Family holiday.....

after being invited to a friends wedding in the South of France we decided to take the plunge and attempt our first family holiday abroad and travel by aeroplane. We survived, coming back in one piece and with both children so all in all a successful trip!

We rented a static caravan in a little town called Biot, known for its glass blowers, which the girls loved to watch, and just down the road from Fernand Leger's museum and house.

I love the way art and sculptures are dotted around everywhere you go. Just outside our campsite was this amazing mural on the wall made from porcelain.....
 

 Beautiful gardens and streets in the town of Biot......

 Our little lady trying to catch up to Daddy and big sis....

The wedding was as beautiful and scenic. Starting with the service in a little chapel in Gourdon set among the mountains, about an hours drive from Nice (a little scary driving along the narrow mountainside roads but completely worth it). This was the view from outside the chapel overlooking the mountains towards the sea...

The happy and beautiful couple....

Sightseeing in St Paul de Vence. Our little ones can't resist a cat, strays are even better as they come for a stroke : )

Sampling the local ice cream, we worked our way through a lot of amazing flavours....

More public art sculptures and a game of boules in the background. It's such a relaxed way of life and definitely made me want to learn French and re-locate

 

Our last day was spent soaking up some culture at the Fernand Leger museum.... to be honest I didn't know much about Leger but his big bold eye catching designs won me over. Plus the museum was large and airy with plenty of space for the kids to run around so it was a stress free time to soak in the artwork and sculptures.

 

this very cute picture was taken just before they ran up some private stairs and they look so innocent!

and some more sculpture and water displays in Nice....

Although we had a great time I don't think we'll be attempting it again any time soon : )

All quiet on the blogging front......

We've been a bit quiet on the old blog lately as i've just spent a month in New Zealand and my mum still hasn't quite grasped modern day technology!!

So I thought i'd fill you in on a few pics, no not to brag but seeing as my friends and family consider them 'boring pictures' I thought i'd share them with some other arty people who might appreciate them.

To start with.... the reason we went to NZ was for Ben's, Paul's older brother, wedding.
Here is me with Paul, we've just been told to get closer and look like we love eachother for the picture......

The happy couple.....
It was a really beautiful wedding but in typical English weather style it rained all day!! Still didn't stop everyone having a good time.


The landscape is amazing and beautiful with typical scenes like this one.... on a good sunny day!


I got a bit trigger happy taking pics of trees and branches (I think I took over 200 but I won't bore anyone with those!)



The sand dunes at the top of the North Island


Rotorua and the hot springs - though the steam felt like it would take your skin off let alone jumping in for a dip!


Everywhere you go you see forests of timber, then at the dockyards you see hundreds of trunk, which make for great pictures



Some maori art - they use the paua shell to decorate them which bring them to life as the eyes seem to glare at you.



A sculpture piece in Auckland - I think its a famous australian sculpture artist but i'm not sure. It was great walking around the city and stumbling upon something like this.
The lack of people had it's upside, meaning we had our very own private beach, simply amazing and beautiful.


As we drove along we took in a vast amount of amazing scenery, not wanting to annoy Paul and stop every 5 minutes I tried taking shots from the car like this one, this is one of the more successful ones as they're all slightly wonky and I seemed to manage to get a post or tree in the way!!


One of New Zealands oldest building, which is funny as it looks fairly new compared to some of our buildings.


I also managed to hunt down some art deco buildings in the town of Napier. The whole town was wiped out by an earthquake in the 30's so most of it had to be re-built meaning there are amazing art deco buildings throughout the whole town. I love them so much I think i'm going to work on a new set of lino prints.



Lastly some pics of the hippy bus which pulled up every night on the road we were staying in and disappeared every morning, i'd love to know where it went for the day. I thought it looked so cool against the pure blue sky and I love the way it's been painted.

Holiday catch up.....

We've both been a little quiet at the moment, my mum is still on her holiday and i've just come back from a last minute get away to Vence in France to stay with friends. As you can imagine, it was lovely and this was the view from our bedroom window, which was my friends childhood bedroom. I still can't believe she woke up to this everyday but I can understand why she's dying to move back.


Going away with lots of friends gave little time to chill out and explore the sights but I was given some spare time, hours before we were due to fly back, to explore Vence.

A really nice surprise was learning that Matisse's chapel is in Vence so that was our first tour which was lovely and we timed it just right as the tour guide just started as we walked in. Luckily my friend translated everything for me, otherwise you'll have to brush up on your French to understand anything like his influences from Morocco. Matisse designed everything in there from the furniture to the floors and even the priests robes! Unfortunately you're not allowed to take pics inside but a really nice little old lady let us sneak out the side entrance to take a few pics, this was all I could manage before the groundsman caught us and threw us out!!


Next stop was Vence itself which is a typically quaint French town set around an historic old quarters complete with maze like narrow streets, where you can easily get lost and little glimpses and views to the mountains. There are a few artworks dotted around from an artist, I can't remember his name sorry, who makes the work look like they've been lying in the bottom of the sea for years, here's one with the mountains in the background.....


When we were wondering the back street of the historic centre we came across this graffiti work from French artist C125. I was so shocked as i've known him for a while and am always using his work as inspiration so it was great to see a piece in real life and when you least expect it!!


So although I was only allowed a few hours to catch up on some culture it was jam packed with brilliant finds. To top it off we ended up in an antique market where I got my first holiday souvenir of old factory cotton reels. So a quick dash back to the house to grab our bags and we made it to the airport just in time for our flight.

VandA Architects Build Small Spaces....

A few weeks ago I had a few hours to spare so I popped along to the V&A, which is always an easy place to loose yourself for a few hours! I was in luck as well as they were holding a special architecture exhibition. The idea behind it was to bring architecture to the general public, making it easily accessible and interactive. So 7 architects and their practices came up with some really quirky and original designs. Here are some of their creations.....

Terunobu Fujimori Beetles House where you can climb up in limited numbers and enjoy a cup of tea with friends or meet new people....

This was in the medieval room which I had never been to before, it's a great little space with quirky features, clearly from churches and places of worship.


I love the random heads on this wall, which was really surreal as I didn't even notice them at first!

Here is Studio Mumbai Architects, Mumbai, India with In-between Architecture which represents the dwellings people create in the slums of Mumbai.

I loved David's head peeping up in the background! To be honest I found the sculpture of David far more awe inspiring due to its humongous scale but don't tell the architects!

My favourite of them all was Helen & Hard Architects from Stavanger in Norway with Ratatosk which took inspiration from nature and Norse mythology. I would love to have something like this in my garden.

To see the others including Vasio S/A amazing spiral booths and read more click here

Kirsten