MELTING POT / [ London ] Has always been a cosmopolitan city, home to wave after wave of immigrants, providing the mix that arguably makes London a proper melting pot.
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[ BESPOKE ] / Patzcuaro, Tzintzuntzan en el estado de michoacán. Tradiciones ancestrales sobre el culto a la muerte en México donde la vida es un instante, la muerte eterna.
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[ ARTEFACTO ] / Conoce el arte de Leif Podhajsky, con su espléndido estilo visual de otro nivel de conexión del individuo con su entorno, con la geometría natural y la psicodelia
Art /Culture /History ART[ NOUN ]: The quality, production, expression, or real, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance
Come dip your toes into the psychedelic stream of his imagination for some striking abstractions of nature El diseñador gráfico, artista y director de arte australiano se involucró en el medio visual gracias a sus estudios y a su naturaleza autodidacta, empezó como freelance y actualmente es dueño de And, una conocida agencia de diseño gráfico en Melbourne Australia. Leif tiene un espléndido estilo visual, lleva el diseño a otro nivel de conexión del individuo con su entorno, siempre de la mano con la geometría natural, la psicodelia, los paisajes cósmicos, mediante este universo, intenta inspirar al espectador un realineamiento consigo mismo y en consecuencia con el medio.
There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated drinking tea. In England as they say anytime is tea time. Discover how to make a proper brew.
Yayoi Kusama. con su ya famosa Obsesión Infinita es la primera muestra retrospectiva en América Latina de una de las artistas japonesas más relevantes de nuestro tiempo.
Henry VIII of England had several children. The best-known are the three legitimate children who survived Henry and succeeded him as monarchs of England successively
ARTEFACTO ART EXHIBITIONS &PROJECTS
ARTEFACTO /
El diseñador gráfico, artista y director de arte australiano se involucró en el medio visual gracias a sus estudios y a su naturaleza autodidacta, empezó como freelance y actualmente es dueño de And, una conocida agencia de diseño gráfico en Melbourne Australia. Leif tiene un espléndido estilo visual, lleva el diseño a otro nivel de conexión del individuo con su entorno, siempre de la mano con la geometría natural, la psicodelia, los paisajes cósmicos, mediante este universo, intenta inspirar al espectador un realineamiento consigo mismo y en consecuencia con el medio. Su filosofía laboral se basa en trabajar con artistas a los que respeta y cuya música le guste mucho y pueda escuchar una y otra vez sin cansarse, ya que no solo crea la portada de un álbum, sino que genera todo un concepto, una historia llena de emociones, además de que se ha declarado melómano y la música no solo se involucra en su proceso creativo cuando se trata de bandas o sellos discográficos, la música es como su néctar de vida, es esencial en cualquiera de sus creaciones, lo hace fluir.
EL ARTE ES LA EXPRESIÓN DIVINA DEL HOMBRE:
Capelo
GUANAJUATO, Gto. El 3 de Octubre Javier de Jesús Hernández “Capelo” inauguró su exposición escultórica titulada “Tótems y chamanes” en el patio del Museo Regional de la Alhóndiga de Granaditas. Con la presentación de más de 30 piezas, esta muestra cerrará el ciclo de muestras temporales en el museo y estará exhibida hasta el 15 de enero del 2015.
‘‘El arte tiene el papel de mostrar la divinidad del hombre. Lo demás son cuestiones culturales, el hombre nace con una capacidad, con un don divino para hacer arte”. “Los chamanes y los tótems” La exposición de “Capelo” gira en torno a las figuras de los tótems y chamanes. Con respecto a estos personajes, el artista guanajuatense menciona que son quienes “crean el espacio, la atmósfera, el hombre siempre estará guiado por un personaje que tiene la sabiduría y herencia cultural y son éstos quienes orientan en la búsqueda del alimento”. Esta serie de esculturas están realizadas con cerámica y bronce, y enfatiza que “es cerámica con tendencias al metal. Sin embargo, el problema es la cerámica. Me gusta mucho su lenguaje y espíritu aunque me desespera su fragilidad. Y con esto refiere a su exposición como “un santuario, además de que estamos en el santuario de la patria, donde hay en condiciones contrarias de energía algo donde se nos permite sembrar la milpa del tótem y del chamán”. Mencionó que ha cumplido el sueño de presentar su obra en la Alhóndiga.
El trabajo de Podhajsky explora los temas de conectividad, el amor, el miedo, la magia, la importancia de la naturaleza y la experiencia psicodélica o alterada, y utiliza técnicas como
el dibujo, la recursividad, el equilibrio, la simetría y la repetición. Para Leif, todos estamos buscando constante y secretamente respuestas al amor, a la felicidad y a nuestra naturaleza. Algunos de los artistas con los que ha trabajado son Tame Impala, The vines, Grimes, Foals, The horrors, Sahabazz Palaces, Lykke Li, así como con los sellos discográficos Warp Records, Modular Records y Sub Pop Records. Si tuviéramos que definir el estilo de Leif, no tendríamos dudas de ponerle junto a toda esa nueva ola de artistas que recogen el pasado psicodélico y le dan nuevo brillo. Sus trucos son obvios, auténticos clásicos dentro de los recursos gráficos: muchas simetrías, colores saturados, texturas vintage, patrones geométricos y superposición de capas. Nada muy complicado, pero los resultados son plenamente satisfactorios, absolutamente contemporáneos y al mismo tiempo evocan un pasado mejor. Según indica en su propia web, Leif es “un artista con base en Melbourne. Su obra explora temas como la conectividad, la relevancia de la naturaleza y las experiencias psicodélicas o de estados alterados de conciencia. Mediante la utilización de estos temas intenta coaccionar al espectador para realinearlo consigo mismo y su entorno.” ¿Te ha quedado alguna duda? A nosotros no... Leif es uno de los nuestros.
Frida Kahlo, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo y Juan O’Gorman son parte de los artistas que integran la colección del Museo de Arte Moderno. La mirada de estos representantes de la plástica mexicana sobre la modernidad, junto a otros pintores y escultores, es rescatada en la exposición 50 años, 50 obras con la que se celebra el medio siglo de existencia del recinto. De los 773 artistas que integran la vasta colección del MAM (2,288 piezas para ser exactos), se seleccionaron 50 de las obras más afamadas. Entre ellas encontrarás el famoso autorretrato de Frida Kahlo (Las dos Fridas), pinturas de Rufino Tamayo como Apolo y las musas (1954) y Músicas dormidas (1950); Retrato de Xavier Villaurrutia (1940), de Juan Soriano; Nuestra imagen actual (1947), a cargo de David Alfaro Siqueiros; así como el cuadro que pintó Diego Rivera de la novelista Lupe Marín, quien fue su esposa y una de sus musas (incluso la propia Frida la pintó).
ARTEFACTO ART EXHIBITIONS &PROJECTS
/ ARTEFACTO
OBSESIÓN INFINITA Yayol Kusama Museo Tamayo Yayoi Kusama. Obsesión Infinita es la primera muestra retrospectiva en América Latina de una de las artistas japonesas más relevantes de nuestro tiempo. La exposición presenta un recorrido exhaustivo a través de más de 100 obras creadas entre 1950 y 2013, que incluyen pinturas, trabajos en papel, esculturas, videos, slideshows e instalaciones. Se presenta la trayectoria de la artista desde el ámbito privado a la esfera pública, desde la pintura al performance, del estudio a la calle. La muestra ha viajado por el continente americano, pasando por Argentina y Brasil, y llegará al Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo en la Ciudad de México.
Te recomendamos también ver Desnudo de Pita Amor, de Raúl Anguiano, cuadro que para los cuarenta resultó desafiante por la figura recatada de la mujer en esa época. Del mismo pintor encontrarás La espina, seguro recuerdas esta pintura en la portada del libro de texto de Ciencias Naturales de los noventa. La muestra no está organizada por jerárquicamente ni de forma cronológica, sino que es un pequeño abanico del tesoro artístico que resguarda este museo desde 1964. Detalles del foro Museo de Arte Moderno Reforma s/n Bosques de Chapultepec México, DF 11560 web:www.mam.org.mx Horarios:Mar-dom 10:15am-5:30pm
BESPOKE CULTURAL FACTS & DETAILS
BESPOKE / CULTURE
MADE IN ENGLAND Quint essent ially Brit ish?
I don’t consider myself to
be ‘quintessentially British’, but when I began to think about what this phrase really meant, I began to ponder. I love my British culture and there are many things that I am so, so proud of in Great Britain, but I’m not sure I would say that I would fall under the category of being ‘quintessentially British’. My parents, on the other hand, appear to me as being very British – and very British of their generation. Despite having travelled widely and experienced many different cultures they retain what they consider to be true to the British culture and way of life, particularly for their generation.
Quintessential literally means: ‘representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class’. This may read as though it is referring solely to the ‘upper’ end of the UK class system,
but I think ‘quintessentially British’ now goes far reaching into all layers of class system and showcases the heart and breadth of British culture. From Sunday footie at the pub, to roast dinners; from Wimbledon, to smiling in the face of adversity – British culture captures a diverse spectrum of foods, events, activities, behaviours and psychology – and it continues to evolve for all classes and all generations. According to sources ‘the culture of the UK is the pattern of human activity and symbolism associated with the country and its people’. We Brits are quirky, funny, weird and wonderful folk and this piece is a dedication to the people of Britain and all their idiosyncrasies and traits and behaviours. Recently, reading news of the flooding in the UK has broken my heart. It is hard to see pieces of history being washed away, and towns and homes ruined. What it
must be like to be literally ‘in at the deep end’ I can only imagine. But what has warmed my heart and made me proud, is the British resolve, the laughter in the face of adversity and the way that the people of Great Britain march on despite it all. When I asked a whole host of Brits, back in the UK, here in the USA, and readers of Smitten by Britain, what they thought ‘quintessentially British’ the answers were
LONDON:
Europe's new ethnic melting pot .
A new report suggests that within 15 years almost one third of the capital will be composed of ethnic minorities. ”We celebrate the diversity in our country, get strength from the cultures and the races that go to make up Britain today.” Prime Minister Tony Blair, 2 October 2001
If you walk down a street in Britain, especially in the bigger cities you will usually see people with different hair, skin and eye colours. They may have white, brown or black
skin and blonde, brown, black, or red hair, with blue, black, brown or green eyes. Many of the people you will see will be British people but they all look different because the people of
London has always been a cosmopolitan city, home to wave after wave of immigrants who in time have become Londoners, providing the mix that arguably makes London the most cosmopolitan city in the world.
so interesting and I think this piece captures true spirit of what the phrase means. Of course, it’s worth bearing in mind that Britain is made up of all types of folks within the class system, and within those classes are varying tastes, attitudes,experiences and preferences. In addition, it would be remiss of me not to mention the cultural differ-
Britain are a mixed race. People moving to Britain have brought their own cultures and try to keep two cultures alive. An excellent example of this is the Notting Hill Carnival which is celebrates the Caribbean Culture and is now a very big part of the British life today. As a result, London today enjoys a rich mix of people and culture unparalleled in Europe, and an atmosphere of racial harmony, compared to its own recent past and possibly to other large cities in Europe. In an increasingly global world, London’s cultural and linguistic diversity can be seen as a key competitive advantage, if only the capital has the wit to use it. “Britain’s ethnic minorities are an irrevers-
ences that exist in the northern and southern parts of the UK, and, of course, the variances between the English (perhaps many of the comments you read may be interpreted as being ‘quintessentially English’?), Welsh, Irish, Scots! That aside, this is a fascinating insight into the quintessentially British psyche.
ible part of the social, cultural and economic well-being of London,” Mr Ouseley argues. “Employers in London have the opportunities to be the envy of the world with such diversity”. With more inter-marriage, more mixed communities, more ethnically mixed children and more diversity, London is set in the 21st century to become a new type of city for Europe - one more like the immigrant cities of the United States, but without, if London gets it right, their segregation.
BESPOKE CULTURAL FACTS & DETAILS
CULTURE / BESPOKE
FANCY A CUP OF TEA?
YORKSHIRE TEA By A ppoint ment t oMajest y
‘‘There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated drinking tea.” Henrey James
Afternoon tea was introduced in England by Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in the year 1840. The Duchess would become Afternoon tea, that most hungry around four o’clock in quintessential of English the afternoon. The evening customs is, perhaps surprismeal in her household was ingly, a relatively new tradiserved fashionably late at tion. Whilst the custom of eight o’clock, thus leaving a drinking tea dates back to long period of time between the third millennium BC in lunch and dinner. The DuchChina and was popularised ess asked that a tray of tea, in England during the 1660s bread and butter (some time by King Charles II and his earlier, the Earl of Sandwich wife the Portuguese Infanta had had the idea of putCatherine de Braganza, it ting a filling between two was not until the mid 17th slices of bread) and cake be century that the concept of brought to her room dur‘afternoon tea’ first ing the late afternoon. This appeared. became a habit of hers and
Yorkshire Tea is a black tea blend produced by Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate while trading as Taylors of Harrogate. This company was founded in 1886 in Harrogate, Yorkshire, England, before the purchase of Taylors by Bettys. The company is now owned by the group (Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate) with two subsidiaries, Bettys and Taylors. Yorkshire Tea was originally sold by Taylors but after the buy out by Betty’s, the brand had the name Betty’s and Taylors on the back but soon changed the name back to “Taylors of Harrogate”. Yorkshire Tea originally came from Taylors of Harrogate by two brothers but is now sold under both names, the pair set up the tea and coffee importing business CE Taylor & Co before going on to train at Ashbys Tea of London, where they went on to buy teas and coffees at auction. The company is one of the few remaining family tea and coffee merchants in the country.
THE GREAT BRITISH WEATHER
she began inviting friends to join her. This pause for tea became a fashionable social event. During the 1880’s upperclass and society women would change into long gowns, gloves and hats for their afternoon tea which was usually served in the drawing room between four and five o’clock. Afternoon Tea HUK Traditional afternoon tea consists of a selection of dainty sandwiches (including of course thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches), scones served with clotted cream and preserves. Cakes and pastries are also served. Tea grown in India or Ceylon is poured from silver tea pots into delicate bone china cups.
Nowadays however, in the average suburban home, afternoon tea is likely to be just a biscuit or small cake and a mug of tea, usually produced using a teabag. Sacrilege! To experience the best of the afternoon tea tradition, indulge yourself with a trip to one of London’s finest hotels or visit a quaint tearoom in the west country. The Devonshire Cream Tea is famous world wide and consists of scones, strawberry jam and the vital ingredient, Devon clotted cream, as well as cups of hot sweet tea served in china teacups. Many of the other counties in England’s west country also claim the best cream teas: Dorset, Cornwall and Somerset.
www.smittenbybritain.com
Contrary to popular belief, it DOES NOT rain every day in England or in the rest of the UK! However, it is always advisable to bring some type of waterproof clothing and keep yourself psychologically prepared! Britain is an island country and the surrounding sea gives England a varied climate. We never know what the weather will be like from one day to the other. It can be sunny one day and rainy the next. As we have such a variable climate changing from day to day, it is difficult to predict the weather. In general we have warm summers and cool winters. Our summers are cooler than those on the continent, but the winters are milder. Temperate Climate The overall climate in England is called temperate maritime. This means that it is mild with temperatures not much lower than 0ºC in winter and not much higher than 32ºC in summer. It also means that it is damp and is subject to frequent changes. projectbritain.com primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk/weather
BESPOKE HOME, HEART & HISTORY
BESPOKE / HISTORY
History in Portraits
The Tudor Children Henry VIII of England had several children. The best-known are the three legitimate children who survived Henry and succeeded him as monarchs of England successively, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. His first two wives, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, had several pregnancies that ended in stillbirth, miscarriage, or death in infancy. Henry acknowledged one illegitimate child, Henry FitzRoy, as his own, but is suspected to have fathered several illegitimate children by different mistresses.[1] The number and identity of these is a matter of historical debate. There are many theories about whether Henry VIII had fertility difficulties.[2] His last three wives, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr are not known to have conceived by him, although Parr conceived in her next marriage. Mary I Mary Tudor was born in 1516 and reigned as Queen from 1553-1558. She was born at Greenwich Palace and was the only child of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon to survive childhood. As Queen, she attempted to reverse the reformation and return England to the Catholic faith. After her death, Protestant writers called her ‘Bloody Mary’, owing to the number of Protestant ‘heretics’ she had ordered to be executed.
QUEEN MARY I (1516-1558) t he Bloody One
unpleasantly remembered as “the Bloody Mary” on account
of the religious persecutions which prevailed during her reign, was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, born in the earlier years of their married life, when as yet no cloud had darkened the prospect of Henry’s reign. Her birth occurred at Greenwich, on Monday, the 18th February 1516, and she was baptized on the following Wednesday, Cardinal Wolsey standing as her godfather. Her name deserved better treatment than it has generally met with; for she was far from cruel. Her kindness to poor people is undoubted, and the severe execution of her laws seemed only a necessity. Her conduct as queen was certainly governed by the best possible intentions; and it is evident that her very zeal for goodness caused most of the trouble she brought upon herself. Her subjects were entirely released, even by papal authority, from any obligation to restore the confiscated lands of the Church. But she herself made it an object, at her own expense, to restore several of the monasteries; and courtiers who did not like to follow her example, encouraged the fanatics to spread an alarm that it would even yet be made compulsory. So the worldly minded joined hands with the godly heretics in stirring up enmity against her.
Elizabeth I Elizabeth was born in 1533 and reigned as Queen from 1558-1603. Like her half sister Mary I, Elizabeth was born at Greenwich Palace in London. The only daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was only 2 and a half years old when her mother was executed. After Anne Boleyn’s execution, Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and deprived of the title of ‘princess’. However before his death in 1547, Henry VIII reinstated both his daughters in the line of succession. Famous for being the ‘virgin queen’ as she never married, Elizabeth set England back on the Protestant path after Mary I’s attempt to return the country to Catholicism. Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1554 by Mary I. Edward VI Edward was born in 1537 and reigned as King from 1547-1553. He was the eagerly awaited son of Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour. King by the tender age of 9, Edward was raised a devout Protestant and in 1549, the English Prayer Book (or Book of Common Prayer) was issued with the Act of Uniformity to enforce it.
BESPOKE HOME, HEART & HISTORY
HISTORY / BESPOKE
EDWARD VI The Boy King Edward was king of England for only a few years, and died at 15, but his short reign saw the full-scale introduction of Protestantism. Edward was born on 12 October 1537 at Hampton Court Palace, the only legitimate son of Henry VIII. Henry’s desperation for a son had led him to divorce two wives, but Edward’s mother, Henry’s third wife Jane Seymour, died a few days after his birth. Edward was given a rigorous education and was intellectually precocious, although his health was never strong. Edward became king at the age of nine, when his father died in January 1547. His father had arranged that a council of regency should rule on his behalf, but Edward’s uncle, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, took power and established himself as protector. Somerset and the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, were intent on making England a truly Protestant state, supported by the young king. An English Prayer Book was issued in 1549 with an Act of Uniformity to enforce it. It soon became clear that Edward was suffering from tuberculosis and would not live long. Northumberland was determined that his religious reforms should not be undone, so he persuaded Edward to approve a new order of succession. This declared Mary illegitimate and passed the throne to Northumberland’s daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, who was a more distant descendant of Henry VIII. Edward died on 6 July 1553. However, Jane was only queen for a few days until, with overwhelming popular support, Mary took the throne.
ELIZABETH I The V irgin Queen Elizabeth, the last Tudor monarch, was born in Greenwich on 7 September 1533. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. When Elizabeth was just two years old, her mother was beheaded for adultery on the orders of her father and she was exiled from court. In later years Catherine Parr, Henry’s sixth wife, took a keen interest in the young Elizabeth and made sure that she was educated to the highest standards. In 1553, Elizabeth’s older half-sister Mary became queen. Mary was determined to re-establish Catholicism in England and viewed the Protestant Elizabeth as a direct threat. Elizabeth was briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1554 following a failed rebellion, of which she claimed no knowledge. A Golden Age In November 1558, after the death of Mary I, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne. Some see Elizabeth’s 45 year reign as a golden age of English history. She was a
shrewd and intelligent woman who was fluent in six languages. Elizabeth’s first priority on becoming Queen was to return England to the Protestant faith. Yet she declared that she did not want to “make windows into men’s souls” and was satisfied as long as her subjects gave an outward show of conformity. Elizabeth helped create a Church of England that, although Protestant, allowed some of the old Catholic traditions to continue. Elizabeth chose an able set of administrators to aid her during her rule, including William Cecil, Lord Burghley as her Secretary of State and Sir Francis Walsingham, in charge of intelligence. Elizabeth’s reign also saw England significantly expand its trade overseas and in 1580 Sir Francis Drake became the first Englishman to successfully circumnavigate the earth. The arts flourished in England during this period as Shakespeare, Spenser and Marlowe created poetry and drama while composers such as Byrd and Tallis worked in Elizabeth’s court.
BESPOKE BESPOKE / HISTORIC FACTS
BESPOKE / HISTORIC FACTS
THE TUDOR ROSE (sometimes called the Union rose) is the traditional floral heraldic emblem of England and takes its name and origins from the Tudor dynasty. When Henry VII took the crown of England from Richard III in battle (1485), he brought the end of the Wars of the Roses between the House of Lancaster (which used the badge of a red rose) and the House of York (which used a white-rose badge). Henry’s father was Edmund Tudor from the House of Richmond, and his mother was Margaret Beaufort from the House of Lancaster; in January 1486 he married Elizabeth of York to bring all factions together. The historian Thomas Penn writes: The “Lancastrian” red rose was an emblem that barely existed before Henry VII. Lancastrian kings used the rose sporadically, but when they did it was often gold rather than red; Henry VI, the king who presided over the country’s descent into civil war, preferred his badge of the antelope. Contemporaries certainly did not refer to the traumatic civil conflict of the 15th century as the “Wars of the Roses”. For the best part of a quarter-century, from 1461 to 1485, there was only one royal rose, and it was white: the badge of Edward IV. The roses were actually created after the war by Henry VII. On his marriage, Henry VII adopted the Tudor rose badge conjoining the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster. The Tudor rose is occasionally seen divided in quarters (heraldically as “quartered”) and vertically (in heraldic terms per pale) red and white.[2] More often, the Tudor rose is depicted as a double rose,[3] white on red and is always described, heraldically, as “proper”.
A ROYAL HOUSEHOLD
A PATTERN BOOK “In Medieval times, book illustrators aimed to produce very rich illustrations to decorate their books. For inspiration they kept pattern or model books. These books contained jottings of anything that caught the illustrator’s eye: figures, animals, monsters, decorative capital letters, borders, motifs. But these weren’t drawn firsthand - they were all borrowed from earlier books, paintings or glass windows. [..] Pattern books were practical tools and also helped to circulate artistic traditions and ideas around the manuscript making community. Because they were working documents, passing between many different people, few medieval pattern books have survived.” The present work, Bodleian MS. Ashmole 1504 (‘The Tudor Pattern Book’), is unique in the sense that it is part-bestiary, part-herbal and an important visual record of early cultivated plants. It was produced in East Anglia in about 1520 and its twin (known as the ‘Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary’ and perhaps a little older than the Ashmole variant) is now part of the Yale Center for British Art collection in Virginia Newhaven, Connecticut.
Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Greater London, in the historic county of Middlesex, and within the postal town East Molesey, Surrey; it has not been inhabited by the British Royal Family since the 18th century. The palace is 11.7 miles (18.8 kilometres)