The Cornershop Bethnal Green

At the beginning of August a new shop opened in Bethnal Green just behind Columbia Road, a new cornershop but a cornershop like no other!  The shop looks like it has been fully stocked with groceries, sweets and newspapers but look a little closer and you'll see they are all made of FELT.

It is the work of Lucy Sparrow and it took 8 months to produce the 4,000 plus items. I visited yesterday with some friends and we spent a very long time looking at each individual item and seeing something new at every turn.  You cannot buy the 'stock' however you can order items to be collected or sent on to you. Lucy has also been running a series of workshops.

The exhibition is on until 31st August and is open between 10am and 7pm. Lucy can be found at Sew Your Soul or @sewyoursoul #thecornershop.  The 'shop' will be moving to a gallery in Brighton soon!

TIME Tattoo Art Today at Somerset House

This free exhibition started last month at Somerset House and had been on my To Do List for a while.  It is situated in the Embankment Galleries and displays original artworks from some of the most well known tattoo artists from around the world. Over 70 of them are represented in this colourful and thought provoking exhibition.

The theme of the exhibition is Time and the brief was to create an original artwork on any surface except skin, their favoured medium! My favourite is the beautiful Rouge painting by Rose Hardy.

It has been curated by Claudia De Sabe and Miki Vailetto and runs until the 5th October 2014. 

 Detail Rouge by Rose Hardy

Tower Hamlets at Street Level Bank Holiday Walks

Way back in April I mentioned that I was going to be doing an Introduction to Guiding Course in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and I don't think I've mentioned it again since... well a lot has happened since then....

I've walked an enormous number of the streets of TH, learnt the wonderful history relating to areas, buildings and people, met some great people who are also as mad about London as myself and as a result of the course I'm doing a stop on a guided walk very very soon!

After our course finished a core group of about 10 of us plus five guides who did walks for us each Saturday decided that it would be great to keep the momentum going and start looking into the possibility of putting a Tower Hamlets Guiding project together and the Tower Hamlets Walkshop evolved!  Course leader David Charnick discussed the possibility of starting with a series of  FREE walks over the Bank Holiday Weekend 23rd to 25th August 2014 one of which would involve six of the trainee guides.  This particular walk will take place on Sunday afternoon at 3pm and covers Bethnal Green and Mile End.

The other walks look at the very different areas around Mile End, Bow, Poplar, Limehouse, Stepney and a different side of Bethnal Green.

There is still more to learn about Tower Hamlets but I feel I know it as well as my home Borough now!

Here is the link to book these free walks on Eventbrite.  There are limited spaces so please book early!

There is also a page on Facebook with further information TH Walkshop