30 Day blog challenge: Day 17 — An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)

ooooh.... *rubs hands together*

i've been looking forward to this one.  not because i have a great deal to say about this subject.  as the saying goes:  "I don't know much about art, but i know what i like."  or rather, i don't.  stuff can grow on me (y'know, like mould), or it can flake off.  but there is an awful lot of strange beauty out there, and some of it fills me with bliss.  such as the piece i've chosen to share here.  it's a piece of sculpture that resides in St Pancras Station in London.  the station itself is, quite frankly, a work of art.  it is, essentially, a vast dead-end barn, with a sweepingly majestic arched glass roof, where the trains arrive forwards, and leave backwards.  it is the sation where the train that travels from Derby to London terminates.  i've only been been there twice in the last three years, but both times, i spent a lot of time just looking at the building and the sculpture in it, and the poetry inscribed on the floor.  the station has spent many years being lovingly restored to its Victorian glory, and my god, it's gorgeous! *sigh*  oh yes - and the beautiful iron beams (now painted a lovely sky-blue) were, i'm proud to say, manufactured not two miles from where i'm currently sitting.

oh, look - i can't just show you the sculpture - i have to share the station, too!  everything, in fact! :oD  lets face it - i consider the whole thing a work of art.

look, i'm not going to go on and on about this (actually, i might yet - stay tuned, funsters!), but there's a couple of things i really want to show you....

first is this:

this wonderful, and somewhat scruffy, chap (rendered in glorious life and wind-blown motion by martin jennings) is Sir John Betjeman - a beloved English "poet of the people". 

he led the fight to stop the demolition of the beautiful facade of the station (the Midland Hotel, which adorns the front of the station) in the 1960s and is, for that reason, commemorated here. (see this article for a little more info).  

it's his poetry you can see inscribed on the cumbrian slate  on which he stands.

it reads:

"And in the shadowless unclouded glare / Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where / A misty sea-line meets the wash of air."

 

he's gazing in wonder at the beautiful roof of the (unromantically named) Barlow Train Shed:

 trust me - the photo does not do it justice.

and so to the piece of sculpture that started all of this off.:

  "the meeting place" by paul day

again, the photos don't do it justice.  it's stunning, and brings tears to my eyes.

since i took these photos in 2008 (coincidentally on my way to meet Neil Gaiman, though i didn't know it at the time...), more has been added around the base of the plinth, depicting...  well, all sorts of railway-related things, and it. is. awesome.  astonishing in its detail and artistry.

so there you go - Saint Pancras Station.

oh, and one other thing, because i can rarely stop at one....

this painting, which has hung in our front room for many years, was painted by none other than my talented hubby *tries not to burst with pride*

 

.

about as intellectual as i get

there's been a thought washing around in my head this week, and it's this:  i wonder if those ancient greek dudes were really on to something...?  believe it or not, this was prompted by my having my lip pierced.

look, in Squeaky's World, this makes perfect sense, i promise.

it was Plato (....um...i think...) who came up with the "Theory of Form", which basically, as far as my limited brain can understand it (following a distant reading of Sophie's World and a quick reference to Wikipedia), states that everything we experience through our senses is an echo of a perfect form that exists on some other plane somewhere. ....or something along those lines...

and i have begun to wonder, in an idle sort of way, if we are not all shadows on the wall.

bear with me on this.

so - at the age of sixteen, the embryonic Squeaky had her nose pierced. and she was so very proud of this. she loooooved her nose piercing. it gave her a little bubble of joy every time she looked into the mirror. it just felt so right - like it was meant to be. and she still loves her pierced nose, seventeen years later. (omg - i had my nose pierced more than half of my life ago! *momentarily feels old*)

then, a couple of years ago, having had blonde hair to her waist for most of he life, she had it all cut off, and dyed it purple. again - bubbles of joy nearly every time she looked into the mirror. like it was meant to be.

a week ago yesterday, she had her lip pierced. and she loves it.

now, the day after she had her lip pierced, she went to see her parents, who live on a boat near Hull, wondering what their response would be. her father, she was sure, would hate it, but that's just Dad. he hated the nose ring, too but, being Dad, said little or nothing about that, since he's so laid back, he's practically horizontal, and tends not to get aerated about things he realises he can do nothing about. her mother, she was not sure about. she had, after all, encouraged and paid for the nose-piercing (and the moment it went in, with Mum looking on proudly, is still a surprisingly vivid memory, by the way).

so she waited for their reaction to her new adornment.

and waited, and waited.

in the end, wondering if they were just being polite in not mentioning it, as they both hated it, she asked what they thought.

they looked mildly surprised when attention was drawn to a new piece of metal in their daughter's face and, individually, their reaction was much he same: "Well, i thought it was new, but i wasn't sure, as it seems like the sort of thing that you'd do, anyway"

....er....ok....

i'm 33. most people, i think, tend to get this sort of thing done when they're in their teens, or early twenties. but maybe that's just my prejudices showing. in western society, putting bits of metal into your face, or any part of your body other than your ears, has always struck me as a mildly rebellious act, since it's not really in our culture.

...um...i would like to stress, at this point, neither the nose or the lip were a consciously rebellious act on my part - more in the nature of decoration (though i must admit that it has been tremendous fun winding up a colleague who thinks that tattos and piercings are a revolting perversion)

anyway - back to the point.

i had very much the same reaction from colleagues. these are people i see every day, in an environment where facial piercings are pretty uncommon, though certainly not villified (except for by the colleague i mentioned earlier). and nobody noticed! not a single one! when it was pointed out, they said they hadn't really noticed, but that they thought it was very "me".

....hang on, a minute...

very "me"? what does that mean? now, i choose to believe that they think it suits me. but more than that, and here's where those ancient greek dudes come in. it almost seems like the nose, and the hair, and the lip, and various other things, were things that were always there in potentia, as it were. that Squeaky, as a person, exists in her whole and complete form somewhere beyond Plato's Cave, and she's coming into focus in the sensual world bit by bit. and that applies to her mind, too. and that's why every time i become aware of that thing that's changed, it feels right. because, somehow, that's how it was meant to be...

or i could, in fact, be talking complete bollocks, as usual. *grin*

***

in other news:

 we have a new addition to our family of vehicles.

because the adorable Talulah is such an expensive old girl to run, we have acquired a tiny little Fiesta van, who has been named Little V. (little van - geddit? :D)  and she, too, though battered, is adorable!  dirt cheap to run and lovely to drive, she's taking the pressure off poor old Talulah, and will save quite a bit of money in running and maintenence costs.  and we have found somewhere off the road to park Talulah - so she's not subject to the indignities of passing traffic hurling stones and road shit at her beautiful paintwork.

yesterday, we went climbing, for the first time in months.  it wasn't long - just a couple of hours, but it was good!  we went indoors, to our local climbing centre, Alter-Rock.  it was good to be back.  since we were last there (in January!), they have added a large fin in the middle of the area, with loads of new climbs and textures/techniques.  as well as a traverse wall.  And. It. Rocks!  there was soooo much to do, and all very interesting.  loads of corners and aretes and overhangs and roofs to tackle.  great fun, and i did really well - having not climbed for months, i actually managed a couple of 6A rated climbs! and i even screwed up my courage to lead a 4!!! *pride*

.