Second day of my training at British Museum and I had the chance to fulfill my dream of the day: visit “South Africa the art of a nation” temporary exhibition! As you probably know I feel a connection with part of the African Continent, since I’ve spent some years there, but I’ve never been in South Africa, even if recently it seems to come in my everyday life more and more and by different means. A few weeks ago was thanks to “Summertime” by Coetzee, an author that I’ve never had read before but that I’d like to study and discover.

A few days ago, in the quest for a black tie (part of the uniform we’re supposed to wear at work) I came across this lovely Ethiopian cafè! Unfortunately I’ve just had had my daily coffee in an another amazing cafè (which I’m going to dedicate a post to later), but I plan to go very soon to  Andu, since is not far from home.

And, coming full circle, yesterday evening I went to the Courtauld Institute of Art where Richard Haines was going to be interviewed by Dal Choda, one of the first fashion journalists to travel to Luanda, Angola to report on the country’s emerging creative community. Well, I’ve never been to Luanda but my father worked there so his tales of the city fascinated me from a very long time and having the chance to listen to such sensitive, internationally known experts on fashion and creativity really made my day!

You can read more about him and the conversation here

Searching about Richard Haines’ training you’d probably run into words like these: “Through fashion design he developed a keen eye for the often overlooked details of form, fabric and how a garment falls on the body”, sounds familiar? I don’t know where my keen eye came from, since I’ve never studied fashion design (maybe it’s because of my granmothers, both of them very skilled tailors?) but, looking at my portraits of people in the streets you can see how much I’m into clothes as a way to both make a statement and catch a glimpse of one’s character.

The whole interview was amazing, but I won’t never forget when Richard talked about the way he feels if he didn’t draw for too long. I didn’t catch the exact word, but from the way he pronounced it, you guess it was quite similiar to my feeling sick, when I can’t reach my markers and paper for too long! Same for the way he described how everything else disappears when he’s depicting somebody, and he feels like only he and his model are there, in that moment.

I mean, no surprise in finding we are so much like-minded, ’cause you have to have something in common with an artist you love, but hearing his own words (“My advice? Always be authentic and show up”) from his very voice, was such an uplift!

As he puts it, talking about his art, it’s all about “leave something out to bring people into it”.

This post title was stealed from the British Museum payoff, but I think it suits perfectly well the city of London as well. In just one day, living in this city, you go through such a vast array of things, places, people, emotions that it’s like you’ve travelled a lot, but still, even if the city is huge you feel like you have a place in it and you are important. The British museum is a very lively one, constantly bringing contemporary witnesses of humankind creativity into its rooms, just like London does.

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Published on 22-Feb-2017
Tags: Andu, Angola, British Museum, Coetzee, Courtauld Institute of Art, Dal Choda, drawing, Ethiopian, injera, london, Luanda, Richard Haines, South Africa, Summertime, vegan