AofA's Hot To Trot Talking Points
Every Friday
Never has ‘hot’ been so true. London has been beyond hot this week.
And this is what we’ve been talking about.
Positive News - one our favourite news sources - reported on an erotic garden at Chelsea Flower Show. We loved the idea but found the reality a bit tacky. What do you think? Creating a space where you can talk about intimate subjects is great. And then, I started thinking - what about an AofA Chelsea Flower garden.
‘An erotic garden broke taboos in London
There were raised eyebrows among the rhododendrons this week as a garden created by a sex toy company won an award at London’s Chelsea Flower Show.
Aphrodite’s Hothouse, “an immersive houseplant studio inspired by love, lust, beauty and desire”, is a cheeky horticultural statement from award-winning botanical designer James Whiting and the sexual wellness brand Lovehoney.
Inspired by Aphrodite and Eros, the Greek gods of love and desire, the studio heaves with lush plants and sensual symbolism. It’s all rather racy for the usually prim Chelsea Flower show, but it has a serious mission: to make conversations about sex and intimacy as natural as talking about the roses.
“Hothouse is designed to spark curiosity, challenge expectations, and celebrate pleasure as something natural, playful and culturally relevant,” said Lovehoney’s Jo Connarty. “If we want to change the conversation around sex and sexual wellness, we can’t keep having it in the same places.”
It’s a message that seems to have resonated with the garden winning a coveted gold medal at the show. Said Whiting: “Gardens should spark curiosity, break a few taboos and make people stop in their tracks.”’
Image: Lovehoney
Continuing with the erotic theme or in this case, the distinctly non-erotic theme, we laughed with poet Brian Bilston as his invention. This is Hardchore. Indeed.
Do you dare to talk about care, yours and mine? I put a post into the group wondering whether people had thought about their future care. They hadn’t. So Jane Duncan Rogers have set up this Zoom on June 15th at 6 45 til 7 45pm so we get the opportunity to talk about care. Do join us.
Get your tickets here. £5.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/.../lets-talk-about-care-and...
One of our members, Gilly Hanna has a new film out with the older physical theatre group, Grand Gesture and it’s called The Hempen Jig. Go along and see it and join in the piracy.
The BBC reported on Anthony Eyton who at 103 is still a working artist and has an artwork in the RA’s Summer Show. ‘Some might think that your average centenarian would be content to sit back and take it easy after a long life.
But not south London painter Anthony Eyton.
He may have turned 103 last weekend, but he is busy preparing for this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition - the world’s oldest open submission exhibition.
Eyton, from Brixton, has seen his work exhibited all over the world, including at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and the Imperial War Museum.
He says creating paintings gives him satisfaction.
“It’s what I do, I’m never happier than when I’m putting paint on... it’s the only thing I can do and it keeps me in touch with life,” he says.
Image source,Anthony Eyton, Brixton Market, 1994 Eyton has lived in Brixton for about 70 years and often paints the local community
Eyton’s love of art began with a drawing in his school book of a duck and a worm at the age of six in 1929.
His classmates dubbed him Constable.
He said art came naturally to him and he “painted hard” from the age of 14.
Eyton, who served in the army from 1942 to 1947, is a figurative painter - he paints people, places, “things”.
Eyton has found a new audience for his work, regularly posting with his daughter Sarah Eyton on Instagram.
Age has been no barrier to him embracing social media, and along with his daughter Sarah, a photographer, he regularly posts on Instagram.
“He’s very natural in front of the camera as he’s just talking to me. I use my iPhone camera,” says Sarah.
“He loves talking about art and about his paintings and about what books he’s reading.
“In the beginning it was less about promoting him and more about our relationship, but it has taken on many levels since then and opened up his work to a whole new level of global audience.”’
Love the idea of wind phones - an often old-fashioned phone that is not connected in the classic sense but instead is connected to those you love and have lost. They give us the opportunity to have chats that we wanted to have. To express our love and loss. This one is in South Shields.