autumn leaves

Sitting in Sheffield Botanical Gardens on Sunday. Felt overwhelmingly happy surrounded by the intense yellow of crisp fallen leaves with sunlight sprinkling across as they fluttered gently with the wind.

Porthcurno Beach (Cornwall) Swan Boats (Ally Pally London) Arthur's Seat (Edinburgh)

I've been doing too much gallivanting to post much this month.

A few days in lovely Cornwall and I'm in love with this beautiful beautiful beach. Perfection.

Back in London, I finally rode a swan boat at Ally Pally Very relaxing and calm...apart from when I pedalled us over a large stick and I think it went inside the underneath of the boat as there were disturbing clunking sounds for a good while after!

Afternoon tea at Biscuiteers - tasty and adorable. I think the biscuits look better than they taste though - I'd rather have a bourbon! I wouldn't pay full price either (£40 for 2 people to eat one sandwich cut into 4 and some mini cakes each! what!?) I had a 2 for 1 voucher so it was £20 and it was a treat for my little sister's birthday. It was lovely though. The raspberry jam in the battenberg and the icing on the cupcakes were especially good. 

Then up to Edinburgh for a fantastic Easter wedding and a walk up to Arthur's Seat which is a glorious walk. Lucky, lucky people who live in Edinburgh!

All in all I had an amazing break :)

Talk - Creating meat with stem cell technology - Kings College London - 13th March

When news came out last year that a real burger had been made in a lab using stem cell technology I was immensely excited. As I've mentioned before, I care deeply about both animal farming practices and the environment, which could both be affected for the better by this research. 

It is extremely unlikely that people will just stop eating meat (it is DELICIOUS - I may be heading towards vegetarianism but I'm not ready yet - it's a struggle to even only eat free range meat, damn my love for greasy spoon fry ups and cheap fried chicken! I think I manage it 90% of the time though!)

Animals for meat require a lot of land, which could instead be used to grow food - grains, vegetables etc that could feed many more people than can be fed by meat produced on the same amount of land. Plus the huge amount of methane produced by cows, adding to the problem of global warming problem. And farming practices can be awful, causing unnecessary pain and suffering to the animals we eat to make it cheaper and use less space. As the population ever increases, the problems also increase.

So when I saw that Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University (whose team is behind this research and the burger) was giving a talk at KCL, I had to go. 

And I found it very interesting and informative. Prof Post explained the reasons behind the research (see above - environment/animal welfare) before explaining how the burger was created. This made sense to me at the time but I wasn't making notes so cannot now remember the how, but moving on, they are now working on perfecting the taste/texture of the burger, increasing the efficiency of production/sustainability and lowering the cost! Also - creating a steak is on the agenda. They think that in 7-10 years these burgers could be in shops, though this sounds rather overly optimistic to me considering the cost for the burger last year was something like £220,000!!

I do hope this research succeeds in creating affordable, ethical meat on a mass market scale though. How amazing!


Links:

BBC news - World's first lab grown burger
KCL - Creating meat with stem cell technology
Evening Standard article - image taken from this page
Scientific American - Meat/Environment
Wiki - Meat/Environment
Compassion in World Farming

Kew Gardens

Had the loveliest day at Kew a couple of weeks ago with my parents. Such a nice park its worth the 2 hour journey to get there! And I still haven't seen it all.

Love the galleries there too. One is the Marianne North Gallery and exhibits the work of Marianne North, an adventurous lady who travelled the world and painted the natural world. So epic.

There's a gallery that exhibits botanical drawings/paintings too. Particularly liked the work of Regine Hagedorn. This is her painting of Mermaid Rose Stamens:

There are also some fun giant woven sculptures of different types of mushrooms by Tom Hare :)

Saw so many inspiring plants this visit. Made me want to draw. It's been so long I'm not sure I can draw anymore! I need to practise!

Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Natural History Museum

I always enjoy this annual exhibition. Although every year it seems to get more crowded! So many beautiful photos though. Elephants greeting each other in the distance in black & white simplicity surrounded by sparse trees. A sunlit field of flowers. A view of trees from under water, framed by bubbles.

Here are two of my favourites.

Simplicity by Valter Binotto - blurred dew around a delicate violet.

Twin Hope by Diana Rebman - the MOST adorable baby twin gorillas in their mothers arms. No one I've excitedly shown my baby gorilla postcard to seems to think they're as cute as I do but I can't stop melting when I look at them!

Wildlife photographer mainly celebrates nature and its beauty but also at the end there are photographs showing how it is being destroyed. There seemed to be less of this, this year but there are some traumatising photos of elephants killed for ivory. It was really upsetting. Although the elephants had no heads, the guys who worked in the wildlife park could still tell which elephants they were as they had cared for them closely for so long.

I think the destruction hits harder after having looked at so many intimate photographs of life and beauty. I hope this exhibition can help us to think of the environment and creatures that live here. It's so hard to be good, everything seems to be bad. I'm slowly making tiny steps. I usually only eat free range meat. (I'm not ready to be a vegetarian but at the very least I think farm animals should be well treated and respected) I'm starting to avoid palm oil (I'm unclear on the details but I believe deforestation to get palm oil is destroying habitats). Sometimes it feels like these small things don't matter and can never make a difference and I get embarrassed if I have to mention it because people think I'm being ridiculous. But little by little attitudes do change and little by little things can change.

On till 23 March 2014.


Links:

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Diana Rebman

Valter Binotto

Compassion in World Farming

Say no to palm oil

World Wildlife Fund

Astronomy Photographer of the Year at Greenwich Observatory

Wow. I didn't know you could take pictures like this from the ground. Incredible. And I loved that the text explained how each photograph was taken on one side and then the other side explained what we were looking at.

My favourite image is Hi. Hello. by Ben Canales which shows a tiny person looking up at the stars. When I didn't live in London (where you cannot see the stars), I used to stand outside gazing up, feeling like I could drown in the sky and it was so beautiful.

Links:

Ben Canales

Astronomy Photographer of the Year

Walking from Howick Hall Gardens along the coast to Craster

One of my favourite walks, it's so beautiful. I'm somewhat in love with Northumberland and have visited every year for the past 3 years. Currently wondering if I can go twice this year...

Also, Howick Hall was the home of Earl Grey (as in the tea!) and the gardens are definitely my favourite gardens I can think of. So natural and sprawling yet considered. And also there's a tea room and one table has a window seat in front of a bird table so you can drink tea and look at birds up close!

Macoto Murayama

http://www.psfk.com/2009/08/macoto-murayamas-flower-illustrations.html

Beautiful computer images of flowers.....I don't understand how it's done in the slightest but it's amazing. There's no getting bored with nature is there, there's always something fascinating and wonderful.

Agnes Denes

Agnes Denes is an environmental artist who planted a wheatfield in the middle of new york, and planted a forest in a beautiful mathematical pattern. Planting things and nurturing life in the name of art seems very lovely to me. The forest is someting that will continue to grown in beauty over time and eat some carbon dioxide. Seeing a wheatfield in the city is an amazing contrast and thought provoking. Her ideas are simple, interesting and meaningful.

http://greenmuseum.org/content/artist_content/ct_id-198__artist_id-63.html

London Wetland Centre - Widgeons!

I ent to London Wetland Cetre for the first time yesterday and it is lovely lovely! At first I was a little disappointed, because it seemed like a bird zoo catered to children, but then it got quiet and there are wild areas, gorgeous and marshy with exciting ducks and lilies and reeds and tumbling plants :D -happy sigh- and the weather was so good (and i made an amazing picnic).

bird glee:

- fat moorhens running around with giant feet
- baby moorhens with extremely giant feet
- brown ducklings that kept bobbing under the water and reappearing elsewhere
- golden sparkling something mist under the water (not bird related but nonetheless good)
- 2 wigeon on opposite sides of a fence wondering how to reach each other
- blue beaks
-general amount of ducks

the pictures aren't mine (links below) but the top one is white headed duck (should be called blue beak duck) and bottom one is widgeon ( i heart the name widgeon).

http://www.beakspeak.com

http://www.natureconservationimaging.com

http://www.wwt.org.uk

My favourite bit of Bug Bazaar @ Millenium Gallery

Visited my gran in Sheffield for her birthday this weekend and saw the Bug Bazaar exhibition at the Millenium gallery...this video was my highlight - While Darwin Sleeps by Paul Bush. This is a section of his film showing 3000 species of insect at one frame each...it's stunning. I marvel at how beautiful insects are and how MANY there are! And amazing variation. Yet I find them so repulsive at the same time. The film goes on and makes it seem as though insects are trying to escape from being pinned in collections...

Flickr - Kaos2

Have just had a little browse on Flickr and saw these beautiful close up photos of reflections, marbles and water. :D http://www.flickr.com/photos/barbeezgarten/

miss pokeno

mmm chairs with stuffed animals. indoors mixed with outdoors. comfort mixed with the discomfort of death. delicious contrast.

http://misspokeno.com/

Étienne-Jules Marey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne-Jules_Marey

Out There - Nikola Basic

Amazing beautiful concepts...He has built a Sea Organ - pipes that play music as the waves move so the sea is playing music..listen to it here...it's incredible!

More related to my work, is Greeting to the Sun - "Symbolic urban installation which, by means of photovoltaic cells built-in sea walkway, changes solar energy into lighting spectacle"

It's sustainable, interactive, dramatic. I'm not sure what I think of it visually...the photo looks pretty but I watched some videos on you tube that weren't very interesting or attractive. However I havn't actually seen it and it sounds like it has the potential to do many things, project images, interact with people and nature...I'd love to go see both these installations in real life.

Photo taken from here.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Shtu5HI15_U&feature=related

Out There - Junya Ishigami

Beautiful detailed charming drawings depicting scenarios where nature and architecture blend.

Some of my shadow photographs...

Sunlight shadows around home.

Shadows film

A film made from shadows I've been collecting this summer set to Ooberman <3

Heart my Garden

I think my laundry looks really attractive seen through the flowers :) everythings so wild and tumbling and we have loads and loads of free blackberries :) much joy.

Unrequited Love Leaf

Apparantly begonia leaves are called unrequited love because they are like a heart but one side is big with love and the other is all small :)