A Nice Day Out

'Nostalgia, you weren't supposed to be here yet!'

Last week, I told you all about my experiences so far following Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way* (*ad - affiliate link). As well as ‘morning pages’, the ‘artist’s date’ is a key part of the programme. Cameron encourages us to plan time for “a once-weekly solo expedition to do something that enchants or interests you.”

As someone who lives alone and spends a lot of time alone, it’s sometimes hard to know what’s an ‘artist date’ and what’s just ‘doing something fun’. But what I did yesterday afternoon definitely felt like an artist date - and I want to tell you all about it.

I loved Ruth Reichl’s The Paris Novel* (only 99p on Kindle right now!!) and there’s a whole plot arc in it about the art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. So I was super excited when I saw an advert for the Toulouse-Lautrec and the Masters of Montmartre exhibition at Bath’s Victoria Art Gallery. The VAG (teehee) has a fantastic exhibition space, and on top of that their team writes fantastic explanatory labels for all the art, so you know the meaning and significance of what you’re seeing.

My favourite poster, I think, was this Alfred Choubac poster for Le Petit Blue, a newspaper named after the nickname for a telegram (‘the little blue’).

Source

I then went to see Inside Out 2, the sequel to my favourite Pixar film. Just like the first film, it’s full of delightful Easter eggs. I noticed some of these while watching, but not all of them - so I really enjoyed this video from Erik Voss at New Rockstars (whose wife actually worked on the film!). One of my favourite things is the continued visual jokes that take normal English phrases (‘bottling up your emotions’) and turn them into animation - literally putting the emotions into a glass bottle (well.. a jar). I also loved the way the team at Pixar have given us visuals for mental health and emotional states - I’m not sure I’ve ever felt quite so seen as I did during the ‘anxiety attack’ sequence.

The music is wonderful - Michael Giacchino’s score for the first movie was a personal highlight, so I was looking forward to experiencing the music for this new film. Giacchino had handed over to Andrea Datzman, making this - unbelievably - the first Pixar film to be scored by a woman. I also loved how central ice hockey was to Riley’s life and storyline in this film - it’s so rare that we get to have sports being an integral part of female characters’ lives without someone making a big deal out of it.

To cap off a lovely afternoon, the weather had turned from grey and drizzly to beautifully sunny during the two hours I spent inside, and I had the joyful (see what I did there?) experience of walking along the river path for a couple of miles before getting the bus home.

What made this an ‘artist date’, rather than just ‘an afternoon mooching around Bath’? Part of it was actively spending money on going to see art; the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition was £10 (there are discounts available for various groups needing them). Obviously, being able to do this is a huge privilege, and it’s a way of reminding myself that art is important to me (reflecting on that saying that every £1 you spend is a vote for the way you want the world to be).

Speak soon,

Lily

P.S.: Wondering where the three recommendations that normally start the newsletter are? I’m trying something new and posted them on Friday: