1st Day In London... what a day!

September 8, 10am.  Off the plane in London - first impression:  much like NYC.  Today we checked into our hotel, then walked... and walked... and walked...

Lots of fun stuff.  Everything is old, sculptural, alive.  I didn't expect to like London as much as I did.  Matt and I decided to buy tickets for Shakespeare's Globe Theatre for Bedlam, a play written for the Globe.  We decided to go outside of the main area to eat dinner and found a wonderful neighborhood restaurant/bar called the Walnut Tree on High Road in Leytonstone where I had Morrocan meatballs, and Matt had a curried cous cous dish.  Both were good and the prices very reasonable.

After dinner we walked around the town.  Lot's of row houses.  Lots of fake stained glass in them... WHAT?  Promised myself to take my camera back there the next day for proof but we never got there.

Prior to dinner we went to St. Mary LeBow Church. I have more information about it in my blog: http://www.churchesandchapels.blogspot.com/  .

But, some of the most fun things were quirky things we found around town...  Oversized chairs made of astro-turf:















Love this funky little painted van.  I am kind of jealous - would love an old van I can paint up however I want without having to worry about resale value. 












I actually took this for a friend of mine, Marapat, who is a wonderful writer and in the process of publishing her first children's book. This one's for you!

When the day was done, we checked into our hotel, the UMI Hotel, 16 Leinster Square, Bayswater, City of Westminster, London W2 4PR.  The first is a picture from our room, and the second is a photo of the entrance.  The entrance photo is typical of businesses and housing that we saw around London.

Statistics:  According to my pedometer, we walked 19,968 steps, burned 603 calories, and covered 6.3 miles.  Not bad in a days work! 

Inspiration this day gave me:  Definitely have to do ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, MI next year.  No Doubt.

Photos:  On top of these photos, I am little by little posting more photos on my Facebook.  Look me up:  Patty Sailus Deere .

Patty Deere

Re-engergized!

Lot's has gone on and my energy is peaking again.  Just got back from a 3 week trip to Europe that I am beginning to organize through photos and thoughts... more to come on that.

Friday I was one of the lucky thousands of visitors to Grand Rapids, MI with the purpose of seeing art for the 2010 ArtPrize competition.  Today is the last day.   It is well worth the visit.  Art along the water, inside buildings, outside buildings, in restaurants, etc.  Over 1,000 works of art are everywhere and it represents such diversity.  I'll say it again, it is well worth taking the time to go today if you haven't been already.  I spent 5 hours walking around and still did not see it all.

All of this is giving me the excitement to start my cathedral again.  While in sculpture class quite a few years back I started a 5' x 8' glass and steel cathedral.  To make a long story short, it would dissapoint me at different times in my life when I needed a place to go and feel peace, serenity, or just have private time in a place that I felt close to my God.  That got the ball rolling.  I had no idea it would take the  amount of time it is taking to get the cathedral done.  Needless to say, after traveling through London, France, Barcelona, Florence, Rome and Venice, that inspiration has kicked in - in a very big way.  I am working on it again.  I'll be posting the progress on my blog and try not to think about the hours it will take to get it done.  But, this is being done for my benefit and I don't have to put a price on it.  And, all cathedrals I have seen have taken years, and often are in a constant state of work.

Today's Photo:  The doors to my cathedral.  They have been cut with a hand saw out of steel, sanded, sandblasted and heat treated for color.  My original plan was to cut them with a plasma cutter.  The steel I was using was too thin and it was causing the steel to warp.  So, what I thought would take a day or two, took me many days and hours to do by hand.  OK The photo will have to come later.  Techinical difficulties... my computer is not recognizing my internet card.  But, I don't want it to stop my momentum so here goes my blog update without a photo.  Later this afternoon, working on my flying buttresses.

Pat Deere

Links:  ArtPrize, Grand Rapdis, MI