Coffee, cafés and art

Coffee, cafés and art:

A selection

 

Botanic Garden Café.

Art exists along the façade.  Plants exist everywhere else. A lovely haunt. The Botanic Garden costs money and no dogs allowed, and the café can get crowded on weekends and during half-term.

Caffé Nero, King's Parade.

Sit in or in front of the café and enjoy the architecture of King's College across the road. 

 

Fitzwilliam Museum Garden Café.

Stone lions watch as you sip.  Up the steps and to your right, there is much art.

 

Hot Numbers.

Changing art on the walls.

Box Café.

A colourful mural adorns one wall.

 

Teapots MAA.

The Museum of Art and Archaeology is not a café nor does it have a café but it does have teapots. And they are lovely.

Grantchester, Orchard Garden Tearooms.

No art to be seen but artists frequented this wonderful place. Read all about them in a pamphlet available at the till. Virginia Woolf, Rupert Brookes et al.

I do love cafés. And I do love art. There may be a Part 2 of this topic at some point. 🙂

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Ten unusual places to find art

Art in unusual places

1.  An Asian restaurant
Wallpaper by Debbie Plaskett (from near Bury St Edmunds)
Spotted at the (now defunct) Dojo Noodle Bar (Cambridge).




2.  A café.
Mural spotted at the Box Café on Norfolk Street (Cambridge).




3.  A bookstore shop window.
Justin Rowe's book sculptures, seen every advent time (and beyond) in the Cambridge University Bookshop.  Read my blog post.




4.  An airforce museum.
Seen at Duxford Air Museum (near Cambridge).  Read my blog post.




5.  A natural history museum
Discovered at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences (Cambridge).  Read my blog post.




6.  A hotel
Spotted at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel, on the river Cam.  Read my blog post.




7.  A swimming pool
The Diver, by Esther Melamed.
Found at Parkside Pool (Cambridge).





8. An airport
Secret Forest Trails, by Nelda Karklina
Stumbled upon a few years ago at Luton Airport.  Read my blog post.




9. A hospital
Jim Anderson's mosaic at Addenbrooke's Hospital (Cambridge). Read my blog post.




10. A round-about
Newmarket Road! (Cambridge)  Read my blog post.





Not so unusual:

Finally, you might think that libraries were unusual places for art.  Books? Yes.  Art?  Not so much.

But I learned, during my blog quest to find art in Arbury, that this is not so.  Libraries are, in fact, excellent places to find art, and it's not at all unusual to happen upon a sculpture or a wall relief in a library.  Still, though, I wanted to append these pictures at the end of my 'unusual places' list.

Some art I've come across in Cambridge libraries:

Book art at the Central Public Library in the Grand Arcade.  Read my blog post.




From Audubon's book of birds.  Seen at the Cambridge University Library and blogged about here.

Owl sculpture in Arbury Public Library.  Read about it here.

Varallo, by Samuel Butler.  Seen at an exhibition at St John's College Library in 2013.

Have you come across some art in an unusual place?

And if so, where??  Let me know in comments.

Nine arty things to do in Cambridge in March 2014

It's the return of the 'What's on' post!

And my, is there ever a lot going on in March.  Here's a foretaste.

The best thing?  Every single exhibition and event is ABSOLUTELY FREE.  Yay.


1.  Elizabeth Eade

  
 
 I've never been to this pub.  I'm not really a pub person (more of a café person) but this pub has art so I really want to visit.  Elizabeth Eade is yet another of the many talented graduates from the Cambridge School of Art.  

Also:  steampunk woman on shark.  I am smitten. 


Where:  The Geldart (pub), Ainsworth Street (corner Sleaford St; in that area of CB1 that also includes Sturton St, York St and the Backstreet Bistro).
Ends 13 March.

2. John Craxton

John Craxton, Cart Track, 1942-3.  Source: Fitzwilliam Museum

The most talked-about show in Cambridge at the moment.  I went to see this on the weekend.  Definitely worth having a look.  I found some of the works quite kitschy, others very derivative (Picassoesque, Graham Sutherlandesque) but this one here, plus 2-3 others, were amazing.


Where:  Fitzwilliam Museum. 
Ends 21 April.

 

 3.  MA Children's Book Illustration

 

The awesome annual MA Children's Book Illustration show.  Don't miss it.  These hyper-talented illustrators will be tomorrow's Quentin Blakes and Judith Kerrs.  Cambridge School of Art graduates already keep winning all the illustration prizes there are in the world (practically).


Where:  Ruskin Gallery, in the Cambridge School of Art at Anglia Ruskin University.
Ends 13 March.

ETA:  I reviewed the illustration show in a later blog post (with many wonderful pics!).

 

4. North by Northwest at Hot Numbers

What?  Yet another amazing initiative from the ever-astonishing Hot Numbers (my favourite Cambridge coffee house-cum-art gallery)?  The art gallery is Williams Art Gallery; it's joined to the coffee house via an open archway.

Cary Grant plus a foamy cappuccino.  Yum.

Where:  Hot Numbers coffee house, Gwydir St (corner Mill Rd, in the old brewery)
Hitchcock film screening!  Mon, 3 March.  7 pm.

 

5.  Melanie Max and Katharina Klug

  

 Melanie Max: one of my favourite Cambridgeshire artists.  I don't know Katharina Klug but am looking forward to discovering her ceramics.

I've not yet visited Burwash Art but Burwash Manor is lovely, with a sweet little tea shop.  About 15 minutes' drive out from Cambridge (depending where you start from).

Where:  Burwash Art at Burwash Manor, New Rd, Barton.

Ends 30 March.

 6. Image / Object / Image





A weird thing happening in the English Faculty.  Not quite sure what this is all about but looks intriguing.  Also, a chance to peep inside the neo-modernist English Faculty building, designed by architects Allies and Morrison and finished in 2004.

Where:  Judith E. Wilson Writing Studio, English Faculty of the University of Cambridge, West Road.
Ends 1 March (so hurry!!).

7.  Oliver Barratt and Mark Cazelet

Oliver Barratt, sculpture.  Source:  Lynn Strover Gallery

To my shame, I have yet to visit Lynn Strover's gallery, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.  I keep meaning to cycle out there and then it rains or I have a deadline or something... Still, I am determined!  If you go, drop me a line and tell me about it.

Sat, 15 March - Sat, 15 April.
Lynn Strover Gallery, Fen Ditton.

8.  Ash Summers and Roeland Verhallen

 A Dutch photographer and an artist based at Wysing Arts.  Could be interesting.  If you go to Image / Object / Image (see above), why not pop in here?  It's 1 minutes' walk away.


Where:  Art at the Alison Richard Building, West Road.
Ends 28 March.

9.  Art and Power in Fiji

This exhibition is still on.  I haven't seen it yet but it's definitely not one to miss. I love the MAA!

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), Downing Street. 
Ends 30 April.

Related posts:

My five favourite works at the Cambridge School of Art Degree Show

Patrick Thurston at Williams Art Gallery

What's on at the Cambridge Science Festival

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Where to take family visitors: A Cambridge itinerary

My parents are visiting next week.  They've been to Cambridge many times before so I'm not going to take them to King's College and other familiar sights.  Nor are we going to do a lot of walking as they are getting just a little elderly.


Here's a possible itinerary for when parents visit:

Day 1
Jesus College, sculpture exhibition.

Barry Flanagan, Bronze Horse, Jesus College

If people have enough energy:  pop in to All Saints' Church on the way out and look at the Pre-Raphaelite decorations and stained glass by Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and Ford Madox Brown.

Possible coffee stop at Clown's on King Street.

Day 2
Drive out to Madingley Garden.
My mother loves gardens and this recent discovery of mine is top of my list for places to visit.

Madingley Garden

If we have enough stamina, we could stop by the American War Cemetery on the way back.

But we will probably head for coffee instead --  possibly at the West Café  in the Hauser Forum on the new West Site of Cambridge University.  I discovered the West Café last month and had a lovely lunch on the outside terrace, overlooking the fields.  Added bonus:  sciencey types with ipads at all the other tables.

West Café, Hauser Forum

The Barton bike path going past the Hauser Forum

Plus, if you're on a bike:  it's a lovely bike ride to get there via the West Cambridge bike path.

Day 3
Botanic Garden.
Did I mention that my mother loves gardens?  The Botanic Garden is one of her favourites, plus we now have the fantastic new Garden Café there.  Both my mother and father love modern architecture so the award-winning Sainsbury Lab is an added draw.

Garden Café, Botanic Garden

Garden Café umbrellas and bits of the Sainsbury Lab

Day 4
If people are up for it, we may take a drive down to near Stansted and go to the Henry Moore Sculpture Park in Perry Green.  I've not been there but it looks like a nice, doable outing from Cambridge.  Nature plus art:  a good combination.

Catalogue of the Henry Moore collection at Perry Green

Local alternative (in case people don't feel like travel):

Lynn Strover Art Gallery in Fen Ditton.  This has a Bank Holiday exhibition called The Little Picure Show from  Sat-Mon, 24-26 Aug 2013.

Source:  © Lynn Strover.

Day 5
I have to pick up another family member from Luton Airport in the morning so that will eat half the day.  Perhaps we will relax afterwards and have Cream Tea at the Orchard Tea Garden in Grantchester.

Gateway Gallery, Luton Airport

Orchard Tea Garden in winter

Possible supper at Bill's on Green Street.

Day 6
A day to go punting.  Or just veg out.  Possibly finish with drinks on the roof terrace of the Varsity Hotel.

Although, if you want great views for free, just take the lift up to the top floor of the Park Street car park.  ;-p

Mural at the Newmarket Street roundabout

More ideas for a Cambridge itinerary are here at my pinterest site:  Visitors' itinerary.

Where do you take visitors?



Related blog posts:
Murals in a tunnel under a roundabout
Werewolf art at Luton Airport
Madingley series


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