8 am meetings in London means camping out the night before: a quick trip up to Waterloo, a hotel deal near Earl’s Court, breakfast near Piccadilly ahead of the morning rush. Things went smoothly: governance, grants, funding falling into place. By 1pm, immersive work was done and the weekend began.
I’ve been given a year’s membership to the Tate, so wandered over to the Modern to see the Gerhard Richter show, Transformed Visions. A German visual artist whose abstract works often deal with political issues, this exhibition was more impressionistic. He’d created blurred murals by pressing a squeegee across the paint, the resulting images evoking natural scenes of reflected skies and running water.
The ideas was to stand in the middle of them and immerse, but I got more out of staring into the individual works. The lines and colors resolve into remembered places and associations: teasing out memories as mind tries to interpret the images.
The sun was setting as I left, spotlights on St Paul’s and fluorescents from the City against a luminous blue twilight. I stood on the Millennium Bridge and immersed in the detailed reality.
The Cambridge weekend, Valentine’s day and afterward, was a relaxed respite. It was nice to wrap myself in the serenity of the college and the slow traditions of the Orchard. Current scones and coffee in Grantchester; flowers emerging in the campus gardens: life is richer than any painted representation.