do the artist date once a week

A few weeks ago The Sultan’s Elephant, a live theatre event produced by French theatre company Royal De Luxe took over parts of central London for four days. The story, apparently loosely adapted from Jules Verne, from the website:

“Once upon a time, there lived a sultan who was tormented in his dreams by visions of a little girl who was travelling through time. This is his story, incredible but true.

The sultan could no longer sleep, his growing anguish diverting his attention from affairs of state. In order to cure his sickness, and believing that he would find the girl in the land of dreams, he commissioned an unknown engineer living in 1900 to construct a time-travelling elephant. A few months later, the sultan set off with his court in search of the little giant, which, in the course of his nightmares, had been transformed into a marionette 5 metres high.

The trip was awful, but they found a series of clues as to her
wherabouts. The giant loved sewing – she liked to stitch cars to the tarmac, boats to quaysides, trains to railway tracks and sometimes even envelopes to letterboxes.

The elephant followed the trail left by the puppeteers. And as in all love stories, strange things began to happen. Such was his happiness at getting closer to her, he began to expel hundreds of living birds which disappeared into the sky in a burst of joy.”

In reality the story was pretty hard to follow, spread as it was over four days and many locations in central London, but that didn’t matter. Because among the attractions there was a huge mechanical elephant, three storeys in height, blasting water from its trunk. And a giant wooden puppet girl. Both so very lifelike, with astonishing attention to detail, strolling through the streets of central London. I went on the Saturday, and got to see the elephant in action right next to Trafalgar Square. (The girl was sleeping to one side as the elephant entertained the crowd.) If I had known when and where the finale would be I’d have loved to be there for that as well. There wasn’t much publicity for the event, as the organisers wanted it to be largely a surprise for Londoners, and it was – with the many tourists just as surprised as many of the locals, the crowds growing over the weekend via media coverage and word-of-mouth.

It was just so wonderful – it was free, there were no sponsors, no advertising, no commercial interests, they took over the usually extremely busy central London for four days, closed off many of the roads to traffic, just to bring a bit of joy and magic to people. People loved it. It was a lovely weekend, and I started to miss it as soon as it was over, but nobody knows if there would ever be anything like this in London again – it may very well be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, though we very much hope not. I wish I had a camera with me! Fortunately many people took photographs or shot videos and posted them all over YouTube and Flickr – especially check out the highest rated YouTube videos – doesn’t it look amazing? I wish I had the words to do it justice.

Here’s the BBC London feature section on the event; videos on YouTube; pictures on Flickr

I felt a special childish joy, standing there watching the elephant, as I realised that we now have the technology to have giant robots roaming the streets of London :)

Just found out from the official site: “The show will next appear in Antwerp (Belgium) 6 – 9 July and then in Calais at the end of September and Le Havre at the end of October.” Go see it if you can!

and I think this is probably the most important part of The Artist’s Way. I really, really have to find time to do something for myself this week.

I went for a walk in and around Hyde Park.

I tried a new recipe

I had originally planned to do one of two things: either go to see Brokeback Mountain, or try a new recipe. Neither of these happened, as I’m going to see the film with friends next weekend, and didn’t manage to go get the ingredients for the new recipe. So, I fell back to the back-up and dedicated an hour or so to letting myself draw freely, which I haven’t done for a while.

To be honest, I didn’t enjoy it much to start with – getting frustrated as I didn’t think my drawings were very good. But eventually I got myself to let go, and just drew without a care. The fun part came when I got bored with drawing with pencil, picked up some colour pencils and coloured some of the drawings in, which made some of the drawings come to life and cheered me up a bit.

In the end, it wasn’t the best date ever, partly because it wasn’t a completely new experience. But next week I intend to try the new recipe, so that should be more enjoyable.

I went down to Covent Garden in London, and walked from there to the Thames. Had a single-use camera with lots of film left, so I took it with me on a walk around Embankment and South Bank. Everything around the Thames looked really nice lighted up in the evening. Shockingly enough for London, it was drizzling on and off throughout the evening; there was a couple slow-dancing in the rain on the South Bank. I hadn’t taken any photographs for a long time, so quite enjoyed myself, even if I was frustrated by the limitations of my camera (if the photos turn out to be not too bad, I’ll buy a decent digital one). Before I went I had looked at some photography tips on the internet, and had fun experimenting with composition, trying to find interesting shapes and lines, and learning to use the contrast of foreground and background, things I had never considered before. I also went into a couple of bookshops, including Foyles on the South Bank where I spotted and bought Short Short stories by Dave Eggers for £1.50. I don’t know when Dave Eggers came out with it, and I’m not a fan of much of his writing outside A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but I’m hopeful with this one, the stories generally only two or three pages long. Also bought another Raymond Carver book in a bookshop in Covent Garden.

The trees were lighted up in blue on the South Bank. There was a busker lady playing crowd-pleasing favourites such as Moonlight Sonata. A little girl, maybe six or so, walked right up to stand right in front of her keyboard the way a child does and watched intently, and the busker lady had to play while trying not to laugh. I took a picture of the back of the busker lady playing on her keyboard against the backdrop of the bridge and the buildings on the other side of the Thames – hope it comes out well.

It was really hard for me to get myself out, but I’m glad I did. And it’s something I had never done before – I’m making an effort to add new experiences to my life.

the first week, I read Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. It’s not the most adventurous of Artist Dates, but that I hope to change next week, when I hope to be exploring South Bank with a camera, which will be something I’ve never done before (and outdoors!).

to fill myself up with goodness, basically. To recharge.