Yorkshire Break

In the first week of the holiday I worked at Arty Party. The theme was Peter Pan, so I read the book which I have never read, and had a good week. I decided I needed to go somewhere and had been thinking of going up to Yorkshire for a couple of days. I wanted to see the work of Annie Montgomerie, which I love. She has an exhibition in the shop of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I decided to go on the Monday of the second week. My sister and her partner live in Leeds and my friends Clare and Gary moved up to York last year. They were kind enough to have me to stay at short notice. The park is a beautiful place, with the added bonus of lots of art, and sheep. I looked at the Annie Montgomerie work, then had a walk around the park. Then I bought a sandwich, and sat on a bench overlooking parkland, sheep and a river, which was lovely. Below are lots of photos of the park, and some of the various animals my sister and friends have. 

There are lots of buildings not being used in the park. This is part of an education centre I think. It looks like a gym. There is a lot of renovation of some of the older buildings going on.

Bodies on chairs. 

Giant lady hare. 

Julian Opie galloping horse. 

Dennis Oppenheim sculpture. 

Kaws sculptures. These are huge and are dotted about two large areas amongst huge trees. The places they are displayed are great as you get glimpses of them behind a tree and they are revealed as you walk around. I loved them! Especially the last one which is called 'Small Lie'. The posture of the character is so brilliantly suggestive of that feeling you have as a child when you have done something wrong, but feel ashamed and caught out. 

Henry Moore sculpture amongst the sheep. 

My view at lunchtime. 

Garlic the cat at my sister's.

Steve the tortoise-also at my sister's.

Swirly thing in York.

Soldier on the city wall. 

Elvis the dog. He is a lovely dog-very clever but you have to watch out as he eats anything! He wasn't too sure about me getting my camera out to take pictures but he put up with it well!

My friend Clare has a blog too-The Bonny Badger. She is very crafty and artistic and makes lots of lovely things both woolly and fabric.

The rest of the holiday so far has been spent clearing my jungle like garden, making trolls, goats and Christmas balls, and doing some papier mache work-which I will share when finished. Yesterday I did one more day at Arty Party, as they had an ofsted inspection. It was much more relaxed than school visits. One woman, all about safeguarding and procedures and she was only there for an hour. Today I went to the Georgia O'Keefe exhibition  at Tate Modern with my Mum. She is not an artist I knew much about, and I was really impressed. Her paintings are beautiful and the subjects more varied than I knew. Lots of landscapes which I loved. There were beautiful bone paintings and paintings of Katsina dolls. She lived in New Mexico for some of her life. Her use of colour is just amazing. There were quite a few paintings that I really wanted to take home! Tomorrow I might just sit down!