British summers are short lived and they normally come and go as quick as crypto bulls and bears. If you don't sieze the opportunity at the right time you never know when the next wave will arrive. With this on mind, I made the most of the gorgeous weather today and went out for a walk. The rewards was certainly very satisfying.
We are not the most quintessential English seaside town, but I can portray it to be a lot more prettier than it really is. I think I've done a pretty decent job and hopefully some of you may think how lucky I am to live in such a pleasant town. Let's keep this illusion, it is summer after all, why spoil the day for people.
Our town has been making a lot of effort to attract tourist in recent years, and one event is a spin off from the famous Upfest from the neighbouring city. Upfest is Europe's largest outdoor street art festival, and this year, this weekend actually, some artists will be painting 18 murals across our town. I came across the first mural when my path was blocked by a big scaffolding.
One of the artist, called mishfit was painting her mural on the wall. I had a chat with her, and she said she'd been working on this since Friday afternoon so it's taken her two full days to complete it. This path is quite narrow and the marine is right next to it. I imagine it would be quite tricky to get the mural at the correct angle for viewers as there is limited space to move around to see it. I think she did a sterling job with the object looking down. Plus the colours she used were so vibrant and stood out perfectly from the blue.
More artists were working a little further in the centre of town. It was very interesting to see their creations develop. Not sure where the work will be kept afterwards, hopefully somewhere where people can continue to see them.
Street art isn't the only arty thing around town this weekend. Here's an exhibition in the town's shopping center. Like many high streets and shopping centers in UK, ours is on the verge of becoming desolate as more shops are closing down. They local council has stepped in to turn a lot of the empty shops into social spaces like community workshops, collaboration spaces and local exhibitions.
This exhibition is called Scaffolding and is an "immersive, interactive and participatory art". I particularly liked one part called Living Sculpture, which are these quirky knitted sculptures by a local artist called Lou Baker. Unlike a lot of the other exhibits we often see, visitors are welcome to wear these garment and play around with them, hence the name Living Sculpture You can also make a video of yourself. The camera does a 10 second clip that plays back on the big screen. It was fun to try on the sculptures, and just be silly and immerse yourself within and watch yourself afterwards. We need to loosen up in life. We don't do it often enough,and I think weekends are the perfect time to do it