art matters | Isobel (and Cat)'s Blog

I see it’s sunny in Belfast but a wintry 4c. In London it’s warmer, but rained all night and still hasn’t stopped. Climate crisis, what climate crisis? This one. We were warm in February, warm earlier this month. Now I’m back in winter pyjamas, wearing jumpers (sweaters if you are across the pond and thinking I mean something I call a pinafore) which usually only appear in the depths of winter, reluctantly turning the heating on, and making hot soups.

I’m glad I made it to the Barbican yesterday to see the 2 Tone exhibition in the music library. I looked in vain for the first edition of The Face which had a photo of Jerry Dammers on the front cover. I used to have a copy until someone stole it from a flat I shared. I’d bought it on my birthday back in 1980. I still have the next 23 issues.

I love the Barbican. I don’t know why but it makes me happy just being there. It’s so complete, such a maze. I find corners I didn’t know existed just by taking a different route through the walkways. I’d love to win the lottery and live there. Next visit I mean to go to Unravel, The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art. It looks fabulous. Like 2 Tone there’s a lot of politics involved. The arts so often express things we find difficult to get across in everyday speech, maybe that’s why the current government is so keen to denigrate it and underfund it. If art does anything, it challenges us. That can include representations of flowers and animals. What do we value, what do we understand, what do we see? How do these things make us feel? Our responses to art are a window onto our feelings and sensibilities.

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I had a cold last week. Nothing spectacular. I had a blocked nose on Wednesday evening, but it wasn’t immediately apparent why. In fact I was puzzled. Usually when I get a blocked nose and no other symptoms it’s because I have eaten or drunk something my body doesn’t like. It’s one of the great things about converting to veganism that I no longer spend hours breaking through. my mouth because I’ve eaten cheese. By Thursday morning my nose was running. I did a lateral flow test in case. Negative. However since then I have been blowing my nose almost constantly. The cold itself seems to have passed, but I can’t go anywhere without a large number of hankies. It’s rather tiresome.

So I think tonight I shall post pictures from the Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms at Tate Modern. No hankies, I’ll spare you that, then I shall head for bed with my book.