and finally...

Back, but due to friends staying still not actually back at work. Had rather a fruitful time in London though. Saw brother Mark, always stimulating- Vina and David at 291 and friends at Benjamin Rhodes 60th at the Royal Academy Schools place, lovely -
Set myself no tasks and went from gallery to gallery taking notes. Discovered a lot about what I like and what I hate. 

Art of Change at the Hayward. Hated horribly. Destroyed my day. Excellent work that communicated despair and loss of will to live. Easily caught. Don't want to think about it anymore.

Paul Benny under Somerset House. Loved. Very painterly and set in scuddy cellars. Spooky and great. Went to buy the postcards and didnt like them - realised it was the setting that did it.  Not entirely, of course - perhaps reproduction is difficult. Looks good on the site, mostly.  http://www.paulbenney.com/home/

 Also at Somerset house, John Virtue - between the gift shop and the toilets -  a bunch of monoprints done from the roof of the building of the river. Totally loved them though some were formulaic. The ones that worked were spectacular.

 http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/artist-John-Virtue-124.html

Stuff sat Tate Modern as dull as ever - talk about theme park - 12 c Italians at the National as good as ever- spent most of my time trying to find somewhere quiet to look at things and London aint like that. 

Did get to the Serpentine before anyone else and  caught Thomas Schutte which was rather disappointing, the work seemed to always fall slightly short of its potential. 
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2011/03/thomas_schutte.html

Took in the Ripley Scroll at the Science Museum - notes on that at http://ripleyscroll.blogspot.fr
quiet for an hour, anyway:)

Drew; drew in ordinary (made-by-me) nasty paper notebook and watercoloured into a very posh and expensive watercolour hardbacked book, which latter pays off as the paper does all the work and the hardback makes it easy to control. Had to leave them in London because I couldn't get them onto my cheap flight but feel quietly confident and have a newish sense of direction. Having said that, got back to another notebook that Id been feeling quietly confident about and its crap.  

Walked to the Barrier in Greenwich and missed Vong Phaophanits' Ash and Silk Wall,since destroyed by lorry drivers taking the piss. Remembered the launch;  how a new future seemed to be unfurling. Ha!