Your abundantly artistic Heyday Friday newsletter
There's an eclectic selection of artistic and creative experiences, conversations, planet saving ideas and recommendations in this week's newsletter
The Royal Academy Summer exhibition used to be an annual fixture and eagerly anticipated treat on my must-see calendar. The pandemic put paid to my yearly visits and I’m ashamed to say it’s taken until now for me to return to the RA and immerse myself in the eclectic (for which read frequently completely bonkers) artistic celebration that is the largest open submission art exhibition in the world.
This week I was not only back again but in remarkably privileged and exclusive circumstances. Find out what they were, who was my very special guide, and which piece especially caught my eye (I suspect it’ll surprise you) in this week’s blog.
Which you can do by CLICKING HERE.
One of the joys of the Summer Exhibition and one of the critics favourite reasons for knocking it (bah humbugs) is the vast variety and, to the trained eye, the correspondingly diverse quality of the work on display. As someone who’s happily and proudly entirely untrained, these
WORDS OF WISDOM
from the great Edgar Degas, are a useful reminder - to me anyway - that enjoyment of art is in the eye of the beholder
Talented Heydayer David, who I met when I stumbled across his gallery during a visit to the famous literary festival in Hay on Wye, is an artist who explained how art can benefit not just the viewer, but the artist too.
He also had a surprising answer one of the questions I’ve always been fascinated with when it comes to art - how do you know when a piece is finished? Find out what he said by CLICKING HERE
THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN…….WATCHING
Staged was one of the TV programmes that got me through lockdown. The pairing of Michael Sheen and David Tennant - who, when the first series launched had already successfully worked together on Good Omens - and the premise that they were supposed to be working on a production of Six Characters In Search Of An Author which the pandemic had put paid to and which, determined not to lose momentum on the project, their director Simon Evans had cajoled his stars into rehearsing over the internet.
Series one and two (both aired during Covid) followed the frequently absurd and hilarious challenges faced by the actors - including negotiating their own distraction, boredom and clashing egos, the interjections of their long suffering wives and the demands of home schooling and childcare. They also featured some fabulously unexpected and funny celebrity guest appearances.
Now the same team has made a third and final series. Only this time, of course, there’s no lockdown, so the cast are not restricted to being in their own homes (we saw quite a bit of David’s in series one and two, but only one view of Michaels’s) or to not being able to be face-to-face in person.
The premise this time is that Simon, who cast his cast aside at the end of series two saying he wanted to develop other projects, finds nobody wants to work with him unless it’s with Michael and David and so, increasingly desperately, tries to reunite his reluctant co-stars for a new project.
There’s a good deal more of Georgia and Anna (David and Michael’s wives respectively) in this series (plus an appearance by one of David’s 5 children)
and although the plot gets a bit meta at times and sags a little in the middle of the six episodes, the two couples and the rest of the cast are enjoyably watchable and there is, yet again, a wildly unexpected celebrity guest appearance in each episode. Plus a whole clutch of them in the going-out-with-a-bang finale.
You can watch all three series of STAGED on itvX
I appreciate this may only confirm my already openly professed lack of artistic expertise, but when I wrote in this week’s blog about the reasons I love the Summer Exhibition, one of which is that almost all the pieces are for sale and that some are even affordable - find out what the other reasons are by CLICKING HERE - I very definitely wasn’t referring to A Not So Shitty Idea (yes, that’s actually the name of the work) by professional artist Henry Taylor. I feel it’s important to point out he’s professional when you see the piece. And find out what it’s made from.
Here it is
And if you think those look remarkably like sprayed cardboard tubes, well, that’s precisely what they are. What you can’t see from the picture is that they’re mounted on an - unsprayed - cardboard box. Oh, and if you should happen to fancy having A Not So Shitty Idea on a wall in your home, it will cost you a mere £55,000 (and yes, that’s not made up either).
I mean…..
All of which definitely constitutes the longest introduction to a
SMART SAVE TIP OF THE WEEK
I’ve ever written. And one which may seem disgracefully irreverent - though as I think we’ve established, I’m not exactly high brow when it comes to artistic appreciation - because what that piece made me think of more than anything (other than my little grandgirls could have produced something similar), was there there must surely be better ways to make use of empty cardboard tubes. Especially since it takes approximately 50 times more water to recycle cardboard than it does plastic.
Which, of course, there are. Here are just four of them:
Stop your trousers from creasing
Slice a tube from a roll of paper towels (or two toilet paper tubes) open lengthwise, slip them onto the bottom of a hanger, then tape them closed. When you hang your trousers over the tubes it’ll stop them getting that annoying hanger crease
Make your own firelighters
Collect the lint from your tumble drier and stuff it into a cardboard tube. Put the tube in amongst your kindling, light it up and your fire or barbecue will be blazing away in no time.
Organise your cables and cords
Wrap up the cables you want to store and slip them into the tubes. Label the tubes with the type of cord or cable so you know which is which (come on, it can’t be just me that confuses them).
Tidy up your desk
If you’re feeling particularly creative, glue the tubes, cut to different lengths and decorated however you choose, in a cardboard box, similarly decorated, and use them to store pens, pencils and other stuff that otherwise clutters up your desk.
Keeping the artistic theme going to the bitter end of this newsletter, here’s this week’s
FRIDAY FUNNY
I’m very happy to report that my lovely sister’s wedding was magical in every way, and that my amazing mum not only managed incredibly well, but also very much enjoyed it all. Phew! This is her with her four children.
I’m working on a very exciting project next week which I look forward to telling you all about when I can.
See you next time.