The WIP #45: Opening Hours

The Week in Photos (2-8 November 2024)

The trouble with doing this weekly blog is that I often get people asking: “Is this [random event] going to be in ‘the WIP’?” The whole thing becomes self-conscious. R. lacks the agency to know what is going on, but her sceptical glance carries a judgment of sorts. I hope she doesn’t mind being on here.

I had an injury so couldn’t run on Saturday. Instead, I volunteered at Queens Park parkrun. The area has been in the news recently after The Glasgow Bell wrote about gentrification and the odd phenomenon of people queuing outside bakeries. My theory is that people only go to the queue for the gossip.

After struggling to find a café without a queue, Sophie, Jeremy and Caspar and I managed to get breakfast in HUG. Afterwards, I took them (and R) along to The Workroom where Laura had been developing a new performance.

I suggested we all go to the Glasgow Print Fair, which was being held in my favourite brutalist building, The Pyramid at Anderston. One of Glasgow’s top graphic designers, Orlando Lloyd, was there, punting books.

The main reason I go to art events is that I don’t have a TV. One has to fill the time somehow. I met a woman at Morwenna Kearsley’s show at Strangefield who had come all the way from Stirling. Like me, she used the Glasgow Art Map to see what was going on. And like me was often mystified by the opening hours of these events. She mentioned a gallery that was only open for two hours on a Sunday. Madness!

I’ve had it in my diary for months to visit Sculpture House. It is an artist run studio and only open between 12-4pm on the first Monday of the month. I didn’t feel like getting the train to Paisley, but couldn’t face another month.

Here is Laura Aldridge showing me one of James Rigler’s animals.

I was also curious to see Anya Gallacio’s Stroke, which Jupiter Artland have installed in a dilapidated shop on the high street. It’s perhaps not as impressive as Rachel Maclean’s Mimi Store, but the smell of chocolate is overwhelming.

A man reading in Paisley’s new library.

I was reminded of my old friend John Moore when I saw his name in lights. He was briefly a member of the Jesus and Mary Chain so has some connection to Glasgow.

While a faulty fire alarm is annoying, you do get a space-age blanket in return.

Rosalind Nashashibi talking about her short film, inspired by William Blake’s The Sick Rose, at the CCA.

This is the view from the tenth floor of the new JP Morgan offices which I visited as part of a discussion about product design.

Christina McBride is a tutor at Glasgow School of Art and it was fascinating to see the influence of her colleague Thomas Joshua Cooper in her show at Wasps Studios and how she has influenced students like Freya Cookson. Her cyanotypes produced using plant colours were extraordinary.