Not Just Graffiti

One day recently my friend, Eileen, and I were walking back from a morning spent visiting, and in some cases revisiting, a few of Glasgow´s many historical sites (including its oldest house, built would you believe, in 1471..but that´s another story) when I was stopped dead in my tracks by one of the most amazing murals I´ve ever seen. I say “mural” advisedly because although it´s painted on crumbling walls at the rear of a parking lot in Ingram Street it´s certainly not just graffiti. Here are just a very few close ups so that you can see the astonishing photo-realistic detail in it.

 

I later discovered that it was commissioned by Glasgow Council in celebration of The Commonwealth Games hosted by the city in 2014 and was painted by graffiti artist Sam Bates aka Smug. 

I found it frustrating not to be able to photograph many parts of the mural as they were blocked, not surprisingly, by various vehicles. However, I was lucky enough to find a couple of less cluttered photos on the Web. This one of a kilted figure among autumn leaves and fungi is particularly ingenious. Note the shadows which imbue this part of the mural with a trompe l'oeil 3D appearance. It´s hard to tell which of the leaves are part of the tree and which are painted. I also love the way the leaves and the fungi are a recurring theme throughout the entire mural.

This part depicts a lovely selection of Scottish wildlife including a black grouse, a red squirrel and a robin. There are even a few scattered rowan berries from Scotland´s most prolific tree, a source of winter food for many species. I, like many Scots, have one in my garden. Traditionally, the rowan is supposed to ward off witches. I haven´t seen any since I planted it so it seems to work... I love its inclusion in the mural. 

 

Coming upon this stunning work of art simply confirms what I´ve always thought about my home town. Glasgow is a wonderful city full of surprises.

Hearse And Horses

You´ll probably have guessed by now that I love prowling around art galleries and museums. One of my favourites has always been The Transport Museum. It used to be situated directly across the road from the Glasgow Art Galleries but has recently been renamed The Riverside Museum and moved to a new and much grander building in Clydebank, an aptly named suburb of Glasgow situated on the banks of the River Clyde.

One of the new attractions isn´t in the museum itself but floating on the river right next to it. This is The Glenlee, the so-called Tall Ship, a sailing ship built in Port Glasgow in 1896 and restored over a 6 year period to its former glory. If you´re interested, you can read about it HERE.

My favourite attraction in the old museum was the indoor reconstruction of a 1930´s Glasgow street complete with a painted night sky which gave it an amazingly realistic appearance. Looking into the lighted shop windows was like stepping back in time. It also included a cinema where you could watch films about the town in that era, and when you walked past the old pub you could hear laughter and fragments of conversation from inside. The new museum also has a street from the same era but, unlike its predecessor, unfortunately it leaves very little to the imagination as you can actually enter the “buildings” and view all the goods on display inside. Gone is the painted sky along with the magic. The fact that it leads directly into a brightly lit exhibition hall destroys any sense of reality the street used to have. On the day Eileen and I visited it the street was absolutely packed with tourists and probably an entire bus party or two which made it incredibly difficult to take any photos which didn´t include someone wearing a tee shirt and jeans. However, I found this photo on the Web which shows it under ideal conditions. See what I mean about the sky? Or lack of it?

It may have lost a lot of its magic for those of us who used to love its former – and much less frequented - self. However, what it does now have is a variety of vehicles parked at its kerbs, including a baker´s van, a car which Al Capone would have been proud of...

...and, rather surprisingly, a horse drawn hearse.

Now this is just a little bit spooky but I´m sure you´ll agree that, with Halloween approaching, it´s quite appropriate. And how about that sinister headless dummy in the dress shop window behind it!

The photo really ought to speak for itself so I´ve just used a few elements from Golden Memories to pick out the gold in it.

And for those of you who missed the kit freebies first time around, you´ll find them HERE.

Which reminds me, I´ll soon - probably some time in November - be making some radical changes to my blog which I´m afraid will entail removing many of my out-of-date freebies to make way for something I´d rather surprise you with than divulge (!) so if there´s anything among them which you´d like to have, please take it now while it´s still available.

Machetes And Music

If I´ve been MIA for a while it´s because for the past week or so I´ve been hacking a path with my machete through the tangled undergrowth from the bottom of my garden to the house. Well, maybe that´s a slight exaggeration though it felt like it at the time. I´ve actually been taking advantage of a spell of bright autumn weather by trimming and pruning all the climbing plants which got madly out of control during the summer. The wild hops were the worst offenders. They´re very sociable plants and had visited all their more reserved and cultivated cousins like the clematis and the honeysuckle and had outstayed their welcome just about everywhere they went. Even the grapevine which lives some distance away wasn´t safe from them. Everyone, including me, was relieved once I´d cut them down to size. They won´t be encroaching on anyone´s territory again until next spring. It looks as if I won´t either as I managed to pull a muscle while trying to disentangle a particularly stubborn shoot just beyond my reach and I´ll probably spend most of my time indoors until I can move again without wincing.

With all that gardening activity I haven´t had the time or the inclination to sort out more than a few of the photos I took in Glasgow in September. One particularly memorable day I spent with my friend, Eileen, in the Kelvingrove Art Galleries, one of my favourite haunts. The building alone is a wonderful example of Victorian architecture, both outside....

...and inside.

This is a view of the minstrels´ gallery.

Every afternoon at 1 o’clock an organ recital is held there. It´s hard to imagine the grandeur of the occasion but this - ever so slightly embellished - page may at least give you an impression of the magnificence and scale of the minstrels´gallery.

I found this video at You Tube. It doesn´t do the music the justice it deserves – it´s something you have to hear live - but it does at least give an indication of the splendour of the main reception hall and I´m sure your imagination will fill in the gaps.