Borough Market, Fashion + Textile Museum and Theatre
Friday June 5 was a mainly cloudy day with a high of 18C. No rain!
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| Leaving the house- Weavers Field at the bottom of the street |
We took a direct bus to London Bridge station. Our first destination was Borough Market just a few minutes from the station. In 2023, our last visit to London, we stayed in an Airbnb very close to Borough Market. It was really buzzy just after 12:30 p.m. Everyone seemed to be there for lunch. We just meandered around. Borough Market is one of the largest and oldest food markets in London, with a market on the site dating back to at least the 12th century.
Today there are more than 100 stalls, stands, restaurants, bars and shops in the Market. There are three main areas: Three Crown Square (larger producers and merchants), Green Market (small, specialist produce traders) and Borough Market Kitchen (street food traders). Surrounding the Market are a number of restaurants, bars, cafés and shops.
Of course, we were immediately drawn to the blue piece (below) in the middle of three works by John Hoyland (1934-2011), one of Britain's leading abstract painters, celebrated for his fearless use of colour, scale and gestural form. Though he was not based in St. Ives, he had a connection to the town through his collaboration with master printmaker Hugh Stoneman, who invited him to Cornwall in the 1990s. It was in Stoneman's studio that Hoyland created a remarkable series of prints that distilled the expressive power of his painting into print form. The three works in the exhibition were printed in St. Ives and combine vivid colour fields with layered mark-making. We purchased the blue piece, called Secret Summer, 2006.
We will pick up our piece on Tuesday June 9 (we will get an unframed version to take back to Toronto).
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| One of a number of entrances |
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| Lining up for wild mushroom risotto |
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| Fruit and veg stall |
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| Lots of cheese vendors in the market |
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| Another entrance |
We then headed to Bermondsey Street on the other side of London Bridge station. It is one of our favourite streets and neighbourhoods. We stopped at Eames Fine Art Gallery, where we have purchased four pieces of art in the past. They were having an exhibit called The Shape of Things: printmaking and abstraction in St. Ives. It featured a number of artists who have been inspired and worked in St. Ives, a town situated on the west coast of Cornwall, facing out towards the Atlantic Ocean. Benefitting from softer, more diffuse light than other parts of the British Isles, it continues to attract artists.
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| Sign outside gallery for the show |
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| One of our favourite galleries- fantastic space. |
Of course, we were immediately drawn to the blue piece (below) in the middle of three works by John Hoyland (1934-2011), one of Britain's leading abstract painters, celebrated for his fearless use of colour, scale and gestural form. Though he was not based in St. Ives, he had a connection to the town through his collaboration with master printmaker Hugh Stoneman, who invited him to Cornwall in the 1990s. It was in Stoneman's studio that Hoyland created a remarkable series of prints that distilled the expressive power of his painting into print form. The three works in the exhibition were printed in St. Ives and combine vivid colour fields with layered mark-making. We purchased the blue piece, called Secret Summer, 2006.
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| Our new piece in the middle- one of a series of 50 prints |
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| Looking back at The Shard from Bermondsey Street |
It was time for a quick bite at Chapter 72, a cool coffee shop that also serves espresso martinis as well as food. We each had a nice bowl of lentil soup.
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| Outside of Chapter 72- Ground-Shaken-Stirred |
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| We sat inside as it was cloudy and cool out |
Our next destination was the Fashion and Textile Museum which we have visited a number of times. They do not have a permanent exhibit but host fabulous temporary fashion and textile exhibitions and also have educational classes, events and workshops. It was founded in 2003 by Dame Zandra Rhodes as a space to showcase British fashion design. It is housed in a distinctive building, designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. Since 2007, the Museum has been operated by Newham Collage, one of Europe's largest further education colleges.
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| Outside of the Fashion + Textile Museum |
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| The main exhibit poster |
We first stopped in the Museum's Small Gallery which had an exhibit entitled: The Material Heart: From the Front Line to the Home Front, which included pin cushions dating from before and during WWI, from two rare private collections.
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| Description of the exhibition |
Commonly known as 'sweetheart pin cushions,' they were in fact mostly made for mothers, often as Christmas gifts, by soldiers serving on the front line during their leisure time. Available in kits, the heart forms were decorated with pins, along with military insignia, photographs and embroidered designs, some with deeply personal and symbolic meanings. The items shown belong to two private collectors.
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| Picture is of 'recreational huts': leisure at the front line during WWI. Kits for making pin cushions could be purchased. |
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| A very elaborate pin cushion with photo of soldier |
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| Another example We then went to see the main exhibit: Paint! Pattern! Print!: The Textiles of Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell. The exhibition traced the creative journey of two sisters Susan Collier (1938-2011) and Sarah Campbell (b. 1946) (née Collier) (who worked together alongside each other for over 50 years, creating vibrant painterly patterns that transformed printed fabric and the world of interiors.  There was a brief biography of the sisters : Susan was born in 1938 in Manchester and her sister Sarah was born in 1946 in Hoddesden, Hertfordshire. Their parents were actress Patience Collier and her father was a pharmacologist. Their parents were committed to cultivating creativity and promoted a strong work ethic. The sisters had a shared visual language and the dream of their art becoming a viable career quickly became a reality. In 1971, Susan was appointed Design and Colour Consultant, Liberty of London Prints and Sarah was retained as a designer. In 1979, the sisters founded Collier Campbell Ltd. In 1984, the award winning 'Six Views' collection featuring Côte d'Azur debuts. In 2011, Susan Collier dies and Sarah Campbell Ltd is formed. Paint! Pattern! Print! celebrates the creative partnership of Collier Campbell and Sarah's independent work from 2011.   Allan took my picture in front of their design called Dancing Squares; original artwork 1990. I am wearing a scarf from my favourite scarf store in Paris called Épice, which I got a number of years ago. The designers are Danish and opened Épice in Paris in 1999. There is a similarity in the designs.     Birdsong, original artwork 1984. Evolved partly from an impromptu sketch painted by Sarah, inspired be the view from her studio window.   This is one of Collier Campbell's most iconic prints. It was part of the groundbreaking 'Six Views' Collection, licensed for Cristian Fischbacher in 1983. The Collection won the Duke of Edinburgh's Designers Prize in 1984 as well as the Design Council Award. Côte d'Azur was adapted as the lead design of the wholesale line launched in 1985 and reinterpreted for a bed linen ensemble and wallpaper in 1991.  Côte d'Azur is an evocative landscape of palm trees, balconies and vivid blue skies. It became an iconic design. It was painted in a fluid style reminiscent of Henri Matisse and Raoul Dufy. It began as a drawing when Sarah, unable to take a summer holiday, sketched the view she longed to see from her window.    Following the untimely death of her beloved sister Susan in 2011, Sarah has continued with her own hand-painted design work. She has also broadened her practice to hand-paint directly onto cloth itself.  Eulogy for Floyd was printed on Linen One of the last quotes in the exhibition was from Sarah in The Collier Campbell Archive, 50 Years of Passion in Pattern (co-authored with Emma Shackleton). She said: "When I think of all our designs, they appear for me as a river of work. They flowed out in the rhythm of our lives as painters for textiles." It was a very joyful show. Full of colour and creativity by the two pioneering sisters. They were transformative in the world of textiles and design. The exhibit was curated by Sarah Campbell and Teresa Collenette, a design historian, who has worked on a number of the Museum's exhibits, and Dennis Nothdruft, Head of Exhibitions at the Museum who has led the exhibitions team since it was founded in 2003. We headed over to the Covent Garden area where we checked out some stores.  Great store design.  We passed a two sided sculpture of Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976). It was unveiled in 2012 and marked 60 years and 25,000 London performances of her play The Mousetrap.  Sculptor Ben Twiston-Davies  Our evening activity was going to see the wonderful new play by David Hare entitled: Grace Pervades, starring Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison. The play is a love letter to theatre focussing on the working and romantic relationship between the great actor Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, the actor and Director. The play also explores the lives of Terry's two children (from an earlier relationship), who shook up theatre by embracing the modernism that was so abhorrent to Irving. The son, Edward Gordon Craig pontificated to the hilt but never got anything done. The daughter, Edith Craig, lived in an artistic lesbian ménage à trois at Smallhythe Place, her mother's Kentish country retreat. Edith put on plays there and is much more sympathetic than her brother. There are 25 scenes spanning 1878-1966. Fantastic London Theatre--- Fiennes and Raison were spectacular.  Poster for the play      A great day in London--- art and theatre. We took the Tube back to our Airbnb. The play ran from 7:30 to 10:05 and we were back at our Airbnb by 11:00 p.m. |
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