Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful exhibition in the visitors’ Centre at the Old Royal Naval College Greenwich looking at the Chocolate House run by Grace Tosier in Blackheath in the 18th century. Although the show was small, and used a lot of reproduction pieces, it told the story of this successful establishment clearly and used it to try the wider story of Greenwich from the collapse of the Tudor Palace to a new prosperity in the 18th century. It also explained the chocolate industry and how it became more popular after the British occupied Jamaica in 1655. You could have easily missed the main installation of the show, a lovely recreation of the establishment with a video and soundtrack of likely discussions which took place there. It was hidden behind a modern door to one side. Closes 3 November 2024  

Charming exhibition at the Visitor Centre of the Old Royal Naval College of watercolours and drawings of the town. There was a nice collection of pictures arranged into sections on the park, town and river. Most startling was how busy the river was and I loved the stories of the businesses which sustained the ships. The descriptions were excellent and they came with a good map of where all the sites are now. There were a number of artists I’d not come across before, mainly talented 19th amateurs including Amelia Long and John Nixon, both of whom showed at the annual Royal Academy shows. Closed 27 February 2022    

Interesting exhibition at the Visitor Centre of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich marking 100 years since the founding of the Women’s Royal Naval Service and looking in particular at the role the college played in their training. This was a small exhibition but told the story clearly and well and made good use of photographs and a few objects. They had used nice quotes hanging from the ceiling. It had been researched by members of the University of the Third Age. It looked at how the service had changed over the years starting in the First World War to provide cooks, drivers and telephonists to free up men for the ships through to the first WRNS to go to sea in 1990 and the amalgamation with the Royal Navy in 1993. There were some delightful and interesting stories. Closes on 3 December 2017  

What can best be described as a happening in Greenwich! When wandering in Greenwich I turned a corner to find a large very thing! It turns out it is called Bloom and describes itself as “an urban toy, a distributed social game and collective “gardening” experience that seeks the engagement of people in order to construct fuzzy BLOOM formations”. Ay the wiser, not sure I am but it was fun. It’s a series of flat pink pieces of plastic which can be clipped together to create firms. The core is put together by designers but then it moves to different sites and passers by join in and add new section or build their own designs. It was lovely to see a family concentrating on putting the bits together, often with the Dad’s having the most fun!