Keek, Twinstraat, Utrecht

Above and below are pictures of the window signage for Keek, an independent bakery on Twinstraat in Utrecht. This approach of simple, mono-tone graphics, hand rendered in white paint seems, I noticed, to be favoured by a number of businesses in Utrecht. These ones in particular being painted by a friend of the business owner. I really love the effortless feel of these illustrations.

Desk Lamp Sculpture - Claes Oldenburg

I love this installation by Claes Oldenburg! Once again walking between my contract job and my hotel home for the week in Birmingham I found another cool bit of public art. Claes Oldenburg is most famous for installations of oversized, everyday objects in public spaces. A quick on-line search revealed a giant shuttlecock, a pair of binoculars and an upside down ice cream on the top of a building. There's clearly some humour in his work!

The desk lamp, outside the Mailbox,  is a working light and illuminates the street at night. There was something really friendly and cheerful about it. I wasn't sure if it was the bright red of the paintwork or if there has been an animated desk lamp in film I've seen; but I was almost expecting it to swing it's shade around, "look" at me and say hi! I also enjoyed how the sculpture messed with my perception of scale, the bricks of the Mailbox looked so small in comparison. Which, of course, with a desk lamp wouldn't be the case ordinarily. It really is the most pleasing desk lamp for many reasons. 

It was also lovely to see people interacting with the installation too, whether it was a smile being raised or people stopping to pose for a photo with the sculpture.

Hello!

What a great place for a bin. Honestly...

The Lovely People - Temper

Working in Birmingham this week, the route from my freelance job to my Ibis Budget hotel (contractor style!) took me via the Mailbox and The Cube. I noticed this sculpture by Birmingham street artist, Temper. Temper was commissioned by The Cube to create some three dimensional art for the space and he created The Lovely People, sculptures of inspiring local folk. 

I hadn't realised there was more than one sculpture until a Google search to find out more about the artwork revealed there was more than one. Alas, I have only an image of the lovely person below.

Each sculpture has a large, red heart instead of a face as Temper wanted to portray each person by the size of their heart, rather than their physical appearance. Such a nice sentiment. The statues include Gerda, a Holocaust survivor, and Dave Burns, a fire fighter awarded the George Medal for Bravery.

Proper lovely

Utrecht Centraal Museum - Krijn de Koning Installtion

The images below are of Krijn de Koning’s work at the Centraal Museum, which I loved when I saw it. The installation occupies two floors and prior to the museums renovation the space was warren of doctors consultation rooms and corridors. 

De Kroning’s work is site specific and aims to interrupt environments by adding sculptural, architectural and colourful constructions. At the Centraal Museum, De Kroning knocked down some walls and left some standing complete with doors to create a new accessible space. The colours are bright and vivid, walking in and around the installation it was hard not to feel really cheerful.

60 years of Miffy – The Miffy Parade

Utrecht is the home of graphic artist, dick bruina, and 2015 is the 60th anniversary of his most famed creation, Miffy the Rabbit. I also visited the dick bruina huis whilst in Utrecht, was amazing to see more of his work and also the technique and process when he creates images of Miffy. More on that in another post though...

Miffy, or Nijntje in Dutch, was created in 1955 whilst bruina was on holiday in the north of Holland. He sketched a little rabbit that kept hoping into the garden of the family’s holiday home and each evening would make up stories about the rabbit to entertainment for his young son.

To celebrate 60 years of Miffy, 60 artists were approached and asked to decorate a statue for the Miffy Parade. The artists, working in many disciplines, drew their inspiration from the world of the Miffy and each decorated a 1.8m high statue of her. The status are on display throughout The Netherlands and Japan and below are some of the statues I found on display in Utrecht. The statues will eventually be auctioned to raise money for Unicef.

Village Underground

These re-purposed tube carriages have been photographed loads but I was particularly excited to see them as I bumbled through Shoreditch en route to Hackney Central one Saturday afternoon. The Village Underground project was featured on George Clark’s Amazing Spaces which was a Thursday evening favourite of mine and my flatmate’s in Christchurch, New Zealand. So as I rounded a corner in London I got that jolt of eek-I’ve-seen-them-on-the-telly excitement!

I’ve always found the space on public transport interesting. These tube carriages re-purposed as artists studio reminded me of the bus journeys of my youth on the Cardiff Clipper P7 service from Cardiff to Barry via Penarth, where I’d day dream about how I’d design the interior of the bus were it my mobile house!

As well as being a cultural space and an artists’ community the Village Underground is an ecology project. In a society that is so wasteful it’s always heart-warming to see things recycled and given another lease of life.

Nice to see Nathan Barley is still knocking around. 

Getting Regional

I recently had the rather lovely opportunity to reprise my old role as a designer on ITV regional news. Rather fittingly, what with it being region news an' all, this gave me the chance to visit a different region of the UK; I packed my bags and headed to Birmingham for the week. 

Although it's the UK's second city I know very little about Brum so it was nice to get a little better acquainted. The following snaps are from a lunchtime stroll through the streets of the city centre. Birmingham has some cool and varied architecture from the impressive Victorian Art Gallery and Council House through to the striking Library of Birmingham.

Library of Birmingham

Birmingham Council House

Bullring Shopping Centre