Bournemouth Arts-by-the-Sea

I headed down to the seashore on yesterday evening around sunset, looking for a beer and  a bit of quiet to set the week aside.  Bournemouth Pier is free to wander once the summer season is over at the equinox; the beaches are less crowded and the best light comes comfortably earlier than in August.

 

A large, still knot of people clustered around the dry wash that the city built connecting the depleted River Bourne to the sea.  Inside the circle, a dancer wheeled around a metal sculpture, offering potted plants openings in the panels, glinting in the sunset.  Behind me the crowd parted to let a space-suited actor enter the space.

   

‘twas, indeed, Bournemouth Arts-by-the-Sea time.

I’d forgotten that the event was on, and spent the rest of the evening wandering the various bits scattered through the Lower Gardens.  The annual event consists of sculpture and performance arts, with rotating displays and troupes through the week.
The collection of glowing blue spheres, thrumming with low-frequency music, were a crowd pleaser: the local orchestral ensemble in the Pavilion was less of a draw (people don’t like sitting on the grass when the weather gets cold).

 

I was fond of a brilliantly lit grove of trees, pulsing to music, halfway up the south slope of the park while the kids liked the whistling lines of illuminated boats nearby.  A torch-light parade was scheduled to kick off around ten pm, but unfortunately an hour longer than my parking meter back along the East Cliff drive.
  

All good fun, and still it left time to wander the pier to enjoy the wind, the waves, and the buskers, each making their own sorts of music.

  

Notting Hill Carnival

It’s the 50th year of London’s Notting Hill Carnival, a Caribbean-themed street party held during August Bank Holiday each summer.   Echoing the British fairs of the 18th century and adopting their symbolic ‘moments of great festivity and release’, the Carnival celebrates music, dance, jerk chicken and Red Stripe Beer.

Or, more historically, “juggling, pickpocketing, whoring, drinking, masquerade — people dressed up as the Archbishop and indulging in vulgar acts’.
Quite so, as illustrated.  We wouldn’t miss it, if only for that possibility.

Sunday, however, is Family Day, the slightly more relaxed version than anything-goes-Carnival-Monday.  The crowds were already thick by the time we emerged from the Bayswater tube station and pressed through to the heart of the festival. 
We quickly found our place, though. Sharing a hollow pineapple filled with Pina Colada is a sentimental favorite (although it has to come from the thatched stand at Westbourne and Leadbury to be Official).  It was a good year for the jerk chicken, red beans and rice in peanut sauce, beer and curry goat, sampled at food stands up and down the side streets.

  

The music was…loud: ‘lots of beat and minimal melodies.  No matter, the trailing dancers, dressed in locally themed shirts, jumped and danced and loved it.  The smell of weed was everywhere (moreso than ever present in the Netherlands) and the ground was littered with nitrous oxide canisters (later covered by drifts of general trash from the food stands).
The crowds were great, though: lots of folks enjoying the sunny day, the colourful costumes, and the pulsing rhythms.

   

There was a really heavy police presence to keep things settled (but mostly kept busy giving directions to lost tourists). Like Oktoberfest, I suspect that things degenerate as the day wears on, and we wandered off site around six while the vibe was still lovely.

“Carnival allowed people to dramatise their grievances against the authorities on the street...it allowed people a space to free-up but risked being was banned for moral reasons and for the antiauthoritarian behaviour that went on like stoning of constables,” notes one observer. 
From the Guardian’s descriptions, not much has changed today.

Still, t’was great fun to wander while we were there.

At the Readi(pop Festival)

As the summer heat finally settles in, lazy afternoons turn to picnics in the park, beer tents, and music into the twilight.  Readipop is the annual festival held at Christchurch Meadows along the Thames.  A family fun event lies outside of the ticketed areas, while paid entry gains beer tents and food stalls, music tents and the main stage.

And close-up time with the steampunk sculptures.

 

I credit the organizers for bringing in lots of local talent and for discounting the food and drinks to offset the entry fees.  There was a sad-song folk tent and a rockin’-loud modern tent, the worlds biggest ukulele band filling the main stage with orange and the old-geezer classic rock tent on the fringe.  The food was burgers and paella, ice cream and pulled pork; a variety of craft beers, lots of summertime Pimms and lemonade, gin and tonic.

 

The bands did four of five songs each before yielding to the next, just long enough to get an appreciation without wearing thin.  It was fun to pick out the entourage of each in the audience and the emcee had personal stories of each singer that he had discovered.

   

I am getting a bit hesitant to keep writing accounts of events, as they are already past when I post stories and pictures.  But lots of these come around every year, and they all give the flavour of the Great British Summer.   So I’ll keep mixing expat-entrepreneur observations with reviews of the local Feests for the time being.

Oh, and the steampunk.

  

There was an encampment out by the rock tent that was creating lovely wheeled animal sculptures from metal and mesh.  Generally immense, each crowned and escorted with performers dressed as frilled clowns, decontamination squads, and deep sea divers.  The kids loved them: a lot of work and creativity that went into the whole traveling exhibition.

Sunday food and photography

It’s a bit of a sodden day at the Bournemouth Food and Drink Festival.  With an eclectic collection of restaurants, varied music, and cooking demos, its always been one of my favorites. But this was not the festival’s best year, the weather  and the economy have left it feeling shrunken and besieged.

  

The nicest bit was a nearby art exhibition that featured watercolours and oils by local artists.  I still aspire to creating credible pen-and-wash landscapes or charcoal life drawings, and enjoy looking at the compositional and stylistic variations. 

  

I recently attended a discussion of how photography evolves with practice.  The people who come from an artistic background tend to grow differently, and have passion for different things, than the people coming at it from a technical perspective.  Wither way, one ahs to become adept with the tool and to learn technique from mentors and structured practice and critique.  But someone studies art thinks about composition and light much differently from someone who studies technology, thinking in term of ratios and meters.

Oddly, even though I am a technologist, I come at photography from my art background.  I have taken drawing and painting classes, read widely and attended lectures, keep my Tate membership up.  I still am working through the technical course on apertures and depth of field, so the advanced controls on my camera are till to be discovered.

But I look at a lot of pictures, thinking about why one is appealing for contrast and balance, or how another captures the energy of its subject.  And I take those ideas back out  to the field as rehearsal, and try to make better photographs myself.  So, a trip to a gallery informs how I think about taking pictures, and inspires me to try different techniques.