The Jacobsons in Edinburgh! After spending a few days in Glasgow and Edinburgh, it makes me long to live a creative, free life. Not bound by conventional standards that include the "9 to 5 grind" and all of the meaningless motions that we go through everyday for money. It's not that Glasgow or Edinburgh brought this out in me, they just made me very present to the fact that there is life beyond the monotony most people live, day in and day out.
Glasgow is a beautiful city. It's our second time here. However, it was our first visit to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. There is a big difference between the two cities. Edinburgh draws a lot more tourists. Glasgow, not so much. While Edinburgh is worth a visit, we prefer Glasgow. We are not, and I repeat, not, fans of doing the "touristy" things. They are actually embarrassing to me. I know that sounds elitist, but that's how I feel. They are gross money traps that have very little or no cultural or human value. We avoid them like the plague. However, we found ourselves walking the "Royal Mile" yesterday, all the way to the castle. Every other store was full of plaid and kilts. Cheap, touristy plaid and kilts. It was gross. It reminded me people getting suckered into a "shell game" in a big city, only worse, they don't even have the illusion of winning anything, just dumping their quid.
The castle in Edinburgh Our visit was three-fold. First, we wanted a family holiday (vacation). It had been a while since we had a day or two to hang out and explore.
Secondly, we visited the "uni" or university with Summer. She wants to try to go to University of Glasgow. It's a beautiful campus/school. It's 550 years-old! It's amazing to walk on the campus and see all of the old buildings and grounds. Amazing. We were able to meet with an advisor and ask questions and get information about it. It went very well. The people in the UK, and all over Europe for that matter, are very lucky, they pay very little for higher education, if anything at all. We are looking at £9,400 per year, do the math.
And last, but not least, I was invited as a guest speaker/demonstrator by our friend, and fellow wet plate aficionado, Carl Radford. Carl is a great bloke! He and his wife, Liz (see earlier blog, May 2008) hosted the event. Carl invited several wet plate artists from all over the UK to attend this two-day get together. There were eight of us, talking, pouring plates, drinking tea and simply enjoying one another's company. Jeanne, Summer and I were able to meet some great people on this trip. John Brewer from Manchester, Jo Gain from Coventry (or near there), Katie from Edinburgh, Claire from Wales, Chavonne (sp?) and Craig from Edinburgh or Glasgow, I can't remember.
The book store To say we got a lot out of this trip is an understatement. It was both productive and very, very enjoyable. The wet plate Collodion gathering was terrific. We also enjoyed the galleries and bookstores both in Glasgow and Edinburgh. We went to the GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) with John and Jo in Glasgow. We met at a little place called, "The Social" and had an espresso. We just missed a Jo Spence show at the GOMA and wanted to see some photography. We ended up wandering into a place called, "Street Level Photography". They had a nice show of emerging artists/photographers there. There was some literature on the table and I found a card for a camera shop nearby. After the gallery, we walked to the camera store and started asking about old lenses. The owners said, "give us an hour and come back, we have some in the basement". So we went next door for some soup and a sandwich (and more espresso of course). An hour later, we went back and both John and Jo scored some nice wet plate lenses for a great deal. It was really cool.
Carl told us about a bookstore in Edinburgh called, "Beyond Words", nothing but photography books. It's small, but very much worth a visit. I saw some classic books as well as some new and interesting ones. I was thinking, "Mine should be in here... a taste of the wet plate world!" There was a little Phaidon book about Joel-Peter Witkin I almost picked up, but didn't. I will probably regret it.
Summer enjoying "Trainspotting" Summer picked up Irvine Welsh's book, "Trainspotting" (yes, like the movie - brilliant). She's almost finished it. A lot of it is in Scottish too! Here's an example, "Way tae fuck ya radge, ah say, shakin ma heid." Very difficult to read, huh?! And, yes, every other word in Scottish is the f-bomb. It's an adjective/modifier here.
I can't express how wonderful it is to walk into a bookstore and see all of the books in English, a language I'm (semi) fluent in! Brilliant!! We spent a lot of time doing things that we miss or don't have access to in Germany. Most people would think we're crazy, but we enjoy it.
This is our last trip for a wee bit.