All that tea, all that cake, all these chats

After weeks of indulging the gallery visitors and gallery staff (and myself!) in tea, cake & chat something started emerging. I had said (before I started the occupation of the artists’ room) that i want to collect memories of the place and hope that these would inspire me to create tours around the building. Tours that would concentrate on intimate moments. This did not work out.

Instead I have gathered many ideas from very different people for tours around the building that propose to enrich the experience of the ‘gallery visit’ or on few occasions convert the gallery into a totally different space. Some of them a radical, some of them are very subtle. All are going to be considered. I would like to make at least few of these tours happen. I have my favourite but would like to use democratic tools to choose ideas and allow people to vote!

The voting is going to happen during one day only, on Tuesday 28th July. It will happen in real life – between 10am and 4pm everyone is welcome to visit Artists’ Studio in Walsall and vote and have a tea & eat a piece of cake & chat a bit more. The voting will also take place on-line. On Tuesday all ideas for the tours will appear on this blog, and to vote for the one chosen tour it will be enough to post a comment under your favourite idea. Simple (although not as tasty as appear at the gallery in person).

Boredom

On Sunday afternoon in early June it was just 3 of us having tea: Maggie, Tony and me. I was talking about plans to develop a boring tour of the gallery, with boring cake & boring tea as part of it and with only one aim: making sure all people on the tour will be by the end of it bored to tears. The tour idea appeared as a reaction to current expectation that art galleries will be: entertaining, fun, engaging, fascinating & exhilarating places. Maybe there is a slight fear in me that this might change them into art theme parks and there will be nowhere to go just to sit & see.
Maggie other a cup of tea and while chatting about all these boring bits shared with me so much!
She gave me a recipe for a endless youth potion (so much in demand these days): constantly go to places & connect with people that will make you think new thoughts and encourage you to do new things. Apparently trying a cup of a different tea is a good start.

P.S. Maggie – the card arrived and made me read Mad Tea-Party again. Thank you.

Tea & Lost Accent

Fiona & Clive stopped over for tea on Friday. The blackberry & nettle tea took us to Lithuania where Clive’s lost his English accent. We made an arrangement to catch up over a piece of lemon drizzle by the end of summer. Do you have any good lemon drizzle recipes you could share? If so send them over to me, please! I am tempted to use this one, but other options will be considered!