Um...so I accidentally stumbled onto the UVA law library's collection of 6,000 drawings by courtroom sketch reporter Ida Libby Dengrove, who worked in NYC mostly in the '70s & '80s, & they're kind of...amazing..?? This one is tagged "Clown Attack" (thread) archives.law.virginia.edu/resources/18...

Some favourite colour poems - Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost, 1923

The inner workings of Melin Bompren, the flour mill at St Fagans. Absolutely hypnotic. Our wood conservator Emyr and the miller Geraint described for us the conservation and maintenance undertaken to ensure the mill can still run. One aspect of this was replacing poorly shaped cog teeth.

Learning some lovely phrases is Welsh around the word glas (blue) courtesy of our translator at work (and glas used to refer to also to some shades of green and can also mean fresh or new). Glasdydd is the break of day and glas ceiniogog is dapple-grey, chequered blue.

An open window frames a vivid landscape, a portal to another world. A distinct counterpoint to the figure in engrossed in his letter in a dusky interior. Life carries on, inside us and beyond us. Workshop of Rogier van der Weyden about 1399-1464 A Man Reading (Saint Ivo?), National Gallery

The ruins of Godstow Abbey, Oxford, in the twilight. A 2019 study by historian Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis ascertained that for local benefactors, the prayers of the Godstow Benedictine nuns held equal value compared to that of the nearby male communities, and that in some cases, they were valued more.

Is Oliver Platt good at accents?

Strikingly modern, but actually part of a 1915 woodcut printing block on display at the Munch Museum, Oslo. Munch developed a technique of cutting his woodblocks into jigsaw-like pieces so that he could print in multiple colours. Kiss on the Hair, plywood block cut with gouges & fretsaw.

Landscape by Johannes Flintoe at the Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo. It is viewed through a peephole with a lens to give a stronger sense of perspective- this kind of attraction was called a cosmorama. Flintoe had several exhibitions of his cosmoramas in the 1820s and 1830s in Christiania (now Oslo).

“You would like to tell everything about your room. You would like to interest the reader in yourself, whereas you have unlocked a door to daydreaming. The values of intimacy are so absorbing that the reader has ceased to read your room: he sees his own again.”

Suggestions for posthumous embraces: encircled by the cemetery’s shadows; engulfed by evergreen growth

Suggestions for posthumous embraces: encircled by the cemetery’s shadows; engulfed by evergreen growth

Gol Stave Church, at Norsk Folkuseum, and the wall paintings inside. First built c.1200. Various historic graffiti survives - dogs inscribed on the wood, and runic inscriptions. One on a pillar in the nave reads “kiss me, because I struggle” - a holy phrase or a message of earthly desire?

The part of spring where the fresh, tender leaf growth on many trees has not quite unfurled fully to eclipse the structure below, and the unfathomable variety of curves and twists and bends are still visible in the boughs and branches, through a haze darkly

Munch candle spinner wotsit

On Auerbach’s studio: “She spent several months after his death documenting the books in his studio, noting the images on the pages he’d left open on the floor.” So vital these details of a working practice are captured before they are lost forever: www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

Existential angst emblazoned upon my bread board at the Munch Museum. As he would’ve wanted.

@jonpountney1.bsky.social 👏

Master bedroom in the prefab at St Fagans Museum, furnished in 1950 style. Very inviting with spring sunlight streaming into the windows (especially after visiting the cramped and dark Rhyd-y-car terrace). The B2 prefab model was the most common in Britain, but this now seems to be the sole survivor

Light from the evening sun settling down amongst the drifting stems and leaves of waterlilies in a pool of water. Sinuous licks of paint crest upwards amongst shimmering reflections. A blazing detail from one of Monet’s large waterlilies series at Musée de l’Orangerie, Soleil couchant.

The small museum at Cotswold Woollen Weavers, Filkins. The shop & museum are closing down in a month’s time - visit before then! Eclectic collection of things in the museum (little to no interpretation). The local pub The Five Alls is truly excellent 👌 www.cotswoldwoollenweavers.co.uk/index.html

This sign is either obsolete or presages something terrible about to happen

Lovely little vernacular repair of the parquet in a local church hall - hand drawn hazard tape. (Repair is a bit strong a word perhaps for this piece of tape stretched over a missing block)

Best doughnut related sign in Llangollen

Best potato related street sign in Abergavenny

John Cage won 5m lire on an Italian quiz show answering questions about his specialist subject of mushrooms “He used his winnings to buy a Steinway piano for himself and a Volkswagen campervan for his partner Merce Cunningham’s dance company to use for touring.” apple.news/AEiIAFWJBSdO...

Isaac Newton ~ Opticks Or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light, 1672

A question: when did coloured glazing start appearing in secular buildings? Not figurative stained glass but panels of one colour, such as at John Soane’s or Claife viewing station, to change the light/view. Are there earlier buildings that also made use of coloured glass? @gmdarksky.bsky.social?

Little view of a Paula Rego pastel in raking light, showing the surface texture. This is The Visitation from her life of the Virgin Series: The Derek Williams Trust holds 2 from the series. 8 others are installed at the chapel of Palácio de Belém in Lisbon. derekwilliamstrust.org/news/new-acq...

Gwen John: Strange Beauties is now open at National Museum Cardiff 🎨 We spoke to Fiona McLees, Senior Art on Paper Conservator who has been preparing John's works 👉 https://artuk.org/discover/stories/being-fiona-mclees-senior-art-on-paper-conservator-at-amgueddfa-cymru-museum-wales 📷 Museum Wales

Speaking at Hay Festival this year with curator Lucy Wood & poet Gwyneth Lewis. Really looking forward to the different threads that might be drawn out of this conversation - the poetic perspective of Gwyneth makes John’s achievements sing in different ways www.hayfestival.com/p-25348-gwyn...

My amazing colleagues created this wonderful short film in my conservation studio, featuring me talking about Gwen John’s use of colour and her strategies for remembering and calculating colour relationships. All the “umms” in my speech have been edited out! m.youtube.com/watch?v=5GvQ...

My amazing colleagues created this wonderful short film in my conservation studio, featuring me talking about Gwen John’s use of colour and her strategies for remembering and calculating colour relationships. All the “umms” in my speech have been edited out! m.youtube.com/watch?v=5GvQ...

Over 100 works of art being put up for auction by (cash strapped) Reform-run Kent County Council. Kent Greens: "While the total financial value of the art is only around £35k, the historic and social value of the art, most of which depicts Kent, is far higher."

St David’s Day/Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant: Ferns & Daffodils (c.1850s) by Welsh botanist & photography pioneer, John Dillwyn Llewelyn. His sister Mary Dillwyn was also drawn to photography & was probably the 1st female photographer in Wales. They produced many images of flowers, animals, people, & places.

Gosh that framer needs to calm down a little.

Quintessential urban lane aesthetic

In or near Abergavenny (or want an excuse to visit)? Augustus & Gwen John biographer @judithmackrell.bsky.social, curator Lucy Wood and I will be in discussion with @peterwakelin.bsky.social on Thursday 26th March. Talking about Gwen John, of course artshopandgallery.co.uk/events/conve...

In or near Abergavenny (or want an excuse to visit)? Augustus & Gwen John biographer @judithmackrell.bsky.social, curator Lucy Wood and I will be in discussion with @peterwakelin.bsky.social on Thursday 26th March. Talking about Gwen John, of course artshopandgallery.co.uk/events/conve...

Graham Sutherland From the Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales sketchbooks Somerset Maugham (The Tate)

I like to buy facsimiles of sketchbooks; there are some nice Turner ones, and Henry Moore’s sheep, & various other things one can pick up cheaply to gain a modicum of the experience of handling the real thing. This is my next purchase, it looks beautifully done: www.davidzwirner.com/collect/anni...

A Path in the Woods https://www.wikiart.org/en/graham-sutherland/a-path-in-the-woods-1958

Canaletto with accessories - a somehow arresting sight in a closed gallery today

One can only assume this shop front in Hay-on-Wye has a deliberate grocer’s apostrophe in order to infuriate bookish pedants visiting the town

An unexpected message I found on the pavement last week

Gall of the week is caused by a recently discovered species new to Britain, the gall wasp Andricus coriarius f. agamic on oak, Quercus robur. Discovered and photographed by Maria Fremlin.

With the film Madfabulous about the life of Henry Cyril Paget, the fifth Marquess of Anglesey scheduled to premiere in the coming months, here we have a letter from the Chief Constable of Menai Bridge sent to the Marquess’ agent on account of the Marquess speeding through the village of Gaerwen.

BBC Two Wales screened a new documentary about Gwen John last night, now on iPlayer. It features contributions from curator of our new exhibition Lucy Wood, as well as from my amazing paintings conservation colleague Rachel Beard and also a tiny bit from me! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

And now review number two! www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

First review has landed!