Making the Plates Dance : Ali Smith

Delightful talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival given by Ali Smith.
 
As the first event of the festival Ali Smith had been commissioned to write a piece about the newly rediscovered dinner service decorated by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell for Kenneth Clarke. It was a stunning prose poem, appropriately a stream of consciousness on various topics suggested by the paints. It covered the artists, the women shown on the plates, various definitions of the word plate and plates in the works of Virginia Woolf and of the women shown.
 
It was delivered at a cracking, exciting pace bringing out the rhythm of the words. We just now need a published version so we can comb through the detail in it.
 
A great start to a fantastic 12 days of talks, ideas and good company. I can’t keep up with writing up all the events so I’ll concentrate on those to do with art and design.


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