An artist date in London. Actually, several artist dates.

I leave London tomorrow. I’m sad. I love this city, I could easily stay forever. Or at least until Christmas. I AM looking forward to the cooler weather of Seattle though - I never thought I’d see temperatures on the West coast of the U.S. in lower digits than England. It will be nice to go for a walk again without feeling like I’m crossing the Sahara.

This morning G and I went on an artist date to the V&A Storehouse, just around the corner from our flat, and were delighted to find it had the best air conditioning in London! How did we only find that out on our last day?! How were we so stupid not to have worked out that all those artefacts need to be kept in a super-chilled state? They could use this place as a community cooling centre, I said to G. We’d all be educated AND stay healthy. I might write to Andy Burnham to suggest museums as cooling centers. He seems like a chap who would listen to my advice.

In truth, my time in London has been one artist date after another but I still feel like I’ve missed out - there is never enough time to experience all of the city’s culture. But I’m heading back to Seattle with a belly full of inspiration, impatient to get back in the studio and paint. Here are a few of the artist dates I took myself on that I found particularly inspiring:

This performance was enchanting. If it comes to a theatre near you, please go, you won’t regret it. The music is gorgeous and I’ve been listening to the soundtrack on repeat ever since I saw the dance performance. The trailer below is a good teaser:

This gallery has become one of my favourites as it always shows non-household name artists and art that expands my knowledge of materials and concepts. It also serves wonderful food in the café (always a bonus!) Donald Locke was a Guyanese-British artist who played an important role in 20th century British sculpture and I was rather embarrassed that I knew nothing about his work. I enjoyed the relationship between his painting and ceramics and the raw materiality of his pieces.

One of the reasons I return to London in the summer is to see the R.A. Summer Exhibition, it’s just such an iconic show. The last few years I’ve been accompanied by my Gen Z son who has a gift for spotting repeat artists and we had a lot of fun walking around pointing out the artists we remembered from last year. Being a tech-head, he came up with a formula for having work accepted in the Summer Exhibition - no, I won’t be testing it out!

This year we visited Friday late night when the R.A. stays open until 9pm and has both a bar and a DJ in the central viewing room. It’s a genius move that brings in a different crowd from the daytime and I have to say I felt very Carrie Bradshaw, sipping my G&T while I studied this wall figuring out my favourite piece - it’s the pink one in the middle which looks like a person with wings.

Another of my favourite London galleries. The East side of London used to be home to several rope manufacturers and this exhibition paid tribute to the ropemakers. It tickled all my textile sensibilities and made me want to twist yarn again.

I couldn’t not see Frida. This exhibition has had some criticism for lacking in artworks created by Frida Kahlo herself but I think it did a good job of putting her work in context and highlighting the art of her contemporaries and those later inspired by Frida. A stand-out piece for me was this little self-portrait created by Frida Kahlo and placed in a highly decorative tin frame - just so pretty.

A while ago I wrote a piece on Substack about Frida’s friendship with Marìa Izquierdo and I was delighted to find Izquierdo’s self-portrait hanging in the exhibition - I think she was as good a painter as Frida. And look at the spectacular silver necklace she’s wearing! (I’ve linked my writing below.)

Always an inspiration. From the swathes of uncut wildflowers to the regimented rows of pansies in highly manicured borders, London parks offer places to sit and sketch, nap in the shade, and spend hours people watching. Honestly, I could have spent all my time sitting in the parks drawing.

There’s a time for taking in inspiration and there’s a time when I have to stop looking at other artists’ work and knuckle down to my own. One of my struggles with social media (and I include Substack) is that it has made cutting off that time of inspiration very hard. Back in the day it was easy: I’d just stop going to galleries while I worked on my own art project. Nowadays, if I allow it, I could be scrolling through images of art all day, right up to the moment I nod off to sleep. That’s not good for me.

So in a way I’m glad I’m leaving London for a while. Even though I’ll miss the city, it’s time for me to get to the work of transforming all this inspiration into ideas that will strengthen my art making. Along with my studies at the Royal Drawing School, London has schooled me in beauty and I can’t wait to grab a large sheet of paper, a brush and pot of paint. If just a tiny bit of this beauty ends up on my page, I’ll be happy.

How do you balance taking in inspiration and letting it back out through your art work? Is it something you struggle with too or have you got a good balance? Let me know in the comments.

With love

J x

This is my piece about Frida Kahlo’s friendship with two of her peer artists. It’s one of my most popular essays.