Weekends, Workspaces, and Riots

This Weekend, Ale, a risd friend on exchange in Barcelona came to visit. She arrived in the wee hours on Friday and had two full days of London that were unlike anything I had done so far. Saturday started with a trip to the Borough Market as Ale and I both love to cook, I thought it would be great to get something delicious and fresh for dinner. We ended up buying the infamous "Drunkin Cheese" which is quite literally cheese infused with wine. We had the compulsory Fish and Chips meal and scurried off to Oxford Circus to shop and meet up with other risd kids. Ale is an industrial design major at risd and as always, it was really interesting to hear her impressions of the city and the various stores we went to. While us textile majors flip over many of the Oxford clothing shops, Ale loved the Nike store, complete with it's 2 story ID studio in the centre. We bought stuff, met up with old friends, and cooked a fantastic meal for less than we each would have spent at a restaurant.
The next day, we headed to the Columbia Rd Flower Market and the Brick Lane area. The Flower Market was beautiful and hilariously hectic. Just imagine a very crowded street market, but then the person trying to walk next to you is carrying a 3 foot tree through the crowd! Brick Lane was fun too. I have never really liked vintage shops, however, the ones in this area were well run and the selection was amazing. We were all drooling over the clothes we saw, even as we entered store #8 or 9. It was a very different side of London than I had seen before.
There were tons of people there, but not many tourists. There were occasional street performers, including one guy who was doing something really quite amazing. He had an amp connected to a device with 7 pedals and a mic. He would step on any pedal, sing a bit, and then the device would play whatever he sang in a round. So the guy did everything from beat-boxing to singing a melody, then a harmony to himself. Once he had all 7 tracks running with one another, he would go back and replace one and change it up a bit. It was just amazing, and finally a street act that seemed original to me.
Anyways, the weekend wet way too fast. Ale is now back in Barcelona, where I'll go and visit her in November. Here is a picture of us at the Flower Market:



Then today I had studio. Here is a picture of my studio desk, and the painting I worked on today:



While I have been working on my drawings and observations, my ideas and research fell to the wayside, and it showed. My job for Wednesday is to solidify my ideas and to better address the brief we were given. I am attempting to use fruit to recreate the feeling of scanning electron microscope readouts (only with more color). I initially thought of microscopic items when reading the brief because in high-school I remember being blown away by the feeling of discovery when looking at even ordinary things under a microscope. To think that something seemingly so simple is really composed of many little parts is sort of humbling. However, I have to do a much better job of conveying this idea to my teacher, because I blanked when trying to explain my idea earlier today.


Taking a break from work this evening, I met my flat-mate this afternoon in Oxford Circus for some "Market Research", actually he REALLY did have homework to do, but we were also just procrastinating. Anyways, I took a bus from Chelsea's Campus to Oxford Circus and hopped up to the 2nd deck as it's one of the more scenic routes through London. As we were passing Parliament, I could see that something was different than usual.
To get to school in the morning, I take the tube to Westminster, walk the length of Parliament, and hop on a bus which whisks me off to campus. The guards at Parliament are rather nice, however the security there is very intense. The building itself is so wonderfully old, however it is surrounded by a very modern and serious blockade. Across from Parliament, there is a square where protesters are commonly staked, including some tents for people hard on protesting the war.
So riding by in the bus today, I saw just mass chaos. Traffic was stopped in several other directions, but not ours. Police vans peeled down the street and men in reflective vests came running from all directions. A crowd of people, clearly initially protesting in the square were pushing through the guards and blocking the streets. Just mass chaos. I wasn't really scared, as in I didn't think they were terrorists or anything, but the confusion, amount of Police response, and even the reactions from the other people on the bus made me super anxious.

Ever since getting here, I have felt so distant from the news. I don't watch tv, except for occasionally some random show. The only newspaper I read is the free London Paper, which spends more time talking about Britney, Kate Moss, and Posh & Becks. Occasionally, I see an article that talks about how screwed up the economy is, but not enough that I understand what is going on. When I saw this crazy riot today, I had no idea what terrible new problem had arisen under my nose. I've got to find a better way to stay on top of the news because there are some very strange and big changes going on in the world right now.