Art!

No, Not That "Art"
Normally, as you surely know if you read BOOJUM! with any frequency, Conrad often utters harsh commands to the slavish wretch responsible for this blog's picture content:  Art.  This coal-chewing sloven chooses to live in the Mansion's septic sump, from which one needs an unusually long, sharp bamboo skewer to remove him.  Art is gifted with little in the way of intellect - Conrad has to make do for both of us - and gets pictures and/or captions embarrassingly wrong all the time.
     "Yes yes yes, Conrad," I can hear you call.  "Enough of what's not applicable.  What is!"
     Art in the purest sense, gentle reader.  You may recall, or you may not*, that Darling Daughter is doing an Arts Degree at Manchester's Metropolitan University.  Last weekend, under the auspices of guzzling enormous amounts of food at Yo! Sushi, we attended an exhibition of art at a venue in Manchester, from students on her course.
     I didn't take a photo of the venue from outside, but it appeared to be an office building from the Seventies, designed with the colour palette of "Faecal Brown".  

Don't ask me.  This came up when I Googled "horrid brown office building"

     Here's two general photos of the First floor:

Sal's friend Rebecca in lower right corner

     Of course you get to see Sally's exhibit: 

Those are hand-made bowls I'll have you know

Note creepy melted pewter clowns at right

     Sal's intent was to show artefacts that enhanced a story, illustrating a fiction if you will.  He cast and then painted and then scoured the little clown figures herself from a plastic master, and beat those bowls into shape by hand.  One was processed to give a patina to the nickel-silver and it now looks 3,500 years old.  Conrad could easily see South Canadian tourists paying £450 a pop for "Anglo-Saxon antiques" but then he's always been a mercenary rascal.
     

Rebecca's shizzle.  Sorry!  Art.  Rebecca's art.

     Spun glass, very delicate, "Do Not Touch" signs perhaps not needed.  Moving from Art For Art's Sake, Wonder Wifey bought one of Rebecca's sets of ear-rings, which will apparently make her dad happy.
     Here's another exhibit photo taken at random, no idea what it is, sorry, can't be bothered to find out either**.

Mea Culpa

     Read the note lower right if you're really bothered.
     Next, the most popular display on the floor, according to Sal:  The Masks.  The sign next to their exhibit made a point of saying "PLEASE TOUCH THE MASKS" and so people did.  Art?  ART!

Many masks

     And just to prove a point, here's Darling Daughter wearing one:

Frightening or impressive?  Only you can tell!

     Now, look back at the size of the tableaux that Sal was allowed to have:

In case you forgot

     I think it was 50cm squared, or 16 inches in proper measurements.  Recall, if you will, that oak dresser that had been acquired and transported as a possible tableaux?

In case you forgot part 2 & 3

     I think you can see the size discrepancy here.  Not only that, I doubt it would have fitted into the lifts of the Horrid Brown Building.
     Well, there you have it, a bit of artistic education for you.  BOOJUM! - we'll get you intellectualised if it's the last thing we do!

Pete McKee
More on the theme of art.  I'd not heard of this chap before until mentioned at work by Dave Kerry, our resident Professional Yorkshireman.  He'd been to see an exhibition by Mr McKee at Magna, the fantastic science museum in Sheffield.
     Here an aside by your humble scribe:  although there has been a ferocious rivalry between Lancashire and Yorkshire for getting on half a millenium, Sheffield gets an automatic "Get out of jail free" card, and in fact a "Collect £200 million bonus" from your Lanky-dwelling artisan, because it's the hometown of The Comsat Angels, one of the finest rock bands this nation has ever produced***.
     Okay, back to the rant in hand!  Mr McKee (keeping it formal as we've not been introduced) has a distinctive style leavened with a sense of humour.  Art?  ART!  ART!!!

Er - yes

Who?  Not Yes.

Penguins.  Sheffield.  Inseparable

The uniform of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club.
And beer.  

How to reduce a grown man to tears ...
(An England shirt is pristine white, FYI)

Well well well.  Not enough room for my wibble about High-altitude Electro Magnetic Pulse and ballistic missile interception, which is a pity as - well that would be telling.  Also I want some tea.  Pip pip!


* In which case there will be - trouble.
** Tee hee!
*** This is not an opinion.  It is a cold hard fact.