Books I've read

Sandra's book montage

The Catcher in the Rye
The Great Gatsby
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Romeo and Juliet
Lord of the Flies
Little Women
A Tale of Two Cities
Frankenstein
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Lovely Bones
The Secret Life of Bees
Under the Tuscan Sun
The Da Vinci Code
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Hobbit
The Golden Compass
Pride and Prejudice
The Time Traveler's Wife
Jane Eyre
The Notebook


Sandra's favorite books »
}

Friday, 22 July 2011

Storytime

First of all a massive thank you to everyone who has looked at this blog - it is now at over 500 page views, yay!

Yesterday I went to the National Gallery in London to see my old (as in past, not age you understand) 'Children's Literature' tutor telling stories.  She is a storyteller for adults but I had never been able to make one of her performances before.  The National Gallery puts these story-telling events on about every two months and ask an artist to choose a picture that inspires them.  In this case we found ourselves in room 46 in front of Degas' 'Inside the Girl Inside the Study'.  I must admit I thought the story/stories would be about the painting but my tutor had picked up on the fact that Degas painted out the girl's engagement ring and use this as a basis to tell us stories of Egyptian gods, Chinese merchants and a magical coat and shoes.  It was wonderful.  I really don't know how she performed alone for fifty minutes telling us stories and enhancing them with exotic musical instruments.  She does quite a lot of performances around London and I'm hoping to see her next week at the British Museum - if you can catch it try and do so!

I thought that stories would be a good theme for this blog.  After all the National Gallery tells a story itself, of Britain's imperial and cultural power - at least that's what it would have been built to say.  I love the National Gallery but probably not in July when it is really busy.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to look around as I was going back to the City to meet a couple of friends for more stories!  I did spend 5 minutes outside taking a few pictures (what a surprise!) to share.  Let's see if I can link them all to stories?
What a great ship in a bottle on the fourth plinth!  This conjured up stories of pirates and adventurers of days long ago sailing the high seas - 'Avast me hearties!'  (Or something along those lines) 
This is the Olympic clock (maybe there are others?) which tells the story of all the hopes and hard-work that are required before the Opening Ceremony next year.

'Living Art' outside the National Gallery - as this grows it will create a Monet painting in plants.  But really I think the story is about cleverly covering some restoration work.


After the National Gallery I headed back to the City to meet a couple of friends and share stories of my old workplace.   It was so lovely to see them both and gossip about what is happening, even if it is a tough world at the moment for everyone!  It's also amazing how little things have seemed to change in the time since I was there.  We talked about more pleasant things as well of course - books and TS Eliot and we had really delicious cakes so that was a result!

I have done some reading over the last week so I'll share my latest book reviews with you over the weekend.

Thank you for reading




No comments:

Post a Comment