Saturday, March 11, 2017

i'm smiling, she's living, she's golden

I'm sleepy and I inadvertently had more wine than I intended, and while that all ended hours ago, I think I'm going to drink a bunch more water and go to bed. Today was good, though. I spent the morning messing around, cleaning my room, and writing, as most of my mornings are usually spent. Then, in the afternoon I went to the Sir John Soane Museum for a class on making 'jasperware' jewelry.

The Soane Museum is one of my favorite museums in London - it was founded by Sir John Soane, who was a famous architect and major art/antiquities collector. His sole surviving son was a wastrel who disappointed him one too many times, so Soane got an Act of Parliament passed to disinherit his son and leave the house and all its contents to the nation, with the intent that it would be preserved in perpetuity as a museum. This probably sucked for the son, but is great for all of us, since it's an amazing example of an early 1800s townhouse (and v. much more interesting than most of them would have been anyway, since he was an architect and put in lots of clever skylights, mirrors, etc. to brighten things up, and also managed to get the massive stone sarcophagus of Pharaoh Seti I into his basement by knocking out a wall).

sssanyway. The workshop was in the basement, and there were five of us, along with the two women who worked for the Soane who were leading it. We mixed up plaster and poured them into our first molds, and while those were drying we got a short private(ish) tour of the upstairs. Today was the last day of an exhibit of Robert Adam's documents - he was the most important architect in England in the generation before Soane, and his neoclassical designs had an enormous influence on British design. I really should have gone to see this exhibit separately and spent more time in it, but it's okay that I didn't - the tour was enough to get the highlights. And I got to see bits of the museum that aren't open to the public - namely the place where Soane buried his dog and turned it into something that looked like an abbey ruin so that it would feel like the house was built on top of ruins. Ha.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon painting our creations, with a break to have prosecco. I had more prosecco then I realized, I think, and I drank my last bit quickly since we were out of time...and it hit me when I was sipping a glass of wine at a pub down the street, which was poor timing. But I had a great dinner of short ribs at the Star Tavern (which was started in the 1500s, although the building has been rebuilt). And then I came back here, passed out briefly, woke up, wrote in my journal, and then considered working but instead watched the season finale of last year's Top Chef - I'd watched the entire season while packing my apartment back in December, but with the holidays and everything I never finished it.

And now I need to sleep - I have no plans tomorrow and need to get some serious work done, and sleep will help toward that noble goal. Goodnight!

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