At the Gallery

At the gallery*. I have a few questions. Why is it that so many things there; the cafe, the toilets, the floor space layouts, the car park and the access points, seem to be badly designed? Not quite fit for purpose. Clunky. These utilities and spaces do not work well. They function poorly. Yet we are in an art gallery where highly regarded examples of artwork and design are on display for the public to enjoy. There is a mismatch. The setting and the content are at odds with one another. The building does not work.

I was in a Kwik Fit the other day. To access the office you had to walk through the workshop between the car ramps. There were warning signs but it was tight. The gallery reminded me of this. People are not properly catered for within the space. Having said that, Kwik Fit provided a quick and brilliant service on that visit. But back to the gallery, these photos are not examples of anything meaningful. Stark signs, bare surfaces for reference only, the kind of things you might find in Russian interiors. 

I stayed for the food. I did enjoy my rather large helping of tasty, spicy salad and a nice piece of sticky cake. The coffee was on point. The soup looked good too, but I chose not to try it. Pea broth. I was trying to ignore the peculiar layout that the nicely prepared food was presented in. The weather was poor but it was outside. Beyond the glass. There was lots of cafe chatter that did not involve us. We almost mixed with the real Ravelstonians, a rare breed I imagine. Hats and glasses are vital.  

Elsewhere I leaned in towards the surrealists and backed away from the more modernist types. I decided against taking photos of the actual art. It was that kind of day and I was in that kind of daft mood. The subject matter I disliked was too self obsessed; scattered rags, ploppy figures, crayons and untidy collages with blood stained paints, body fluids and so on. Beefheartish genre. Unpredictable but expected. Not to my taste but it's art. 

The wider world still looks tatty from winter's ravages. It was a bad day for pothole sightings too. Sometimes I worry about all the wrong things. Tyres mostly. I'll try to avoid Edinburgh and dense paragraphs.

*No names, no pack drill.