Skansen tropicarium or 'When Lemurs attack'

Just before leaving Stockholm I revisited Skansen's tropical section. I've been once before about 18 mths ago, and it's taken me till now to get over the last visit. Let me explain. I love Lemurs, they are the funniest things to watch, especially on a cloudy day when the sun suddenly pokes through, and every Lemur stops, sits cross legged and faces the sun with their eyes closed. It's like the weirdest yoga class you've ever seen.

So when I first read about the tropicarium, and that as part of it you walk through the Lemur enclosure, I was so excited. It's quite a large enclosure with a winding path with stairs upto the next level to exit, and there are a lot of Lemurs in there.

All looking so innocent

Excuse the blurry selfie, but this was me, full of excitement when I first entered the enclosure. The Lemurs seemed quite happy to completely ignore my presence, and I pulled out my sketch book to draw, and things went down hill, quickly. Despite the warning signs everywhere about not feeding them, clearly people do, and reaching into my bag, and some rattling paper set off a signal to every Lemur in that enclosure that I had food, and they wanted it. I found myself in the ludicrous position of running back and forth and literally in circles trying to outrun a pack of Lemurs! They were an organised gang, some took up place blocking the exit door! All I could think of was they would run up my legs, scratch or bite - but that I absolutely didn't want to hurt any of them stopping that, so the only solution my brain presented was 'run in circles why I think about it'.

I did get out, no Lemurs were harmed, but I was a shaking mess! Of course it's now a hilarious story, but I was terrified at the time.

So fast forward 18mths and I decide to head back, mostly to draw the Sloths. On my last visit they were hanging around looking like this:

On this visit, they were all asleep, curled up in balls.

'Jub Jub' was still there, in exactly the same spot.

As for the Lemurs, I'd convinced myself that you didn't have to walk through the enclosure, but turns out you do (if you want to see the rest of the exhibits). So I but my big girl pants on and walked through. By halfway all bravery had gone, and I found myself attempting to use a 5year old child as a shield. Thankfully neither of us were attacked, but I don't think I'll be going back again.

 

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Museum visiting in Stockholm

There are some 87 museums in Stockholm, so there's always another to investigate. Each time I visit I try and see one or two that are new to me, but I must admit I'm getting to the point on the list where I either think I'm not interested (day out at the Tobacco and Match museum anyone?) or the more difficult to reach by public transport with no sense of direction and a cartoon map.

This time it's been a pleasant surprise though, I've visited two that I had previously thought too boring - The Museum of Ethnography and The Historiska Museet, or the Museum of Antiquities.

The Museum of Ethnography is described in the brochure as 'a meeting place of cultures for everyone interested in the wider world'. As a lover of the old fashioned style museum I loved the current exhibition of 'bringing the world home' which is a broad selection of objects from the museums archives, displayed in old fashioned glass museum cases, aisles and aisles of oddities behind glass - just what I love in a museum. As a twist they have displayed everything in groups as it is stored, which is by material rather than origin. In order to give the illusion of never ending cabinets they have installed mirrors at the end of the rows, which worked a little too well, as I found myself stepping aside to give way to, well um myself!

I did struggle in this exhibition to match up the cabinets with the English translation sheet, so just gave up and enjoyed the looking with no great information on what I was looking at.

This fellow wins best oddity I've found to draw in a while, the skin of a baby hippopotamus which must have been folded for transport.

The displays on climate, and how cultures adapt to extreme climates were something different, and there was an extensive Aboriginal display. It was good to see that it was fair representation on the modern Aboriginal culture, explaining the issues of the stolen generation and land rights. There was an area of displays and film related to Swedish explorers in Australia who took skeletons and recently deceased from funeral sites as museum items, and film documenting the apology and ceremonies related to the return of these in recent history.

There were displays on historical expeditions, to Papua New Guinea and the Congo (and cultural damage there by well meaning missionaries of their day).

All up, lots of interesting objects to draw, and rather sadly the opportunity to see how history has repeated itself over and over; white men travel to foreign lands and try to 'improve' the locals by stealing their children and raising them as white, introducing alcohol, tobacco and violence to traditional cultures - apologising after 200 years and leaving these cultures in a mess of identity, dependency and violence. Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Congo, North America, Canada, and Northern Scandanavia.

The Historiska Museum has it's 'Gold Room' as pride of place, with an extensive collection of antique gold, silver and jewel currency and jewellery. For me the more interesting sections were the textiles hall, with ancient embroideries, many were church vestments. The amount of work put into these was amazing. I sketched some of the animal shapes to perhaps embroider myself later as the designs were really interesting.

There were halls full of old church icons, alters, and iconastas - which made me wonder if every old church in Sweden was gutted at some point? There was so much of it. It was great to see them, but I did feel a little sad about how much of it had been removed from where it belonged? I would have liked to drawn some of these but there were no seats available and my back was not cooperating with standing and holding a sketchbook to draw.

I ran out of time to take in everything, and while doing a speed view through the remaining exhibitions on my way out, this fellow caught my interest. At about four feet high, carved from wood with rope decoration, holding a skeleton which appeared to be various real bones with a wooden carved skull. I had to stop and read, and then draw;

"Associated with the cannibal dancing society: skeleton made from various animals such as seal paws and a carved human skull. When covered in vegetable pastry it looked like a human corpse. Used in ceremony when someone was obsessed with the cannibal spirit to regain their human nature"

I'll definitely look forward to another visit when I'm looking for a drawing refuge on a rainy day.

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Autumn goodness

I'm spending most of the month of October in Stockholm, and the city is beautiful at this time of year. The first two weeks of the month the weather was perfect for Autumn - cool but clear with warm sunshine, then a snap of crisp air as soon as the sun lowers. I took advantage of one of the sunnier days to visit Skansen.

Found a lovely spot of afternoon warmth for a bit of knitting. I'm working on 'Birch' by Rowan, but using a lace weight wool I purchased a while back in Stockholm, and Addi lace circulars. This took me a long time to get started, but it's moving along now.

The bear cubs were still out playing, they've grown so much since they were born! It's been such a priveledge to be able to visit frequently enough to watch their progress. I think hibernation must be just around the corner though.
It was a little too cold, or rather I wasn't inspired enough to draw despite the cold on the day, but had a bit of a sketch when I got back to the hotel room.

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Sketchbook visit to Leeds Gallery and Museum

I've been spending a bit of time in Leeds lately, and having spent many weeks in the city centre previously, I can struggle to be inspired into anything creative here - and keep myself away from shopping. I visited the Leeds Art Gallery, for an afternoon with my sketchbook in hand.

sketches from the painting Scotland Forever by Lady Elizabeth Butler

I always enjoy seeing this painting, and if you have the chance to visit the Gallery, be sure to check it out, and the Leeds Tapestry which includes a tiny scaled embroidered version of the painting.
Ultimately I long to become a portrait artist - so I'm always keen to investigate other artists work and try and learn from their techniques. I came across 'Portrait of Thomas Hardy 1897' by Sir William Rothenstein, which fascinated me as I couldn't fathom achieving a likeness at this scale with so few delicate pencil lines. So as an exercise I attempted to draw it to the same scale.

 

The next day I filled a couple of hours at Leeds City Museum, it's quite limited in taxidermy (my museum addiction) so between a lack of interest, a screaming headache and a poor decision to visit the museum during school holidays I really had to force myself into drawing anything - but went through the motions for a couple of squirrels.



Of course I can't mention Leeds City Museum without including a picture of the Leeds Tiger. This poor guy was displayed as a rug in London after being shot in 1860. In 1862 it was mounted and presented to the Leeds Philosophical and Literary society. Each time I see it I think of generations of Leeds kids who've grown up thinking this wierd shape is what tigers look like.

 

check out those cankles

 

I'm back in Leeds next week, and have already booked in for a life drawing session - so that will guarantee some drawing next week.

 

Oh, and I went shopping and spent too much money.