London - West End - Christmas Lights

Oxford Street

Wishing all my readers and followers Seasonal Greetings and hope for a Peaceful and Prosperous 2017.  I will be taking a blogging break now until after Twelfth Night.

Regent Street

Faces On Friday - Hong Kong - Sunshade

   I love this lady's choice of traditional Chinese sunshade to protect her from the intense Hong Kong sun.

Faces On Friday - Devon - Locals

On my Travels I enjoy taking photos of people, usually to share here. I captured this candid shot of locals chatting in Devon on a trip last year. What fascinates me the most is the length of the man with a beard's fingernails!
Do you think he is a fisherman and the nails help him untangle the nets?

Tate Modern Exhibition - Southbank - London

I was blessed to have a long weekend in London from 24th to the 28th November 2016 to celebrate the occasion of my eldest daughter's marriage.  This gave me the opportunity during the weekend to make a brief visit, to an exhibition at Tate Modern of work by Louise Bourgeois.

It was fascinating although I do not pretend to understand the exhibits, I did learn more by following up my visit with some research and a visit to the Official Website.

Hopefully the few photos of the exhibits that I have taken and included here will make you interested to visit the Tate Modern Website or if you get the opportunity, visit the exhibition yourself.

Louise Bourgeois      Text courtesy of  Official Website

Feel the impact of Bourgeois’s intense psychological insight through the artworks in this display

Louise Bourgeois’s work is often autobiographical, while addressing universal experiences such as birth, death, love, loss and fear.

This exhibition brings together a selection of Bourgeois’s late works, alongside a small number of earlier pieces from her remarkable seven-decade career. She was born in Paris in 1911. Her parents ran a business restoring antique tapestries, which sparked her life-long interest in textiles. Though she initially studied mathematics and geometry at the Sorbonne, she soon changed direction and trained as an artist. In 1938 she moved to New York City, where she remained until her death in 2010.

Bourgeois returned again and again to a number of themes, though the materials she used to express them vary greatly. Her sculpture, drawing  and writing are characterised by an unflinching emotional honesty, as she continually retold and reworked the memories and stories that shaped her life.

Bourgeois kept written diaries and records. Often she would write down her thoughts and ideas on loose sheets of paper. She collected books on many topics, sometimes because she was inspired by their illustration plates, but also to study subjects such as philosophy and psychoanalysis. Bourgeois was herself in psychoanalysis for many years, and suffered from anxiety and insomnia for most of her life. For her, making art was another form of therapy that she could not live without.

Louise Bourgeois is the first artist to be presented in the new gallery dedicated to ARTIST ROOMS. Located on Level 4 of the Switch House, the space has been designed exclusively to present a programme of solo exhibitions of work by the forty artists in the ARTIST ROOMS collection.

More information content about the individual exhibits that I have shared photos of here and videos about the artists work can be found on the Official Website.

Tate Modern

Location within Central London
Established	2000; 16 years ago
Location	Bankside London, SE1 United Kingdom
Coordinates	51.507625°N 0.098970°W
Visitors	4,712,581 (2015)[1][2] Ranked 4th nationally[2] Ranked 6th globally[3]
Director	Frances Morris
Public transit access	Blackfriars
Website	tate.org.uk/modern
Tate
Tate Britain Tate Liverpool Tate Modern Tate St Ives

N.B. The photographs of the exhibits I saw are my own work, but please visit the  Tate Modern - Official Website to learn more about each individual exhibit.

More information can be found via the following websites.

Tate Modern - Wikipedia       Tate Modern - Official Website   Tate Modern at Visit London

Faces on Friday - Cyclist - Caernarfon City Walls

After my recent visit to Caernarfon to see the Weeping Poppy Cascade  I spotted this young lady looking very contemplative and I wondered if she had just been to see the poppies.

I found it a very emotional exhibit and when I saw her looking so sad I felt for her. Maybe I read too much into her expression but it made a good portrait for Faces on Friday.

Caernarfon Castle - Poppy Cascade

It is six months since I last posted here on Travel Tales and I have missed doing so. However I am now back after a very busy few months, I have had lots of adventures which I am looking forward to sharing on the blog which I regard as an online scrapbook of my life adventures, which I hope visitors here will enjoy.

A recent visit to see the Weeping Window Cascade during its time at Caernarfon Castle was very emotional and has inspired me to get posting again and share some of my photographs with you.

I found the visit to be rather emotional, even more so when the rainbow appeared as they have a special personal meaning for me. Have you visited the exhibition, either the original at The Tower of London in 2014 or one of the UK Tour exhibits?  Do share your thoughts about this exhibition.

Information below is from the Official 14-18 Now Website 

14-18 NOW is presenting the iconic poppy sculptures Wave and Weeping Window at selected locations around the UK until 2018.

See the 2017 locations. 

See the 2016 locations.

Weeping Window is a cascade comprising several thousand handmade ceramic poppies seen pouring from a high window to the ground below; Wave is a sweeping arch of bright red poppy heads suspended on towering stalks. These two sculptures, by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper, marking the centenary of the outbreak of war, are now brought to audiences at venues across the country by 14-18 NOW as part of the Poppies tour. As with all 14-18 NOW projects, the presentation of these sculptures to new audiences across the UK aims to prompt a new, nationwide dialogue around the legacy of the First World War.

The breath-taking sculptures were initially conceived as the key dramatic sculptural elements in the installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London in the autumn of 2014. Over the course of their time at the Tower, the two sculptures were gradually surrounded by a vast field of ceramic poppies, each one planted by a volunteer in memory of the life of a British and Colonial soldier lost during the First World War. In their original setting they captured the public imagination and were visited by over five million people.

Video Courtesy of YouTube

Time Lapse video 

Caernarfon Castle is the first location in Wales to host #PoppiesTour by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper.

Poppies: Weeping Window is a cascade comprising several thousand handmade ceramic poppies, and was originally seen pouring from a high window to the ground below at the Tower of London as part of the installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.

N.B. The photographs are all my own work.

More information can be found via the following websites.

14-18 Now Website  YouTube   Caernarfon Castle  Wikipedia - Caernarfon Castle

Faces on Friday - Music Student - Royal Academy of Music - London

Whilst exploring London recently I came across one of the buildings which is part of The University of London's Royal Academy of Music.

What an honour it must be to study here.  I was unable to ascertain if the young musician I have featured as my Face on Friday was actually a student there, he certainly looks as if he takes his studies very seriously. I think his instrument case is fabulous don't you?

Facebook Page - Royal Academy of Music      Wikipedia - Royal Academy of Music

University of London - Royal Academy of Music         Royal Academy of Music - Official Site

Sherlock Holmes - Baker Street - London - England

During March I had a few days in London, where of course I took lots of photos, with plans to share them on Travel Tales.

If you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes, the museum and shop in Baker Street are well worth a visit.

Sherlock Holmes and his friend and colleague lived at 221b Baker Street, London, W1 from 1881 until 1904, according to the stories written Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If you want to step back in time while you are in London, pay a visit to this famous address, where if you visit the museum, you will find his study overlooking Baker Street is just as it was in the Victorian Era.

No photos of the house interior but the ones I am sharing of the Museum shop may tempt you to visit if you get the opportunity.

Open every day of the year (except Christmas Day) from 9.30am - 6pm

Admission:  Adult £15 Child £10 (under 16yrs)

      You can read more about Sherlock Holmes and Baker Street on the following websites.

Sherlock Holmes - Official Website      Wikipedia 221b Baker Street