments in their lives. Each story has been adapted from new writing by some of Europe's leading playwrights."

The hall had four banks of chairs, each facing in to a central square. In the middle of the front row of each was a performers' chair. Performers, the GoodDog Theatre Co, were Louise-Clare Henry, Julien Nguyen Kinh, Nouch Papazian and Simon Gleave. Minimal props and maximal versatility.

Incomplete (Luis Munoz) - a one-act drama about the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, set inside the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid around 1926, just as Lorca is embarking on his career. (Props: top hat and cane)

Croquis Nocturne (Adam Gordon) - offers a window into Rimbaud and Verlaine's visionary relationship while they lived in Camden at 8 Royal College Street in 1873. (Props: an imaginary key, imaginary wine bottle and glasses)

Les Lesbiennes (Richard Dalla Rosa) - invites us behind the closed doors of a bedroom at the Hotel Pimodan and explores where the French poet Charles Baudelaire may have found his inspiration. (Props: maids' aprons, a bedsheet)

Decent People (Sigurbjorg Thrastardottir) - tells the story of Icelandic celebrity poet Halldor K Laxness in an imagined encounter between him and two joiners fixing a window in his 1960's home. (Props: rectangular frame, tool belt, wooden mallet, large notebook)

Salute (Gabriele Labanauskaite Diena) - set in present-day Lithuania, the spirit of the controversial but greatly appreciated poet Salomeja Neris returns to the home where she lived in the 1930s and is confronted by objects from her past (Props: print dress)

The Ivy Door (Maria Manolescu) - set in the home of Gellu Naum and his life's love near Bucharest, where they look back on the story of his best-loved creation, the children's character, and penguin, Apolodor. (Props: wagon loaded with a few bricks, false beard, fluffy stuffed penguin)

John's Last Dream (Roberta Calandra) - a poignant drama about the poetry and worldview of the English poet John Keats, struggling agains crippling illness while living in Rome.

8 Royal College Street, Camden, before purchase and rescue in 2006  (via)
Michael Corby said he bought the house to save it from being stripped of its history

Gljúfrasteinn, the 1960s house of Halldor Laxness, is now a museum (via)

Salomeja Neris's house, Palemonas, in Kanaus, built in 1937 (via)

Gellu Naum with his life's love Lyggia at home in Bucharest (via)

Keats House, Hampstead (via)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

Across town, my flat is undergoing renovation. First it was a "mere" matter of insulation in the chilly front bedroom, and then its floor was discovered to be sagging drastically, which meant the ceiling of the room below needed doing ... and while we're doing that, we might as well improve the walls and rewire the room ... goodness knows where it all will lead. There's still one room unrenovated, and I dread to think of that.

That ceiling repair is taking a very long time; son Tom has to fit it in with his day job. Clearing the room and stripping the ceiling was the easy part, but alas the rubbish still sits in the garden.

First, though, a photo of my little garden, which I hadn't seen for a month - where did those poppies come from!

It definitely needs weeding ... and those blue bags of rubbish definitely need to go. So do the former ceiling panels -

And now the interior ...

Best room in the house ... just needs a few finishing touches

New view, from the new skylight

Reinforcing the ceiling in the room below

Temporary storage on all three landings

The workroom/studio is where most of the STUFF has ended up

The workroom-turned-storeroom photo makes me feel like one of the sad hoarders you see on those tv programmes. Can't wait to set it to rights ... but I'm not quite ready yet for total minimalism, that feels too much like deprivation.

Homey coincidence

Seen within minutes of each other, the first  on a window sill in a meeting room at Craft Central, Clerkenwell -

An invitation - too nice to bin right away

 the other, in the window of an architectural office on the way to Farringdon Station -

West Quay Study Models "draws upon and reinterprets the historic context [of West Quay Waterfront in Poole]
in a contemporary idiom. the roofscape includes pyramidal and long-ridge roof-forms which echo the
Maltings and Warehouse roofs in the town. The ceramics heritage at Poole continues today at
Poole Pottery and the practice used this as inspiration for the gateway building at the Old Bridge.
The model by Lorraine Ruff Ceramics, Camberwell, was commissioned by the architects."

Dollhouses within dollhouses

Seen in the Small Stories exhibition at the Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green -

1870, renovated 1970

1890

1980s, memories of 1940

Houses, Amsterdam

Line your own canal with little ceramic houses

Where to start, with the hundreds of photos taken over the past week? Amsterdam is a very photogenic city, and we went to a lot of places and saw interesting things.

For my own record - and as a recommendation if you're planning to visit - here's a list of the places we visited, in no particular order -

- the Central Library is fabulous - seven airy floors of books and other collections - in a few minutes, you feel more "civilised" even if you don't actually pick up a book

- the Tropenmuseum is one of my favourites - ethnographic collections and good temporary exhibitions, currently by Jasper Krabbe

- Hortus Botanicus has been going for 375 years and has a very nice caf, as well as greenhouses and all sorts of other plants

- the Jewish Historical Museum currently has a fabulous photo exhibition, the Howard Greenberg collection ... but we didn't have time to see any of the museum itself

- Amsterdam Museum gives you, should you take time to read the labels and think about what you're seeing, a good history of the city, though those labels are rather heavy on the "city of prosperity and freedoms" message

- the Rijksmuseum is on everyone's list, of course - and aren't there a lot of guided tours there at any one moment! We spent most time in the "special collections", especially the ship models

- NEMO, the science museum, has lots of interactive activities for kids (and adults) but be warned, it's noisy and active!

- historic boat collection is along the quay beside Nemo - many of the boats are lived on - more big boats are along the quays of Java Island

- the Maritime Museum knocks the socks off the one in London - wonderful displays, lots of little videos explaining things, and the model ships include smaller boats with carefully-stitched sails

- cutting-edge photography exhibitions at Huis Marseilles and Foam

- modern and contemporary art at the Stedelijk Museum - the current exhibition is Marlene Dumas, and the caf is kept busy

- parks - Flevopark in the east, and Vondelpark just south of where we were staying - walking in these wonderful green spaces is very restorative, but as everywhere, you have to watch out for bikes

Now for some street scenery -

Leaning forward ... in anticipation of something?

Front garden!

Red lights, hmm...

Another forward-leaner ... Anno 1653, it says on the gable

In the roundels, twin wolves

Bring out the sofa from your houseboat if the the weather is fine

Note the accordion player, top left (it may help to click on the photo to enlarge it)

Little houses at Hastings Museum

 The models include a battered one of this large building, in India -

which is connected to the Brasseys, a prominent local family, who donated an amazing room, the Durbar Hall, to the museum -

It had been installed at the back of their London home (24 Park Lane) as a smoking room that contained Lady Brassey's ethnographic collection. A special extension to the Hastings museum was eventually built to accommodate it.

Tiny houses

Love these little paper houses, seen on pinterest - but when the link is just "from etsy.com", how can you trace them back (to credit the maker) - or to buy? Frustrating!

Another frustration comes via the inbox - an e-newsletter from a gallery showing work in the current show, but it gives no clues about whose work the little houses are. I've looked up every artist mentioned (check out Viv Richards' collages and Anne Davies' paintings, even though neither is shown in the pic below) ...

The gallery has responded quickly to an email and says they are by Rowena Brown. Here's more of her work -

Have a look at her website for more info; the houses are available to buy, and their size ranges from 3cm to 7cm (just over 1" to just under 3").

Felt houses

mmm, very xmassy! And yet ... slightly sinister, the front of the house like a watching face...

Instructions are here. The lights are LED tealights - no naked flames, please!

Contemporary Quilt winter school

The "weekend away" was at Wentworth Castle, aka Northern College, near Barnsley - the house was built in 1670 and has been much remodelled, and in the 21st century has been converted to residential adult education. The gardens and parkland are Grade 1 listed.

 The weather was "misty" - not much sign of the view across the valley.

The Victorian glasshouses have recently been restored and are bookable for weddings.

Inside, the college dining room has an amazing ceiling-

and the Blue Room, where we had coffee (and drinks of an evening) also betrays some signs of former grandeur -

Elsewhere are 19th-century stained glass windows-

and whimsical details (next door was "Robin B.R.") -

I was one of a select handful who chose the "retreat" option rather than a class, and here we are at work on our individual projects -

In case you think "retreat" has connotations of working in silence, you are very wrong! There wasn't a hint of anything approaching monasticism in the weekend.

Others, of course, were in classes, and at the end of the Sunday session laid out their work for viewing -

Jenni Dobson's design workshop included working in small groups

Maps of individual places in Alicia Merrett's workshop

Yvonne Brown had everyone working hard to produce "surfaces for stitch"

I stitched four "folding maps" - with varying degrees of success and satisfaction -

The fabrics, synthetic to take transfer colour, were an acetate, a sheer, a satin, and a crepe. I added blocks of fabric and lines of stitch, and was just finding ways of hiding the interesting bits within the folds when it was time to pack up and go home.

The first two, opened out

The first one, in various stages of opening

Given a history of being told "don't touch the textiles!", people were reluctant to interact with these - I especially hoped they'd turn them over and look at the back, and had sometimes added extra bits there. 

"What are you going to do with them" was the usual question. "Make a box for them, so that to see them, people have to lift them out" is an idea I'm considering. I'd like to stitch several more of the folded and coloured fabrics, then make that box, and then consider whether to do any more along these lines.

(This post is linked to Off the Wall Friday.)

Postboxes?

Not a postbox, a stamp machine at a train station

Out of date and out of order
(Leigh-on-Sea, Essex)

Letterbox seen in St Leonards, or else Bexhill

Part of an ongoing series ... many other such photos are buried in my photo files.

There's something intriguing about a letter-box ... little houses for thoughts in transit. What is taken out isn't quite what went in.