The Countdown Begins

Now that Thanksgiving is over, thoughts naturally turn towards Christmas.


Hector is in the mood.





I'm very excited.

Happy Thanksgiving

To all my American friends.

This most certainly isn't my harvest, I wish it was! But no, this is just to share with you all my desire to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving. I hope it is a time of joy.

Remember to be grateful for what you have - and what is coming ...

Planetary Movements

In the absence of much to say about the garden, I thought I would add in some planetary, astrological information, for those of you who might be interested.

Last Thursday was another Full Moon. There is some information out there, somewhere, about planting by the moon which I fully mean to research, and when I do, my faithful readers will be the first to know what I learned, and if I put it into practice, if it works to the benefit of the garden.

In the meantime, the headline news is that Mars, planet of energy, has moved into Virgo. Now, when Mars moves into a sign, he usually spends about 6-7 weeks there. Time to get energetic, if it happens to be in your own sign, time to grab the bull by the horns, as it were, and take advantage of it. There are times, however, every few years or so, when Mars does a little dance, and therefore spends eight months in a sign. Lucky you, Virgo.

Now is such a time. All Virgos can benefit from this energy, but if you want to look up where Virgo is in your own house, I suggest you try Astrodienst, as I'm not going to get into a full astrological reading for everyone.

Back to Virgo. You have a special opportunity, here and in the next several months, to get what you want. Sometimes, however, the problem is knowing what you want in the first place. If you can figure that out, and focus on that, well, it will be yours.

So go for it.

Affordable Art Fair Mark 2

We premiered a new Affordable Art Fair in North London last week.

I realise this is rather off topic, but the garden out the back is overgrowing and a mess. I've had little time for it lately, but may possibly give it some love this weekend; after I've had a lie in, having worked 12 days in a row. Or maybe, sometime this month. In the meantime, as this art stuff occupies most of my life at the moment, I thought I might as well share it.

New crowd, new clientele, new art.


We had something very fun provided by one of our faithful exhibitors, which was a photo booth in the front, where you could grab a framed print and have your picture taken with it, from an artist who is obsessed with letterpress and creates art from it.

You could also buy the prints at a cheap price, from the artist Stephen Kenney. Specially created for AAF Hampstead. I bought this one.

I thought it was a lovely sentiment, and appropriate. Also, I could pick my edition number, 18, which number has special significance for me in a couple of ways. I'm super pleased.

So as well as buying my giraffe, who wasn't even on show, it was a great fair.

This is a person, by the way, not a piece of art :-)

Long live the Affordable Art Fair, again.

Hector

Well, it's been 3 long years of desire, but I am now now the proud owner of a 5 foot galvinised metal giraffe.



The first thing I did last Wednesday at AAF Hampstead was find the Fine Art Consultancy stand, to talk to the lovely Kathryn Bell. The artist, by the way, is Mick Kirkby Geddes.


http://www.mkg.me.uk/homepage.htm


She wasn't showing him at AAF Hampstead, but they hadn't all sold at Battersea - joy of joys - and after a brief discussion she gave me a fantastic little discount, and the deal was struck. She would bring him to the fair, leave him at the Will's Art Warehouse stand (which happened to be across the way) and he would come back to the gallery/office on Monday.


Just to clarify, Will's Art Warehouse is affiliated with the Affordable Art Fair in that they were both created by the same man.

http://www.wills-art.com/


So there he was, all wrapped in bubble wrap, ready to transport. I undid the bubble wrap on his head so I could get a closer look. Picked him up - he's surprisingly not too heavy, as the shaft is hollow. But a little bit of a quandry - as my daily commute involves a bus, a walk, and two trains, that might be a little bit difficult with a 5 foot metal giraffe.

In stepped my friend James, who was at the gallery anyway and lives over my way, who could drop me off at Waterloo station which would cut out the first bus/walk/train. It remained to take him home via one short train ride, getting off a stop early to take a quick taxi ride home. Sure, I got some looks on the train. Oh my, did I get some looks, but mostly a lot of smiles. I decided to sit down, so his nose was practically in my face.

I wanted to kiss his nose, but I refrained. That might be just a little too weird.


And then he was home.

Safe and sound.

Now, at this point, I wasn't sure what to do with him. Do I put him in the garden, where he belongs?

Here he's kind of leaning against the jasmine, with no proper foothold. Looking pretty freaky.

He has bolt holes in the base to attach to, well, whatever you like. Block of wood, into the cement. He stands fine on the floor, but on uneven ground, it wasn't working out so well, and it was dark to boot.

So I brought him back in and had a little fun. I had to break it to the man, anyway, that "by the way we have a metal giraffe work of art, now".

I got major giggles every time I looked at him. The absolute joy of finally owning this amazing work of art.

In the end I decided to create a WTF moment and stuck him in the corner so he could see him when he got home, but really there's no way you could miss him anywhere. I was surprised by the reaction. It was love at first sight. And an insistence that no, he will stay inside. At least here in this flat, at least for now.

Welcome home, Hector, the five foot (ish) galvinised metal giraffe.