Amazing exhibition 'Stranded' by Lalla Ward

A few weeks ago I was lucky to have caught the exhibition of work by one very talented lady, Lalla Ward at the National Theatre on one of the last days to be showing. Lalla Ward is an actress and was in Doctor Who as an assistant to Tom Baker, which is a double bonus as I absolutely love Doctor Who. The work was very inspiring with unusual subject matter ranging from a pygmy deer to a land iguana. “I learnt that you could draw with the needle of a sewing machine – paint with thread". The pieces ranged from £200 for a small canvas to £2,500 for larger pieces. As a textile artist it was great to see lots of red dots on her work showing that people were paying art prices for textile pieces. I often think textiles is the poor relation in the art world and it is often hard to sell work for the price it took to make a piece.

However I was just reminded of her work in an interview within Quilting Arts, of all places, and it has more pictures of her amazing work.

There was also a behind the scenes theatre design exhibition at the National Theatre. It showed you how they designed stages, costumes, props etc which was fascinating. The best thing of all, they were all free, which is great about London. I have never been to see any exhibitions before at the National Theatre but I will definitely be keeping my eye out to see what’s on in the future.

It was a great day out and to round it off my husband and I walked down to Covent Garden and had a look around the shops. We were going to go to Joe Allen's for a meal but instead we kept walking down to China Town instead and was so pleased as all the decorations were up to celebrate the Chinese new year. However my feet weren't as pleased and were back in front of the fire by the evening.

Sharon