Hamid Zenati at the Nottingham Contemporary

While there are plenty of exhibitions in London - one of which we’ve been to recently, there’s also plenty of exhibitions and ‘culture’ outside of the capital, and that’s something we’re still exploring. Since we’ve lived in Nottinghamshire though, I think we’ve been to more concerts and such, which given we practically lived on the O2’s doorstep in Greenwich is pretty odd! I think here we’re actively looking for things to explore as we build our new lives, but all of that is made so much easier by the institutions here putting on such great programmes.

Anyway, while my car was in for its service and MOT we decided to catch the bus into Nottingham and spend the day there. We weren’t sure which bus exactly, but the garage pointed us in the right direction and on both journeys we had to run for the bus, so that was a bonus too.

I’d spotted the Two Steps at a Time exhibition at the Nottingham Contemporary in a magazine and had added the exhibition dates to my calendar, so that was just the prompt I needed to sort out something a little different. I also signed us up to the ‘Wednesday Walkthrough’ session where we were led through more details about the artist by an art expert, at this session Sheyda Aisha Khaymaz an artist, curator and PhD Candidate in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin.

After completing the more usual tasks of shopping and checking out items for potential future online purchases, and then grabbing a coffee we set off to find the Nottingham Contemporary. It’s a fairly brutalist piece of architecture, and one we hadn’t seen before - however when we arrived we realised we’d probably been less than a few hundred feet away from it on most of our visits to the city. Even better was we’re getting our bearings and knew this just by looking at our surroundings - it’s great when that happens and you start to find your way around a new place naturally isn’t it?

NOTTINGHAM CONTEMPORARY

I knew nothing of the artist before we booked our spaces, but learnt from the website blurb that Hamid Zenati (b 1944 Algeria; d 2022 Germany) was a self-taught and prolific artist working across many surfaces including textiles, fashion and ceramics and more.

This exhibition is the second-ever showing of his nearly sixty year career and the first in the UK - and from the images on the website I knew we were in for a feast of colour.

It was great to hear more about the artist, and the talk was busy with up to thirty people also attending, which the organisers clearly welcomed. I’ll not share much more about the artist or the talk, but we enjoyed both - I’ve realised lately that I’m very much a visual person (it’s not really a surprise tbh), so I’ll leave you (mostly anyway) to enjoy my favourite pictures.

The gallery with the textiles was my favourite of the two spaces. They were hung at varying levels from the super high space and that also provided movement, and being able to get up so close was unexpected, as was being able to walk through (literally) the pieces - though of course people were respecting them and ducking to avoid any contact.

The piece at the centre top of the image above is I think my favourite piece of the exhibition. I’m not sure if that’s because it captured your attention as soon as you walked in through its height or its colours, but it’s the one I kept coming back to - and there were plenty in here that I liked.

The boldness of the pieces was amazing, and perhaps this is attributed to being self taught and not needing to follow the rules, or perhaps it’s just what it is and what needed to come out! He didn’t document much of his work at all, so there’s no sure way of knowing - which again means you can make up your own mind, as can I.

The one below was close to being my favourite, for the colours. I can imagine that making a lovely summer dress! Which isn’t as mad or sacrilegious as it sounds, as the gallery staff were wearing his designs. I’m not sure how they felt about it, but it was a fab touch to bring the art to life.

I’ll share one final textile, this one had me captivated during the first part of the talk. It was in my direct eye line and I found myself wondering if they were whales or just fish. They could be either I guess.

This last picture is the one the MOH was most taken with. It’s in the second gallery where there’s more ceramics and even more textiles, though smaller ones which are laid out on plinths. It too follows the ‘fill the space’ approach which isn’t something I’m against. I too love the bold colours, and would happily have a pair of matching, or at least complementary, vases like this on our half-stair landing - though I’d be worried about them bouncing down the stairs unaided.

It’s great to find exhibitions such as this locally, I’m glad I spotted it and that we were able to go and enjoy it - I’m sure we’ll be back to the Nottingham Contemporary, and I’m pretty sure there’s much more in Nottingham and around for us to discover.

Post Comment Love 19 - 21 July

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed from the linky, and if older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

What is it they say about the best laid plans? A power cut, well two major power cuts put paid to my plans to spend a day blogging last week - in total we lost power for about ten hours, which while inconvenient wouldn’t usually have been an issue. However we had family staying who’d planned to work from home at ours to avoid traffic and get a jump start on their holiday. Luckily with a holiday ahead of them they were fairly relaxed and thankfully the power came back for some of the traditional working day, but even so.

No one ever expects a major outage (or a major fault) to materialise, but until it’s not there you don’t realise quite how much you rely on it, do you? Even getting out of the gate it seems - I’d always wondered what the keys on the clicker’s key ring did, we found out last week that they’re for turning the gate to manual operation.

And as a picture of a power cut wouldn’t be fun at all, please enjoy my ox-eye daisies instead.

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My garden in June

The lupins which did so gloriously in May are finished, and have been found by the whole neighbourhood’s snail community - it’s obvious to see how much they enjoyed them! Thankfully though the plants were able to set seed before their demise, so hopefully next year I’ll be able to grow more lupins from those.

This month it’s been about roses, with much dead heading and some new roses too. At the start of the month it was this peachy-yellowy beauty that took centre stage; positioned just outside the gate, every time we came in or out there seemed to be another head of flowers, which was perfectly fine by me.

The never ending weeding of the gravel continued, but it did throw up a surprise with this tiny poppy flower. There’s been a few others since, but none have made quite the impact that this first one did.

When I said it was a month of roses, there were also new roses. This Gertrude Jekyll arrived for my birthday, a present from MOH - isn’t it gorgeous? As you know we had one of these in our previous garden and had to leave it there, that one he’d bought me as a wedding anniversary present and so it was a lovely surprise to receive this one unexpectedly.

The weather was good enough to start some proper gardening and as well as the rose to pot up - I’m not sure where I want it yet - there were some plants to plant out. The hellebore which we brought from my FIL’s garden was ripe for potting out, it wasn’t until I got it out of the pot that I realised just how much. It hadn’t done much this winter, and the amount of roots to soil might have contributed to that. It’s not just along from the pale green hellebore in our border which had done so well, let’s hope this one takes the hint.

Only two of my sunflowers survived on their own while we were away in May, but they have gone from strength to strength and to help them further I decided to pot those out too. Usually you wait until they’re about 30cm high, and these were still a bit off that, but thankfully they’ve done well and there’s still the two of them. And they are so much bigger, almost reaching the top of the boundary wall to date, and I’m sure they’ve more to grow yet.

I’ve also had my first peony flower. I potted two of our peonies to bring with us, and they have managed well - they haven’t quite thrived but each of them have produced a single bloom, which is way more than I expected. They are likely to have a little longer in their pot, as our new garden plans are starting to form but will take a while longer to implement.

Among the other plants I’ve finally planted out are these wallflowers - these are the Chelsea Jacket type and have multicoloured pastel flowers. The planter is one we brought with us, and which had edged our greenhouse in the old garden. I was pleased though to discover it’s made for this spot on the corner of the garage, nestling in among the oak upright and just along from the garden tap.

The rosemary bush which suffered last summer and then recovered again is still alive and well still alive is probably as good a description for it. It’s a fighter that’s for sure, and to reward its effort this is another plant that’s been potted out, this one’s in our external borders in a much more sheltered spot. So if it was the wind it objected too, it should do ok where it is now.

Ah yes, then another rose arrived.

I’d spotted this new rose in a magazine, it’s named after the National Trust’s Mottisfont in Hampshire which is famous for its roses. It’s a great place to visit too - we’ve only been a couple of times, but I love it there.

So then there were two new roses.

MOH could hardly say no don’t get this lovely magenta Mottisfont rose as I’ve ordered one for your birthday, could he? But what a happy result - though I did have to scramble around a bit to find two pots large enough for each of these. Thankfully the obliging ox eye daisies made way and were happy enough to take up life in a new pot, so happy in fact they’re still flowering.

Our pink jasmine, which also travelled from our previous garden also flowered. It’s not in its most favourable spot, and I know that, but I am appreciating it doing its best.

As well as roses, there’s been the lavender. And that has been glorious.

We have at least six large bushes which took many hours to prune at the end of last summer, but in the sun they are so worth it, and I know in a month of two I’ll be changing my mind again! Though it’s a great way marker to say to people ‘our house is the one with the lavender’ as it’s quite obvious which it is!

We have a lot of dark leafed and purple plants - some that were here, and others which we brought with us - one of the most striking is this hebe, which again really enjoys the sunshine (but then again don’t we all).

I brought some hardy succulents back from Gardeners’ World Live this year - the first time we’ve brought plants at the show, and I couldn’t resist some of the redder leaved varieties as well as the bright, fresh greens. I’m hoping that these are as promiscuous as my aloe vera plants…

On a trip to the garden centre for lunch, I left with two small tomato plants. They’ve a while to go yet, but hopefully we’ll be eating our own home grown tomatoes this summer - it seems so strange that I haven’t grown anything for a good couple of years, mostly because we’ve been moving house.

The Mottisfont rose flowered, and it’s another beauty…

At the other end of the garden the little crab apple tree continues to do its thing - it’s plumped out so much these last few months with each of the branches looking laden with fruits again. This year I will make use of them, whether it’s jam or jelly, or even a wreath. Well, that’s the plan anyway!