Well Hello Sunshine!

It's been so long that the sun has shone on London that it's hard to have much faith in it staying for long but yesterday was a glorious day weather-wise. I followed through on my resolve to have a few hours off and headed out, first for a massage, then a lovely lunch and a catch-up on some reading before heading off to the Fashion and Textile Museum where Kaffe Fassett was giving a talk on colour.

On my way to the museum I managed to get lost (despite having walked this exact 5 minute route 10 or so times in the past year) and fortuitously came across this quote from Charles Dickens (The Pickwick Papers) which reads:

"There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.
Some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light.
We, who have no such optical powers,
are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many solitary hours,
when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them".

Today I felt I got to see the light after some darkness and the light was all the more redemptive for that.

It's funny but my first memory of ever coming across Kaffe, and falling in love with his work, was tarnished when a  beader told me his work was awful and I was foolish for believing otherwise. Unfortunately I was foolish, I listened to their nonsense, and until yesterday denied myself the pleasure of enjoying his work. Their anger and jealousy at his success, enjoyment of his work and life plus his ability to use different mediums and create nice things other people liked was so venomous I have never forgotten it. That type of anger towards others is sly and insidious and today felt like a good clearing out of its memory.

Kaffe's talk (his name rhymes with 'safe asset') was exhilarating and getting to see his work in person was a thrill. I really cannot recommend going to see it for yourself highly enough. The exhibition is on untill the 29th June and the museum is only a few minutes walk from London Bridge station so if you too need an injection of colour, fun and light in your life this is the perfect prescription.

If you want to see some more photos I took yesterday of Kaffe's work then click here.

The downside of taking a few hours off was that I ended up working through the night so am rewarding myself with the rest of today beading.