I love Grayson Perry

Today's post is a post from my phone for the first time, as I had a sudden urge of late night motivation! I'm going to tell you about an artist who changed my opinions of art exhibitions for the better. The incredible and talented Grayson Perry. 

Now, I'm certainly no artist, and I've never been good at art galleries. I'm the type of person who is impressed by paintings which look like photos and not much more. But in December just before the end of last year, I visited the Grayson Perry 'Who Are You?' exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. This was the first exhibition that has enabled me to truly understand the meaning behind the art.

The exhibition was basically all about how people identify themselves, and it was based upon a group of British people Perry had met, who all were in a stage in their lives of needing to define their identity.

Each piece of work had a description of the subject's story and how the artwork represented their story, which is why it was so easy to relate to and understand the art, and what made me fall so in love with it. I could ramble for days though so I'm just going to finish by showing you a few of my favourite pieces.

'The Ashford Hijab'

This piece depicts a young white woman, Kayleigh Khosravi, who converted to Islam, to be free from consumer and sexual pressures of westernised young women. It shows her making the journey from the haven of consumerism (Ashford designer outlet) to Mecca. 

Melanie, Georgina and Sarah

My photo is a little out of focus but it shows 3 women, who in ancient times represent fertility goddesses, with beautiful curvaceous bodies. Adorned all over these bodies, however are images of food and the 'perfect' female body, to represent the contrast between how he female body used to be seen as beautiful, but now as a health problem.

Memory Jar

This was probably my favourite piece from the exhibition. It represents dementia, shown by an elderly married couple, still very much in love. The Husband has Dementia, and this is depicted as an evil creature on the back of the vase, cutting up the photos which represent the memories the couple have together. I found this beautiful yet sad and it's the piece I haven't once forgotten about.

Those were only 3 of the 14 pieces of the exhibition (The most famous one is probably 'The Comfort Blanket', research it if interested) but I hope this post interested you and made you appreciate the thought behind Grayson Perrys artwork. His most recent book 'Playing to the Gallery' goes into more depth on how to appreciate art and I love it:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Playing-Gallery-contemporary-struggle-understood/dp/184614857

Thanks for reading, much love,

Emmy x 

Why I went Veggie

So I haven't blogged in months, pretty much because as I was a new blog I just lost the effort and gave up trying to gain followers. But I've now become motivated to try and change that, so I'm back!!!

The best welcome back post surely has to be an update on changes in my life, so I'm talking about a change I recently made in deciding to become a vegetarian! 

I decided to make this change as I found myself being more and more put off meat. I eat mostly vegetarian anyway, as its healthier and my Dad's a veggie so it makes life easier, and I just realised that I just didn't WANT to eat meat. I soon found myself feeling guilty when I did eat meat because I know how cruel the meat industry is and also how bad farming is for the environment, so I thought I'd just go for it and make the commitment.

I was nervous at first to admit the decision I made, because being veggie comes with a tonne of judgements and misconceptions. To name just a few:

"You just want to go veggie as a statement, to try and look cool and foodie":  I literally cannot stress how untrue statements like this are. Admittedly you get cool vegan bloggers who make amazing food and do make vegetarianism look like an alternative statement, but I'm sure 99% of people would NOT want to give up burgers and bacon butties just to look cool, and I personally think the cruelty to animals is a much more important issue.

"The animal's already dead when you buy it, so whether you eat it or not doesn't make a difference": In these cases people need to learn about supply and demand. The animal's only dead already because of the extremely and ever raising demand for meat. If everyone became a vegetarian the demand would be completely reduced and there wouldn't be thousands of dead animals in the meat aisle of your supermarket I can assure you. 

"But what about cavemen, they ate meat it's part of the food chain!": It is art of the food chain! Hunting animals for food for survival that is, but not farming thousands of cows and housing them in dark cramped conditions before sending them off to be slaughtered. Definitely not.

Anyway, this blog post might have been extremely boring if you have no interest in vegetarianism (sorry!) but to conclude, I don't regret this decision in any way and couldn't feel happier about my conscience when eating so I would recommend this change to everyone. Also, people who say you can't get nice vegetarian food, just try the quorn cocktail sausages, They are life changing.

Much love, Emmy x