CREATIVE BOOST

I am in the countryside while I write this, which I love, especially at this time of year. The delightful lambs bopping heads, the new succulent leaves perfect for a giraffe to munch on, a rainbow featuring between downpours and a perfect blue sky. Micro Pleasures, as Mark Diacono describes in his Sunday morning amble.

Really really I love living in London. It feeds me. Going to galleries, a local pool a five-minutes cycle ride away and I don’t have to drive my kids anywhere. Well, the youngest occasionally gets a lift to Hurley Weir to freestyle kayak on the lock. Whilst I get my nature fix, listening for woodpeckers, watching preening swans and thinking about swimming in the Thames, although it is sadly horrifically polluted .

There are lots of great shows in London right now. I enjoyed (maybe not the right word) Tracey Emin’s exhibition - A Second Life (check out the small TV of her talking with her Mum about having kids: so good and apposite) and Rose Wylie at the RA. In some ways these exhibitions speak for themselves. I am focusing on three others. These are my current favourites.

Having had a discussion with a trustee of the Pitt Rivers Museum, and an exhibition designer I respect at a loud party, we acknowledged how hard it is to get teenagers into museums or galleries. I have one kid who can be persuaded and one who would never. It is expensive to go to galleries - maybe if they made it cheaper for teenagers. National Portrait Gallery is £5 for under 25s Friday to Sunday. Maybe all week would be good.

I have been having this Catherine Opie moment, almost randomly. I listened to Ben Luke interviewing her on A brush with… podcast, and bought one of her catalogues because I liked the cover image. There is something super calm and smart about the way she talks. Luke draws her out on the critique and celebration in her portraits, the clear thought that without representation there is no visibility for her friends and LGBTQ+ community.

I loved that she is transmitting care and deep humanity in her work.

My youngest said “Let’s go to that photography show at the National Portrait Gallery, the one you sent me.” My slow brain hadn’t put the hype together.

Until 31st May. £19.50, £5 for under 25 year olds Friday to Sunday

There we were, in all these photos I had heard being discussed, whilst gardening.

This is an intimate show. The rooms are small and brightly coloured placing the work so they stand out clearly. The faces seem familiar, urgent and positioned so you are eye to eye with people and their stories. The series where Opie travelled 9000 miles through America to photograph lesbian couples in their homes, living their lives, is tender and loving. Her portraits of famous people like Diana Nyad or Mary Kelly show their human vulnerability, stripping away star status.

Her photo of her son Oliver as a toddler wearing a tutu in Opie’s home in LA during the Bush era seems optimistic. As do her portraits of surfers and football players which explore the complexity of identity.

Her work bleeds into architecture and place, finding connections. The white cliffs of Dover, out of focus, taken during Brexit - Opie’s photographs bear witness.

The most powerful photos for me are Catherine Opie’s self-portrait. I saw these at Real Families, a brilliant show at Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge two years ago. I was bowled over by her ability to portray pain and grief following a break up. Her body becomes her medium. In the right hand image she has etched ‘pervert’ into her skin examining others’ judgements, and her ability to throw that judgement back. Opie references her queer sexuality and the prejudice she and other lesbian mothers have faced.

Until 23rd August. £18, Under 12s FREE, Child 12 - 18 £5. FREE for Tate Members

I am not going to write about this show too much, you just have to go and see it. I have Tate Membership (£78 a year) and I definitely go to enough shows to make it worthwhile.

I am embarrassed to say I hadn’t heard of Anderson, so arrived with no expectation.

Such beautiful paintings. Considered, colourful, clever, textured. Descriptions of places, sensation, plant-scapes with left open space for thought.

These are the kind of paintings you want on your wall, to keep returning to, discovering new details tucked within layers of significant strokes.

I thought I was going to write about a free exhibition, and then got caught up in this one, which is a breath of fresh air in the West London dearth of exciting art.

Until 14 June. £15.50, Child 0-15 FREE, 16 - 18 £7

Phoebe Collings has made a collection of clay vessels with mouths and scars and presence that create a conversation in the gallery and beyond. The clay seems ancient and modern, taking up space delicately and brutally.

Their clay paintings punctuate the manor, addressing living in hostile environments subverting thoughts of history, tradition, folklore and craft. Collings-James uses a traditional Caribbean coiling technique growing their ceramic practice to include ceramic courses for black practitioners.

For me, the works have a Megaphone Woman feel, they speak loudly, acknowledging themselves. I loved the discussion between the sculptures set on reflective brass and the people interacting with them. The room felt alive with sound and possibility.

Writer and curator Hettie Judah interviewed by me, Sunday 19th April 6pm Instagram Live

If you need inspiration on how to write, curate, process motherhood as an artist, or enter the art world, this is your Instagram Live. I loved illustrating Hettie’s latest book: How to Enter the Art World, and we will be talking about making art, desire, beauty and how to stay creative.

For more CREATIVE BOOSTS Here

I am making a short film at the moment and am knee deep in thinking about 4:3 and 19:4 ratio amongst other things.

Watching films has become a mild obsession.

I imagine everyone brave has seen Beautiful Boy with the now unravelled Timothée C. He is really good in this and reminds me that before dressing up in orange to mirror his lady and staining himself talking about Opera, he was/is an excellent actor.

I am interested in the idea of addiction, why it happens and how it happens. It is close to me with family addicted to booze and friends addicted to other substances, and my phone addiction. I am aware of the grasp these things have.

This film is a graphic portrayal of how a father and a son relate around the son’s addiction and how it affects everyone. It reminded me I never want to try crystal meth, although there is something almost sublime in moments: the obliteration of guilt, the pure rush, before it quickly deteriorates into lying, stealing, overdosing. Bliss to grim in a few small steps

I liked the back story, the son Nic talks in an AA meeting of feeling completely empty, juxtaposed with a shot of him as a small child being sent to stay with his mother for the holidays. His father, who had custody of him, putting him on the plane as an unaccompanied minor. Divorce doesn’t help and everyone has the ability to find drugs as the answer.

It reminded me of how hard it is to be a parent, how much we invest, how little we can do. Our children’s choice is not our choice. Letting go, is the hardest part.

Other films I have enjoyed watching recently:

This is a true story based on the life of John Davidson who has severe Tourette syndrome. This is a truly funny film and it is a film about acceptance.

Whilst my eldest is autistic and doesn’t swear constantly, there are elements of their behaviour that require acceptance. Their endless hyper-fixating can drive me mad. Their headscarves they’ve habitually worn for three years used to drive me potty, and now I understand/accept it. It helps them stand out, be treated differently, and somehow protects them.

‘I Swear’ reminds me that some behaviour isn’t done to annoy or offend. It can’t be helped, and needs to be understood as such.

If you like food, this is a good one. The characters are endearingly annoying. Played with aplomb by Meryl Streep, Julia Child’s story - the wonder of French cookery - is told through Julie, who decides to cook 524 of her recipes in 365 days, including a stuffed boned duck en croûte.

There is a lot of discussion about butter in this film - endless melting of huge blocks to create the perfect sauce. Definitely the most significant ingredient in cooking, which probably explains the fact I didn’t try the olive oil version of the cake below.

It is the end of the blood orange season, poached rhubarb would work equally well

I am not a natural cake maker. like my Mum. Honestly I hate following recipes, it doesn’t suit me. I like savoury food with a splash of this and a gulp of that. Plus I had a brand new grater I had given to my husband for his birthday and managed to seriously grate the skin of my thumb - so it definitely was a blood orange cake - don’t tell anyone.

I made this cake twice, once using Sami Tamimi’s version, (I subscribe to him on Substack) and once using a BBC Good Food version.

I ended up with the tasty bits of Sami’s recipe: the caramel at the bottom of the tin with the sliced oranges without the oregano, and the sharp marmalade and orange tangy glaze, with the simple BBC recipe for the base which didn’t involve making your own yoghurt…

Follow the BBC Good Food recipe and add these bits below from Sami’s version.

Key tip: which neither recipe mentions. Zest the oranges and then use a sharp knife to cut off the pith. Slice the oranges gently. The cake is easier to cut up and less pithy.

Cook the caramel to add to the oranges in the tin

50g unsalted butter
60g caster sugar
¼ tsp salt

For the Orange Glaze, cook the juice and marmalade together until it thickens

2-3 tablespoons fresh-squeezed orange juice
1 tbsp smooth orange marmalade

Despite the tasty result honestly I won’t be baking any time soon…

My gardening listening has been mixed

Occasionally I try to listen to things I wouldn’t normally choose. Interesting, if a little depressing. Fink predicts a recession, pushes for energy diversification, and questions the value of university versus skilled trades.

As my youngest said: I bet his kids still go to university.

Listening to fiction sometimes seems a luxury as I feel that I should be learning new facts all the time. So having this read to me while I trimmed bushes was a gorgeous experience.

Levy writes with frank perfectly honed prose. I wanted to record sentences of sentences that flooded my ears.

A mother and daughter’s relationship is so exacerbating, brittle and nasty and yet full of love and regret. There are also so many beautiful symbolic images, of swordfish on fishing boat, jellyfish stings, the shirt embroidered with ‘beloved’ that turns out to say ‘beheaded’. The mother’s legs are un-functioning and she feels that her feet should be amputated, and yet she walks. Her daughter watches on mute.

I cried at the end, watering the garden I was tending with big huffs of sadness and relief.

I haven’t seen her work and was struck by her ideas. Chekhov performed in a perspex box of trees, dialogue stripped back to words only about the cherry orchard. Audiences divided: older people booing, younger people cheering.

She challenges the canon and rejects repeated narratives like Hamlet, questions the trope of the mad woman, and calls out misogyny in opera after she worked at the Royal Opera House.

The importance of discussing global climate change and examining how our world is changing is a priority to Mitchell.

She made me think.

It would be good to see some good performance. I haven’t recently. Any suggestions? I find my legs get so uncomfortable at the theatre, it is if they want to kick madly at the length of it. Like following recipes, too ridged

Afternoon gallery outing - Friday 17th April at 1pm

I’ll be leading a leisurely West End gallery hop, sharing favourite haunts and current shows.

Meet Oxford Street entrance of Bond St. Eat beforehand - we’ll stop for tea and chat at 4pm.

Beloved tulip alert

Jemima / MW