These are a Few of My Favourite Things...

Small Museums & Art Galleries

(certainly not an exhaustive list nor in any specific order)

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy. Photography: Rose-Coloured-Glasses.

• Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy
• The Frick Collection, New York City, USA
• The Wallace Collection, London, UK
• Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
• Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands
• Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, France
• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USA
• Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, Italy
• Delphi Museum, Delphi, Greece
• Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy

And the spectacular Barnes Collection if it had stayed within its original charter in its original home in Merion, Pennsylvania just outside of Philadelphia, USA. 

Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. Photography: Rose-Coloured-Glasses.

In Search of Lady Chatterley's Lover

I'm sure you expected me to blog about my lifelong search for Mr. Darcy, but I've given up on that daydream. In my many years here, I've come across various barons, counts and lords of the manor (you can actually buy a title these days like you can buy a vanity plate for your car) and no one comes close to Colin Firth (in my opinion, the BBC mini-series beats all adaptations in film or television). I don't usually give up on anything but there is absolutely no hope for this one.


I recently went on a day trip to the English countryside...I try never to pass up any opportunity to visit the English countryside as I find it so beautiful and calming and rooted in tradition and history which is such a refreshing break from our fast-paced modern lifestyles. A small group of us rode up to Cambridgeshire to see a family's estate and collection of art from the 17th to the 19th century. 


We met Sir William who toured us around his home; he was very informative and engaging and funny but like I said, no hope for this dreamer. After a relaxing lunch, we were to be treated to a tour of their private gardens. It was a lovely day.

While strolling in the gardens, I couldn't help recall the story of Lady Chatterley in the classic and controversial novel by D.H. Lawrence and the film from the early '80's starring Nicholas Clay as the brutish yet sexy gamekeeper. I was very young when I saw the film and it obviously had quite an impact on me as I remember it now many years later. Nicholas Clay was also in the unforgettable film Excalibur where he played a dashing Lancelot. Love all things medieval especially knights in shining armour storming castles. I was curious to find out what happened to him as I try to see all of my favourite British actors here onstage and sadly, I read that he's no longer with us. 

We met up with the gardener in the afternoon and he led us around the beautiful private grounds....a very nice man, but alas, neither brutish nor dashing. So, my search continues.... but I doubt anyone will come close to Sir Lancelot.

Wes's World

I just LOVE Wes Anderson films. You enter into his quirky, colourful universe which is always unique and bizarre but somewhat familiar and comfortable at the same time.  I don't know how he does it. The characters, the clothes, the dialogue, the soundtrack....every little detail is perfect.


I recently saw his latest Moonrise Kingdom and it is fantastic - such a nice break from the superhero and sci-fi blockbusters this summer. You can't help falling in love with it all. The cast is brilliant - the two leads are so good at such a young age. Bruce Willis has never been better (I admit I have been secretly in love with Bruce Willis since he did Moonlighting on TV ages ago) and Jason Schwartzman was actually hot in the few minutes he was on screen (maybe it was the Ray-Bans or his being unshaven with short hair for once or his tight scout uniform or all of the above - OK it was a moment of weakness). 


His film-making is so original. Even the books she carries around and reads out loud to the boys are made-up...with their beautiful and appropriate covers and titles and words.


You must CLICK on this amazing website - it's unbelievably creative and so much fun. And Bob Balaban is the best.
Moonrise Kingdom


Of Wes's films, my all-time favourite is The Darjeeling Limited. I can watch that over and over and over again.
The Darjeeling Limited

I'm Seeing Spots

Spots are everywhere....polka dot skirts and dresses are back, spots on trousers, tops, bags, in all colours....all back from the 50's and 60's... and now very hip again and trendy for summer.

Oh, and did you hear that one of the small Damien Hirst spot paintings recently sold for $750,000? And to think he didn't even paint it! I heard about the sale from a representative at the Gagosian Gallery when we toured London galleries recently. All 11 Gagosian galleries around the world showed Hirst's Spot Paintings at the same time earlier this year. And they even had a challenge for people who wanted to see each show. There were actually 8 people who were on their way to see all 11. Unbelievable! Alright, I really don't want to get into it with Hirst again.... Let's discuss someone more interesting who has expressed more originality, sincerity, depth and timelessness.

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist born in 1929 who worked mostly in Tokyo and New York from the 1950's to the early 1970's. Kusama's work encompasses many media including painting, collage, sculpture, performance art and installations. In addition, she has dabbled in fashion and film and has written novels and poetry. Recently turned 83 years old, she is still actively producing art and literary works as well as collaborating with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton. Finally she is being recognised for her work in a career that has spanned over 60 years. Largely forgotten since the 1970's, she is now acknowledged as Japan's best-known living artist and a key figure in the New York avant-garde and precursor to Pop Art.

Yayoi Kusama exhibition at Tate Modern, London, 2012.

Kusama has said that she had visions of spots since she was a little girl. She had a passion for drawing and painting at a young age and exhibited her work when she was a teenager. She had determination to show her work where there was more freedom, especially for women artists. Kusama contacted Georgia O'Keefe in the 1950's for advice on a career in the US. She made her way to New York via Seattle where a gallery held an exhibition of her work in 1957.

Poster for Kusama's Self-Obliteration film.

I cannot even imagine the patience that was required to paint all of these spots. Huge canvases of tiny thickly-painted spots. Collages of spots made up of stickers of different colours or rectangular stickers that are typically used as mailing labels. Kusama consistently used repetition and circular patterns in her work. She also often used eyes and cilia, sometimes sperm-like forms swimming across the canvas.

Because it was the 60's, there was obviously the sexual revolution. Kusama and her friends held these ''happenings'' where many naked people were covered in paint...in, of course, spots. They made films of the happenings and of Kusama herself covered in spots. She covered a horse in spots. She covered her cat in spots. She covered a garden and a pond in spots. Mostly, she covered herself in spots...and called it her Self-Obliteration. She was also a great marketer and self-promoter, making the posters and brochures as well as dressing in clothes that match her work.

Kusama collaborated and was influenced by many artists including Donald Judd and Joseph Cornell. Her work was shown in the 1960's alongside Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist. In her large non-figurative canvases and installations, Kusama's work references movements of the time such as abstract expressionism and minimalism as well as her own psychological battles but I can't help feeling a strong feminist spirit, sense of sexual freedom and a certain joie de vivre.  She must have stood out amongst all of those men. 

My favourite works are the Kusama rooms. She created surreal rooms full of spots with fluorescent stickers or different coloured lightbulbs that shine against mirrors to infinity. They are spectacular and eery at the same time. 

Many of her work appear very positive and uplifting, and when you look longer and deeper it can also be quite sad or bittersweet. It sometimes feels like you are trapped in some sort of endless repetition or darkness like space. But at the same time, like space, it is so beautiful and full of stars and new discovery. Welcome to the dream-like world of Yayoi Kusama. Ahead of her time.

Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room - Filled with the Brilliance of Life.