a wet day out

Here in the UK we've been experiencing April showers, and not how I remember them from other years (but maybe that's just because you tend to forget the rainy days). Anyway a bit of wet didn't stop me heading into London for a bit of a day out on my day off. 

I walked through the city in the rain, with my comfy shoes on and my umbrella up. Now the city is hardly the place you expect to find a bounty of blooms but I did. Look at these beautiful Peonies their exuberant heads getting thrashed about in the wind and the rain.

I stopped for coffee and breakfast en route before crossing the Thames toward the Tate Modern, the skyline seemed to be teeming with cranes, more than I remember seeing before at one time. I guess London is busying itself with looking finished and perfect in time for the Olympic games! 

The Tate is where I was heading, to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibition. I know so many people that have been already and I'd meant to be going myself a while back but plans changed so I was really excited to finally be making my way there.

Wow, what an incredible exhibition it tracked Kusama's life as an artist from sketches she did as a young girl, to crossing the Pacific to make a name for herself in the US and ultimately the world during the late fifties and sixties and then back to Japan in the Seventies right up until present. I really enjoyed seeing some of her early drawings, paintings and collages, her sculptures encrusted with phallus (well they just amused me) but it's her installations of spots that she's best known for and these were truly a treat. The first room of these 'I'm Here, but Nothing' was just so pretty the UV lights picking up the hundreds of fluorescent spot stickers. I could happily recreate this at home (it would certainly be an improvement on the beige). The exhibition concluded with 'Infinity Mirrored Room - Filled with the Brilliance of Life' her largest installation of this type to date. It really was mind blowing, disorientating and magical, the coloured dots (or lights) changed colour continuously and you really had to concentrate hard to move forward in the right direction! 

If your not familiar with Tate Modern it also has some fantastic shops selling a whole host of things, great art books, magazines, kids books, and gifty stuff. I did make a few purchases - a couple of great kids books, postcards, and a tea towel. I then faced the weather again and headed across town to get my haircut, a little more shopping on route. On my way home I detoured to Ikea for a touch more shopping. All in all my idea of a perfect day out, a little lonely (I was on my own) but sometimes that's what you need a bit of time to do just as you please.

P.S. The last picture was a mistake, but too pretty to omit.