British Museum: The Celt Show

I've had several days without class this week, so today Kristin and I had an outing to the British Museum to see their Celt show. With my Art Fund card, I got half price on admission, which made is only eight and a half pounds. Otherwise known as: REALLY EXPENSIVE. But it's been a show with some buzz and we decided it would be worth a look.

To sum up my feelings on the show I'd say that it wasn't equal to the sum of its parts. They had some great objects. Some really beautiful work, some interesting reproductions, and an interesting starting point. What they did with these things ended up feeling a little half-hearted and a little confusing. They failed to answer a few key questions such as Who were these Celts, anyway? Where did they live? The organization made it hard to tell what the point was. There were artifacts from Scotland and Ireland, sure, but they also had things from Spain and Portugal and Germany. They had Roman stuff. They had Victorian stuff. They had comic books and Celtic jerseys. All and all... what exactly were they doing?? Plus, the whole thing was horrendously busy.

Despite this, here are some pictures of my favorite shiny things from the show. Not pictured: The St Chad Gospels.

 The top broach is more Anglo-Saxon than Celt, the mystery of this show's purpose continues... 

There was also an Arkansas razorback hanging out at the British Museum. Who knew??

And finally, look at the Christmas tree that's gone up inside the Courtauld Institute! Christmas is on its way!

Adventure is out There!

My day had a fairly inauspicious beginning. This week, since I had Core Methodologies Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are totally free. So I slept late, ate the last scratch of food I had in my room and thought to myself: What do I do today? 

Well.

Sally had mentioned that the Crytal Sceptre, a gift from Henry V to the city after the Battle of Agincourt, was on display until the 3rd at the Guildhall Art Gallery near St Paul's. Okay, I thought. Why not? Especially since this object is never on view and has nothing published on it. So I set out walking.

It's about half an hour down the Strand, down Fleet Street, past St Paul's and then across a street or two to reach the Guildhall Square. They were having a food truck festival complete with band! The Traveling Tilbury's (haha...) playing George Harrison to a group of snacking Londoners. The atmosphere was really great, the band friendly and I enjoyed walking around and looking at the various foodstuffs. 

I ducked inside the gallery to find my sceptre and it was just inside the door. Really, startlingly beautiful object. The rock crystal particularly. It look almost looks too nice, too elegant for being 700 years old. It only comes out of its hiding place once a year for the Silent Ceremony, and for the handing over of power from on mayor to another. A feminist art historian would say its a visual embodiment of masculine, phallic power. what do you think?

 There were some other nice things in the gallery as well, including a work by Rosetti and beneath, the ruins of a roman amphitheater. It was just a pile of rocks so I didn't take a picture of it...

 This is the Rosetti 

 I referenced this painting in a paper i did on Millais once and then just ran into it here

Nice, right? 

Rather bizarrely, in the rooms of the gallery they were having a brick-a-bracky Christmas fair, with little old people and baked goods and hand made items. I sort of felt like I'd run into a flea market ... but I was in an art gallery. Go figure.

Days out exploring in London on your own on so special--you never know what you'll find!

St Alban's

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving (the same day I went over to Sally's, as it happens) The Medieval Society had a much-needed excursion out of the city to St Albans. Twenty minutes outside of town, St Alban's is a vibrant little place and was having their famous Saturday market when we showed up.

 The once-abbey-now-cathedral is home to england's very first martyr. It's a funny old church made up of disparate elements and cared for by a highly engaged community. They very clearly love their old abbey, with a refurbished shrine, exhibitions and multi-denomentational services. Our little tour guide was adorable.

Some architectural highlights
    The heavy, ancient Norman tower over the crossing

    Some surviving paint in the arches in the nave and in the pilgrim's shrine
    The "Watching loft" where monks could spy on pilgrims
    Miniature fan vaulting in the chantry chapel

After a nice long look at the church, our group tromped down the hill to Ye Olde Cockfighters, claimed to be the oldest pub in England, which foundations dating back to the original Norman church (aka old). We had lunch and drinks and enjoyed the homey atmosphere.

What a great day!

A Thanksgiving Away

I think I had a lot more trouble with Thanksgiving than a lot of my American colleagues at the Courtauld. It may be because, for a lot of people, Thanksgiving just isn't that big of a deal. Some people just sit down to a meal with their immediate family and that's it.

For me, Thanksgiving is an enormous deal. It is the biggest family occasion on our calendar, one of the few times a year when we are all together. It's the Little Rock holiday, where everyone comes to us. We give thanks for days. Fires out on the porch. Long talks. Shopping and football and food and, of course, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Not this year.

Despite being acutely aware of how much I have to be grateful for (I have so much to be grateful for!!) I was seriously bummed. I had trouble, especially Wednesday night, knowing that my family was arriving and I was stuck on the other side of the Atlantic. What was I thinking? How could I miss my birthday and Thanksgiving in Europe? Who thought this was a good idea? Being able to skype in at home was obviously incredible helpful.

Luckily, Thanksgiving comes in many different shapes and sizes! Even though I missed out on our Thanksgiving traditions, there were people here in England who cared, who wanted to make it special--and it was! I also had to turn in my first assessed essay of my MA, my first grade period. It was such a relief to get it turned in. Yet another thing to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving came in two parts this year. the first was a fun lunch with the Kristins (I have two friends names Kristin, both from LA) at Big Easy BBQ and Crabshack in Covent Garden. Their smoked turkey was delicious and their dressing was not dressing (made it with sweet potatoes?). the clotted creme on the pumkin pie was a definite plus.

My second Thanksgiving was with Sally's family and a group of friends where there was also plenty of food and laughter to go around. Andy, Sally's husband, made his famous creamed corn and we lingered at the table to hours talking about graduate school and evil neighbors and all kinds of other things. Sally's friends had an enormous standard poodle named Oscar. There were kids everywhere. It felt very homey. I was stupid and took no pictures, but it was wonderful!

 Thanksgiving, in sum, is about realizing how many different things in your life are worth celebrating. Family, of course. Food, of course. But also new friends and faraway travels and high adventure. It's worth it. This is worth being away, missing out on some things in exchange for an unparalleled experience to learn and grow.

Canterbury

November 20th my MA option took a day trip over to Canterbury, about an hour outside of London, to look at the Cathedral! It was a blisteringly cold day and I was lucky I'd bothered to bring my hat, scarf and gloves.

I've been to Canterbury once before when I was 16, when I knew nothing after art and was mainly interested in Becket and The Canterbury Tales. Ah what a trip that was. In summer Canterbury was chock full of fortune telling weirdoes, tourist trappy shops and weird spectacles like the "Canterbury Tales experience" complete with terrifying animatronics.

Winter is a better look on Canterbury, which was a quaint, christmas wonderland this time around. And, of course, the Cathedral was amazing again. The first time I was overcome by the beauty of the Cathedral as a cohesive building. This time, my better trained eye was able to piece apart the different centuries of construction on the church, the cathedral as a living creature adapted and transformed through time. We spent the day looking at the interior of the church beginning with the crypt and working our way up to what survives of the pilgrim's shrine. It was a great experience, though exhausting--an excellent way to apply the skills we've been honing in the classroom and at museums in a living, breathing monument.

I also ate a great hot dog.

And the 12th c monks probably burned down the old church so they could build this one.

 See anything wonky about this arch?