a london walk

So the rest of my day out...

I walked from Whitechapel over to Spitalfields. I love the buildings round there, some are done up and swanky, others are shabby and charming. The streets are eerily quiet compared to the buzz at the nearby market or along Brick Lane. 

These are the streets where Jack the Ripper did his worst, I used to have a studio round here and most evenings on my way home I would hear the local guides naming the women he had killed on the very spot his crowd were standing on. It always sent a chill down my spine as over the road I waited for the bus and watched the current prostitutes emerging from the alleyways.

Doorways fascinate me, what goes on inside, who lives there, what's the rest of the house like, who were the previous residents? I would love to be able to see a snippet of a houses history, visually, to watch all the comings and goings.

 

Can you just imagine all the stories these doors keep locked away?



Before I headed home with a heart full of inspiration I went to the National Portrait Gallery to see the exhibiton An Englishman in New York: Photographs by Jason Bell. I love New York, I've only been a couple of times but I wish I'd been more, and maybe lived there for a while. This is one of the few regrets I have in life, maybe one day I will get to do it... Anyway, this is a small but perfect exhibition, great photographs, interesting subjects all with their own New York story to tell. 

Actually the whole gallery was fascinating - I don't often go there but I found so many interesting displays to look at. I polished the day off with a little bit of cake and sketched the overhead view through the glass roof. 

Inspired, revived, clear headed. And home in time to tuck the girls into bed. A perfect day.