Yorkshire Sculpture Park

As I mentioned before, I spent one day last week in Yorkshire Sculpture Park with a good friend of mine. I do relish getting out of Leeds on a school day, driving away from home, school, housework, responsibilities...it makes me feel as though I'm bunking off from the Job Of Mum and I find it slightly thrilling, I have to admit. Also, I still find being child free during the day pretty exhilarating. No buggy. No change bag. Just me and my friend with our own agenda, going at our own pace. 

As I drove south down the M1 the weather was appalling; torrential rain, black skies...I did wonder if we'd spend the whole morning in the cafe and gift shop (look, I wont lie, I would not consider that a wasted trip by any means.) But, as I parked, the rain stopped and the sun attempted to shine in a watery, November fashion. It was quite breathtaking and we put on our wellies and set off. 

Henry Moore

One of the many great things about the park is the flexibilty of the space. Long walks, short walks, lakeside walks, woodland walks, picnic spots, views, beautiful architecture...it's all there. We set off towards the lake and walked for maybe a hour and a half.

The leaves made the most wonderful reflections in the water. 

And everywhere you look, there is the art, the sculpture. So thoughtfully placed that it looks as if it's always been there, that it grew out of the landscape.

Anthony Caro

This lit up horse galloped continually. I was quite mesmerized by it. 

Julian Opie

The piece below is my favourite. I love the way it glowed through the trees.

Peter Liversidge

Close up it was quite spectacular.

Then, after all that grey and black, all that bronze and stone, this triumphant, colourful celebration of the female form was a joy to look at.

Niki De Saint Phalle

We looked at more, but eventually our tummies rumbled and we stopped for lunch. The cafe is really good. I had "Boston Beans" - homemade, smokey baked beans, chorizo, a poached egg and chips, with a cup of tea. It occurred to me that I'd eaten a very middle class, organic, sustainably sourced version of ham, egg, chips and beans. It was good. Then, an hour (yes, a whole hour - no kids!) in the shop, which is really well stocked with some lovely products, well worth a look around. I bought a few Christmas presents and a few bits for me, including this tree*. I have a thing about bare branches in winter and this small and very inexpensive sculpture pleases me greatly. 

All in all a really excellent day out. 

* I can't find a link to it in the YSP shop, but you can see it here.

Finding Buried Treasure

Thank you for your comments on my crocheted curtain tie-backs. I'm glad I can share these little forays into creative homemaking with you all, it gives me such pleasure. 

We've enjoyed some mild and sunny weather this week and that, combined with the increasingly lighter afternoons, has given the air a deliciously spring-like feel. I'm wary of declaring it spring too soon though - do you remember how late spring was last year? Winter just seemed to go on and on. We had a heavy snow fall right at the end of March, which I wrote about here, so I have to remember that these Yorkshire springs can be late and very chilly. But, that said, it's been really nice to have the windows and kitchen door open, to be in the garage and garden, sorting, clearing and pottering.  My trawl through March 2013's posts showed that we seem to do a lot of DIY during this month and this year has been no different. We've painted Angus's old bedroom, the box room, and turned it into a study/office. My lovely mum, who has been staying with us this week, has been helping me in the garden. The garage has been emptied, sorted and re-organised, and many, many trips have been made to the tip. (Can you tell I am making the most of having John around before he starts his new job?)

But, while doing these chores, we've uncovered some treasures which really made me stop and smile and reach for the camera. One is this ancient box of Derwent colouring pencils, which John found in amongst a dusty box of art materials in the garage. John remembers them well from his own childhood and thinks they belonged to his father. The language on the box is so robustly patriotic that I think they were far more likely to be from the fifties or sixties than the eighties, when John was a child. They are "British Made Throughout" from "British Colours" and "Based on the standard shades of the British Colour Council". The box tells us they were produced in Keswick, England - we get the picture. No foreign pencils here! The box has seen better days and is practically disintegrating now, but I think it's beautiful in it's faded, water-marked state.

The list of colours on the back reads like a poem. The Derwent range of colours included "Naples Yellow", "Geranium Lake", "Imperial Purple", "Delft Blue" and "Vandyke Brown", whatever that is. They are more like the titles of novels than names of colours.

The original pencils are long gone I hope - for surely they were all used - and the box now contains a mixture of pencils from Derwent, Rowney and WHSmiths, still in a rainbow of colours.

We found many other art materials in the box with these, including lots of watercolour pencils, with which the children have enjoyed experimenting. But what makes this old box particularly special to us is their lineage. John's father was a talented artist who, after attending art college, worked as a designer for a company which made carpets. If he was working now, we'd probably call him a graphic designer. John also has a natural skill for drawing although he'd tell you otherwise. But as, sadly, John's father died long before I met him, the children and I don't have many direct links to him. I like to imagine that he first used this box of pencils, and then John did, and now the grandchildren he never knew can enjoy them too.

The Hepworth Wakefield

Yesterday I visited The Hepworth, Wakefield, a gallery about 40 minutes away from us which I have been meaning to get to since it opened in 2011. We are spoilt for sculpture in Yorkshire as we already have the excellent Yorkshire Sculpture Park, but The Hepworth is a unique and striking building and it had the bonus of being warm and inside, which is preferable on a cold January day.

I met my good friend Debora there, and her delightful, chatty, cheeky three year old son. We didn't have quite as long to linger in each gallery space as we'd have liked (the curators get awfully twitchy when little ones try to interact with the art...*) but it was still great to visit. You approach the gallery from the car park via a footbridge over the canal, which gives you a long time to study and appreciate the building as you walk up to it. I liked that. 

But the main thing that struck me was the architecture of the building's interior, particularly the dramatic sense of space - wide, white rooms and long, shiny corridors. I enjoyed the way the windows made art of the outside views, framing the industrial Wakefield landscape and grey skies. I spent as much time looking outwards as I did at the pieces inside.

We had a coffee which turned into lunch and spent a happy time in the cafe, the three of us chatting and playing snap. Outside there is more art to explore and a playground where we braved the cold wind and admired the views of the canal.

It is was a lovely day, a real mid-week treat.

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*To be fair, the gallery is very child friendly indeed, with a really fantastic activity pack and trail to follow, lots of activities at the weekend and in the holidays, a playground etc, but these are perhaps better aimed at slightly older children, over five or six years old at least.