City of lights...

It was Guy Fawkes night here in London town but I missed sighting that... however ... I was down on the river on dusk at the Tate and did see this as I walked in through the Riverside Entrance.

Forgive me this flying post... no details... nor posting many photos I took but could have added...

This was my photographic version of walking across the Millennium Bridge

and this is a few nights ago at Sloane Square.... tonight I could have taken a fab shot of Harrods all lit up but I was a bit slow on the uptake.

... city of lights?

Well... in fact... I'm jumping on the Eurostar to the City of lights across the Channel tomorrow at 8.30am... only staying a night... got so much happening back here... what can a girl do!

have not been there for 23 years ... 2 whole days is better than not going I reckon! Don't you?

My lovely afternoon today I have to tell you was at Borough Market... don't remember that all those years ago... what a lovely surprise it was to visit. Monmouth's coffee... being able to order a flat white... I was  blissed out. Speaking of which... Princi, Soho now, has to be the best thing since... if you like what Italians do with fire,waiter and flour!!!! More on that later.

Gotta get some shut-eye...
ciao lovelies!
S x

PS... The residence...

PS! This is connected to the previous story I just posted. 

I'd forgotten I had saved these images in draft.... they are of the residence at the MSB. Designed by architects Stanton Williams you can visit the MSB website to see more images.

Kew's Millennium Seed Bank - Design and build

The architects Stanton Williams worked closely with Kew's scientific and buildings maintenance staff to design the Millennium Seed Bank building.

The architects used Entadaspecies as inspiration. (Photo: H.J. Schlieben, Tanzania 1935)

This is exactly the kind of seed pod I love to draw so I was fascinated to read a book in the library about the design and build of this amazing facility.

These are a few I took of the courtyard which has been dugout... the resident's rooms all face onto the courtyard and have privacy yet the large windows allow for light.

My room was commandeered for a studio as well. Other residents were all doing seed-science research therefore working in the Labs or Library down the hall.

Directly above the rooms on one side was this greenhouse. 

It was easy to feel cosy and warm in this accommodation.

there's so many photos...where do I start?

Here's a few...
 from the underground Seed Lab...

Yesterday was my last day at the Millennium Seedbank...

and it was quite sad indeed to say farewell! I feel as though I made some very good connections ... such warmth through sharing time in close circumstances without the usual distractions of regular life.

I wanted to post a few images that were special and speak to time and a certain continuity...

stored seeds up close

archival material

This book were quite a find... the earliest records were from about 1910. The writing was very appealing BUT hard to read.

This typed record was from 1956. Its interesting to note that

records in herbariums and seed banks etc are approving to be

critically useful in the process of observing climate patterns

 and much, much more.

 There were drawers and drawers of these old seed specimen cases.
I seemed to spend the whole 3 week worrying if i was getting enough photos.... documenting enough as I went! One does have to fight that feeling a bit lest it cancels out one's capacity to be in the moment and just doing what is possible.

Last week I started working on larger paper ...  this was on a lovely water-colour paper and I gave it to my delightful contact person Wolfgang Stuppy who is quite familiar with Australian seeds in his work as a Seed Morphologist.

This one below is not a great photo.. its about a metre square ... on Swedish natural linen ... I stitched the edges using a strong brown linen thread that I was glad to find in Brighton the previous week. Given I was travelling light the challenge was how to create a large work I could give as a gift to the Seed Bank Partnership that would not require framing and yet could be hung and also be long-lasting.

This is effectively a wall hanging but it could be framed at a later date. I had two days to start and complete this 1 metre square work .... a huge task for me because my work takes longer to physically paint most of the time and I personally like a lot of time for the work to mused over, possibly modified, before I sign off. So... had I not been so tired from the frenzied final weekend of painting I guess Id have spent more time worrying would it work...what will it come across like etc.

So... after three weeks of drawing some amazing species I didn't go for something new and risky to pull together in a couple of days... variation on a familiar theme it was. I had a good time working with some new ink and pushing aspects of it in new directions. I used a pen nib towards the end and got some wonderful textural layering that way... impossible to see here.

Guseppe, Marco and Gisele in Brighton recently

I think I must finish with this one! On the train trip back to London yesterday afternoon I thought about the good people I was in residence with over the last three weeks ...and with my laptop open as the train sped along through the Sussex countryside I looked through all the images of my time at Wakehurst Place. 


Cheerio my friends from Brazil, Sardinia, Sicily and Pakistan ...and of course all the lovely people who are permanent on the site.

Efisio... telling Gisele a story at the pub last friday night!

Unusual finds at the Seed Lab...

Late Friday afternoon... its the end of my second week at the Millennium Seed Bank Residence at Wakehurst Place.

Each day has brought new discoveries via walks in the grounds, through the Lab facility, time in the Library or conversations with any one of the many staff here. Then there's my fellow Residents and some other visitors to the site.
An amazing crossroads of cultures and knowledge all up! Much imput and inspiration!

Ive taken endless photos and produced a couple of slideshows using the (for me)  new Origami template that some of you will know from Macbook Pro. A great way to share images in  format that is not tedious when sharing with others. 

However... there is no quick way to get that material onto the library PC I'm writing this post on. I'm off to the Apple Store in Brighton tomorrow... maybe I'll quickly upload some visuals onto posts whilst I'm there. We foreign residents are catching the train for a day to this coastal city which I'm really looking forward to. After two weeks here ... outings being the weekly one hour supermarket shopping trip by taxi and a couple of dinners at a pub down the road when we are up to the brisk walk through the fields in the dark.
There'll be lots to share soon... so I wont ponder tech issues further. Wolfgang Stuppy, a Seed Morphologist who has produced several brilliant photographic books(more on that soon) is my contact person here ... he gave me some wonderful species to draw when I first arrived. Yesterday I decided to photograph everything I'd had on my desk this past week or so in case I didnt get around to drawing it. My camera is a humble Sony number which did not cost a lot... nor have I read the manual on using it...so my images are rudimenary at best. Even so I find the act of capturing something from  various angles ... simply playing around with the limitions ... still yields something of value for further reflection.

Wolfgng has amazing images of these seeds below he'd taken with serious professional gear... and when the seeds were fresh and at their best. I will post those images when I can... but for now I leave you with these most basic of images... I stole them from  my Seed Capsules Tumblr which I posted them on last night... for some reason I can manage that on my laptop!

 











I'll pop back with the name of these seeds and info later... time for dinner now.
Thanks everyone for your warm messages... Ive not been visiting so am missing all your news.
Have a great weekend !
S x

staying connected when in transit...

I know many of you are mobile, quite frequently...  savvy with i-phones and have travel blogging down pat. I had a mobile for two days on arrival in the UK ...but then it hasn't worked since Cornwall. So I lost interest and kept at my laptop for communications but now thats not doable...so this is a quick post to say that I may not be blogging much over the next few weeks. No Wifi at the current base so no laptop ... although the library is very accessible ... but not having been a PC-user these past few years I'm definitely a little rusty and shocked to remember how different things are between  pc's and macs!

I've set up a small temporary studio here which is excellent for my purposes. Pop over to the homage blog for more info on where I'm staying and what I'm up to here.... I've taken lots of photos but as I can't use my laptop I've not worked out how to connect photos to blogs yet.ont have a lot of time really ... thats the point... on to painting and such!  Keeping up with emails is now ten times as complicated... dont ask... I told you I was inept on PC's!

My apologies to all the lovely bloggers who pop in...i'm failing to return the visits at the minute... I will be back and miss you all!



The gardens near the Mansion on site where I'm presently staying!

This photo was found here... with other photos you might want to see. I will get to post my own photos soon I'm sure... bye for now,
Sophie

Inner sanctum - an artist's garden studio in Cornwall

I included details on artist Barbara Hepworth in my Studio blog yesterday. Go and see the various artists I was taken with whilst in Sy Ives on the weekend... and also see the lovely blogger i caught up with whilst there...  if you don't know the delightful Carolyn then do go visit her blogs very soon!

Read all about it here.

Do go to the Homage blog to read much more about the Eden Project where I'm spending this week...  next week off to the Millennium Seed Bank Project... which of course will be reported on at the Homage blog too!

Day Two at the amazing Eden Project

Doesn't look promising does it?

Today I watched the film on the making of the Eden Project. The eyesore that it was has ben utterly transformed and this year was the ten year celebration since it opened. 

I will be posting quite frequently at the homage blog ... pop over there now and see what I put up yesterday!

Hard to keep up at the moment with taking photos, documenting what I've been up to and adding it to the blog... so check over at the homage blog over the next 5 weeks or so... 

bye for now!

S x