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Posts from the ‘Art’ Category

Nov 23

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The Lisbon Sketch – Norm Monument to Discoveries

If there’s one thing that Norms do really well, it’s make a good old discovery. Why, only the other day, Henrique Norm discovered that he could eat 5 blackforest gateaux in one go, while Françoise Norm discovered that if she bounces really hard from Les Champs des Mars, she can make it almost as high as the first floor of the Tour Eiffel.

Of course Henrique and Françoise are not alone in the fascinating little discoveries made amongst Norms all over Normland every day. But the same too went for their ancestors, and it was in celebration of some of the great discoveries of the Portuguese Norms that at the beginning of the last century, the Norm Prime Minister of Portugal decided to build a great monument paying homage to their discoveries for all eternity. Why, up there on the “Padrão dos Descobrimentos” (as they call it) is Pedro Norm, who discovered that combining some eggs, pastry, sugar and a little cinnamon makes the most delicious little pastries, not to mention Bonifácio Norm, who single handedly circumnavigated the globe in search of exotic flavours for his favourite jellied desserts.

And here it is, the Norm Monument to Discoveries – discover it for yourself…

The Norm Monument to Discoveries, Lisbon (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Nov 22

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Lisbon – The Photos: Part II

It’s time for the second raft of my photographic tour of lisbon, a tiny digitalised image captured in time, but helping me to immortalise colourful, beautiful Lisbon in my memories for life. From graffiti galore and trams aplenty, there’s chipped ceramics and cast iron door knockers; beautiful pink bourganvilla casting long shadows across white-washed walls, and triumphal statues standing still and staring boldly across the city. In Lisbon I captured ancient religious icons inspiring solemnity and awe, and the vivid feathers of a peacock, nature’s great gift to us all. There’s wavy paving patterns, dilapidated old doors, and the chestnut seller filling the street with great billowing festive smoke; there’s stone steps in the sunlight, tram wires criss-crossing the sky and elegant fountains glittering in the sun.

This is Lisbon, captured on my camera.

All photographs and content © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Nov 21

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Lisbon – The Photos: Part I

It already feels so far away, our time in Lisbon. The realities of daily London life, the rush hour on the tube, the cold fronts and the grubby newspapers, the traffic jams and the lack of sun, all play their part in driving a wedge deeper between today and our holiday in the vivacious, exciting and at all times colourful Portuguese capital. Luckily, with a wade of 1200 photographs constantly on slideshow in my flat, I can never truly feel the true isolatory chill of winter knocking at my door, so long as the warm hues of my Lisbon photographs pour life back into my home.

After some 6 posts, you’d think I’d have run out of photographs, but there are many many more I could share. I therefore plan to publish what is really just a handful of some of my favourite shots across two photography posts devoted to Lisbon. These photos don’t really need captions or much introduction. They are, of themselves, a group of varied snapshots of Lisbon, its architecture, its colours, its people, and its more unique facets; a cascade of quick glimpses into the life and the look of an incomparable, soulful and visually titillating city. From the smallest of details, like the tile-lined step of a little town house, to the vast awe-inspiring views over the Tagus river, this is Lisbon, captured on my camera.

All photographs and content © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Nov 17

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Lisbon – Day Three: The Prince of Belém

West of central Lisbon, in an area separated on the tourist map by a large swathe of un-chartered city (at least by the travel guides – presumably the neighbourhood is deemed unattractive to tourists) is the area of Belém. It’s quite a hassle to get to. You need to take a tram (or a taxi which actually, so we found, doesn’t cost all that much more) which, sadly, is not one of the rickety old pre-war types, but a modern sleeker affair (well I say sleek by way of comparison, but in fact most were covered with graffiti, their seats falling apart at the seams and the polythene sponge falling out). The tram journey we embarked upon was not altogether successful. The tram was rammed like the sardines for which Portugal is so famous, but the journey didn’t take us far. We got almost as far as the Ponte 25 de Abril before the tram stopped, without reason, and we were all unceremoniously ejected from the tram. Not knowing an alternative way to travel, and being literally shooed away by the driver of the equally packed tram behind, we set out on foot. This took us under the mightly Ponte 25 de Abril which literally towered above the streets of this Lisbon suburb. In fact it looked as though the various concrete plinths holding up the bridge were planted in people’s gardens, as the huge red metal form soared right above an entire residential district. It made for quite a paradoxical sight.

Having walked past the bridge, and with Belém still some distance away, we were lucky enough to coincide with the arrival of another, much emptier tram as it approached a bus stop. We were away. And we even got a seat, albeit no longer cushioned by the long disintegrated polythene padding that once sat upon it.

In no time we had arrived at Belém. Situated at the mouth of the River Tagus, where the river opens out into the vast Atlantic Ocean and the end of continental Europe, the region is inextricably linked with Portugal’s golden age of travel and discovery. As a result, the area has sprung up with a surprising wealth of monuments, churches and gardens despite its distance from central Lisbon, and is consequently a must of the tourist trail. Amongst those many monuments is the more contemporary and yet no less striking Monument to the Discoveries (Padrão dos Descobrimentos). Standing prominently on the Belém waterfront, the immense angular monument was built in the 1960s to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator and features likenesses of many of Portugal’s great Discoverers, including Vasco de Gama and Pedro Alvares Cabral (the discoverer of Brazil). Having been commissioned by the Salazar regime, it’s not surprising that it is quite blatantly arrogant in its prominence and unapologetic  historical propaganda, and it has something of a look of a communist monument about it. Still, there’s no denying its impact, nor the splendour of its location, overhanging the Tagus against a backdrop of the 25 de Abril bridge.

Bolstered by the good weather, and having gawped to our satisfaction at the Discoveries monument, we headed on a pleasant river-side stroll, stopping off at an Ibiza-esk all white chic waterfront bar for a requisite morning coffee and a touch of sun-inspired abandon. Next on the agenda though was the Torre de Belém, a little fortress emerging straight out of the sandy beach like a child’s sandcastle, but with all of the strength of the war machine and guardian of the city which was its design and purpose. For a fortress, the tower was surprisingly elegant in its intricate stone work and heavily adorned terrace, whose balustrades and battlements were of such varying shapes and sizes that they reminded me of the chimneyed rooftop of Gaudi’s Casa Mila in Barcelona.

Up a very steep and very narrow winding staircase, with regular stops as tourists attempted to squeeze past each other with unfortunate proximity (there was sadly no one-way system – these castles weren’t built for tourists, after all) we eventually made it to the top terrace. Ahh, up there with the sun on my face and the brisk ocean wind ruffling my hair, with a view across the Atlantic, sweeping down towards central Lisbon and the vibrant red suspension bridge beyond, I felt like the Prince of Belém, guardian of the city, King of the Castle.

But of course all dreams must come to an end. I was, after all, being butted in the back by the large cameras of the bustle of overzealous tourists nearby, each one leaning over the battlements attempting to capture the best view of Lisbon and the Monument of Discoveries in the foreground. Time to leave, and back along the river, where a luncheon at Portugalia, a traditional affair, ensued, but with a picture perfect view of the Monument and a face full of sun. One can’t moan.

Belém is like a tourist paradise. There’s so much to see and do, and with light fading fast, we did not repose unduly. For the soaring towers and the elaborately crafted Mosterio dos Jerónimos awaited, a vast monastery complex which also benefited from the riches brought back to Portugal during the Age of Discovery, and rather appropriately hosting the burial place of one of the greatest discoverers of them all, Vasco de Gama. The Nave and the Portal of the large adjoining church were undoubtedly stunning, but my favourite area was the sun-soaked tranquility of the stone-wrought cloisters, engraved with a multitude of carved creatures and plants, geometric patterns and soaring gothic arches. Also there was the cute little lion-shaped fountain (dried up, like many of Lisbon’s water features), heraldic animal of St Jerome.

Almost ready to drop, but with one place more to go. The Museu Colecção Berardo Arte Moderna e Contemporânea is another cruicial stop on Lisbon’s art trail, an impressive collection of art from the business mogul and collector José Manuel Rodrigues Berardo which boasts some 1000 works and provides a rich compendium of a century of modern and contemporary art including Picasso, Dali, Warhol, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Jeff Koons and, to my great pleasure, a huge swinging mobile by Calder. The gallery could easily compete with the almost unconquerable Tate Modern, not least because in guiding visitors through a chronologically curated ordering of modern art, it presented all visitors with a visually interactive education of the multifaceted changes which rocked the world of contemporary aesthetics.

Henry Moore

The Museum of Modern Art

Calder Mobile

Quite exhausted, we were in no mood for the tram. Leaving a sunset-softened Monument of Discoveries behind us, we rushed off along the riverfront in a taxi which cost us only 20 centimos more than the tram, and refreshed by the comparative convenience of the journey were much buoyed to find opposite our hotel a bar of utterly indulgent romantic boudoir-resembling beauty. Draped with lavish scarlet damask wallpaper, and crammed full with gilt-framed mirrors, chandeliers and art nouveau lighting of every size and variety, statuettes, an amplitude of armchairs, flickering candles and all species of paraphernalia straight out of the Versailles court,  this bar (appropriate called the Pensão Amor, looked more like a Moulin Rouge brothel, but was so excessively indulgent that as I sat there drinking tea, and then (inevitably) port, I began to redesign my entire hallway in my head to emulate it.

The lavish darkness of the Love Pensão

Can things get any better than this? Well they did at dinner – a feast fit for the Prince of Belém himself, in the restaurant of celebrity chef Henrique Sa Pessoa – Alma. But let me lavish praise no further – that exquisite dinner needs a post all of its own. Until then… Let Lisbon sleep, and our feet recover in time for Day 4 of our own age of discoveries.

Photographs and content © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Nov 16

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Lisbon – Day Two: The Ages of the Sea

The super-soft bedding of the Lx Boutique Hotel made getting up difficult, even though one 90 degree tilt upwards would reveal a picture-postcard view across the city of Lisbon, over the Tagus towards the San-Francisco inspired scarlet-red suspension bridge, the Ponte 25 de Abril and the Rio inspired giant statute of Jesus puncturing the landscape beyond. Having made the leap of faith and breathed in the yellow-hued light of this bright new city, energy levels were replenished by a nourishing breakfast, back in the Japanese restaurant of the night before (which happens to double up as the hotel’s breakfast room) but (perhaps mercifully?) was not Japanese-themed for the morning shift. Rather a few pastries (but a decided lack of the Portuguese speciality pastel de nata) later and we were on our feet, making the climb up the steeply undulating streets of the Bairro Alto (high quarter), the cobbled and bustling shopping district atop one of Lisbon’s two central hills.

Cristo-Rei, seen from our room

And once the mist has cleared

The Lisbon of the morning is a different place to the Lisbon of night. By day, the city gains a vibrancy all of its own, as rickety old pre-war yellow and red trams rumble along the endless grid of tram lines crisscrossing the cobbled streets, making that characteristic metallic screech at every bend and corner, locals hang out at little cafe kiosks catching up on the often miserable news, shop keepers linger out on the pavement trying to drum up trade (which, they tell us, is limited) and workers and visitors alike bustle about with energy, but not stress.

We joined that popular bustle, heading around the Bairro and taking in the very juxtaposed landscape, from the bright red walls of the Teatro da Trindade and the intricately pained tiled facades of many a house and shopfront, to the decadent art deco exterior of the Tavares restaurant and the eery skeletal arches of the Igreja do Carmo, once a Carmelite church and one of the largest in Lisbon, but now, as a half collapsed shell, a poignant reminder of the earthquake which destroyed so much of the city in 1755. Delicate details were all around these streets for the drinking – I loved the statue of Eça de Quieros by Teixeira Lopes, showing a novelist inspired by a scantily veiled muse, and the street lamps whose ironwork features the ship which is today the emblem of Lisbon, a boat which, so legend dictates, carried the remains of the martyred St Vincent safely to Lisbon protected by ravens.

Pastel de nata

While the Bairro Alto could no doubt have amused us all day, our central aim was dedicated to art. North of the city, close to the  sprawling Parque Eduardo VII is the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, which houses the vast art collection of Armenian oil magnate, Calouste Gulbenkian and which was bequeathed to the city by the multi-millionaire in the 1960s. The museum comprises a surprisingly rich collection, boasting Picasso, Manet, Turner, Gainsborough and Constable amongst its prized exhibited artists, and including a truly beautiful collection of Lalique glassware by the art nouveau genius René Lalique. This hat pin (below) depicting a dragon fly morphed into the elegant female figure of the belle époque was just stunning. Meanwhile, for the more modern works including Robert Delaunay and José de Almada Negreiros, you only have to head across a very tranquil park to explore this extension of the same collection, all housed within a super-cool iconically 60s designed gallery which also provides visitors with a welcome retro little cafe and those famous pastel de nata which must feature on every self-respecting Portuguese menu.

Lalique’s jewellery

But for a museum which just keeps on giving, the real highlight from the Gulbenkian foundation, for me, was the temporary exhibition, The Ages of the Sea, which runs from 26 October 2012-27 January 2013. Containing some 109 paintings brought together from across the world, the show, which is supported by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, is based on an historical survey of the visual representation of the Sea and seeks to identify the major themes which led to its extensive and recurrent depiction in Western Painting. Across themes split into six sections – myths, power, labour, shipwrecks, the ephemeral and the quest for infinity, the collection was not short of big names, including Van Goyen, Lorrain, Turner, Constable, Friedrich, Courbet, Boudin, Manet, Monet, Signac, Fattori, Sorolla, Klee, De Chirico, Hopper. The result was an exhibition which literally exuded the salty-sweet freshness of the sea, the bright feeling of freedom when one stands on the edge of a vast sunny coastline, the feeling of trepidation when met with an ocean stirred up by the forces of weather, wind and rain, and the feeling of awe when the land ends and only a vast watery mass spreads from the beach to the very edges of the horizon. Walking around the exhibit was like looking through a hundred windows on the coast from all over the world. It was like taking a hundred holidays all at once, a hundred walks along a beachside promenade, a hundred embraces of the ocean’s advances.

Of the many masterpieces on show, it was the fresher, more modern works which caught my eye. In particular I adored Luís Noronha da Costa’s From Subnaturalism to Supernaturalism, which in close up was such a simple work – one layer of semi-transparent paint over another – but stepping away revealed a peaceful seascape at sunset; I loved too Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso’s  The Sloop, an unusual take on a ship wreck in a stormy sea; and I was captivated by the unusual coastal scene painted by Edward Hopper, better known for being the painter of introspective loners in cafes.

Luís Noronha da Costa, From Subnaturalism to Supernaturalism (Cold Painting), 1988

Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, The Sloop, 1914

Edward Hopper, Square Rock, 1914

But perhaps the greatest picture of them all was the real landscape of Lisbon with which we ended our day. Heading back down to the centre, through the impressive expanse of the Praça dos Restauradores (albeit littered as it is with drug sellers who approached us 8 times) and up the steep slope of the Calçada da Gloria (up which a popular tourist tram climbs slowly at fairly regular intervals) we were greeted with the greatest of all rewards for our exhausting trek up hill – in the Miradouro de Sao Pedro de Alcantara, we found a little fountained square which presented such a stunning vista across the Baixa and over to the Castelo de Sao Jorge that it was worth a thousand paintings.

So what way to end this day packed full of such new discovery that we felt like Vasco da Gama himself? Why, two glasses of that other Portuguese speciality of course – Port – which we enjoyed in the elegant surroundings of the Solar do Vinho do Porto, a Port bar with some 200 ports on the menu, set within a grand 18th century mansion. We went for the tried and tested method of selecting port by the names which most prominently jumped out at us – and it worked a treat. Our first choice, a 10 year old tawny port was delicate on the palate and golden in colour, while a vintage ruby to follow was dark, deep and rich. No wonder then that one port led to another, and then a deliciously decadent dinner followed in the Restaurante Olivier just down the road, with a 10-course tasting menu as a starter and another bottle of the good stuff. I could get used to this.

Photographs and wording © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Nov 14

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Happy First Birthday to The Daily Norm!!

Where has a year gone? When I sat down to write my first ever article for The Daily Norm one year ago today, I typed my first words with trepidation. I had chosen my wordpress theme, uploaded some artwork, and now wondered 1) what on earth I would write about and 2) whether people would be interested in what I had to say. One year later, and with 240 posts written, liked and responded to, with 180,099 total views and counting, and with some 510 current followers, I have to wonder why I was so scared. My initial misgivings soon turned to passion, as I caught the blogging bug big time.

Thanks to my blog, I see the world through new eyes – I see the polish and shine in everyday monotony, I appreciate the finer details of an exhibition or a show, I take greater note of names and situations, and I paint and photograph as though my very legacy depended on it. I no longer walk away from an event thinking – what a good show. Now I think – I can’t wait to write about this on my blog. My attitude has changed from solitary satisfaction, to a passion for sharing. I believe it’s worth writing a good post, even if one other person reads it – even if none do at all – for the process of writing about an experience, recalling the light and shade of an occasion, and immortalising an event in words and pictures gives the writer, to my mind, a tremendous sense of satisfaction. It makes you appreciate your life, encourages you to pack every hour with new and worthwhile activities, it installs a fantastic discipline of review and reflection, and it enables small experiences, which may be commonplace in one part of the world, to be shared across the globe.

The Daily Norm office celebrates its first birthday (2012, Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

The Norms (my little white blobs, who were of course the source of and inspiration for this blog) and I would like to thank you all so much for your support, for your readership and for your comments over the last year. We want to thank my dear friend Cassandra who, if she is reading, knows only too well that it was she who suggested I start a blog at that time when I was so down in my life. And we would also like to thank all of those who have kindly nominated the blog for a variety of awards including the “Blog on Fire Award”, the “HUG award” (Hope Uniting Globally), the “Very Inspiring Blogger Award” and the “Versatile Blogger Award”. Your support makes me want to go on blogging, and for that I am truly grateful.

Here’s to another year of the Daily Norm!

Nov 7

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York’s Stained Glass Sensation

My love affair with Yorkshire stained glass started in St Helen and the Holy Cross in the little Yorkshire town of Sheriff Hutton. I was attending the wedding of my dear friend Celia and her husband to be, Tarquin. Asides from being dazzled by the highly unsurprising beauty of the bride, and the elegance of a church bursting with autumnal flowers, berries and warming candles, I was mesmerised by the occasional burst of multi-colour flooding into the little stone church through its wonderfully intricate stained glass windows. Depicting biblical tales with exquisite attention to detail, I stared in wonderment at this unexpected artistic gem set within the ancient walls of very small local church.

The Sheriff Hutton windows

But this was only the start. The following day, drunk on the exuberance of the blissful wedding celebrations of the previous day, I stumbled into the cobbled idyllic streets of York’s medieval centre. The town is a chocolate-box paradise of Dickensian British charm – there were little teddybear shops in creaky crooked houses, oak-framed windows glittering with Halloween and Christmas paraphernalia, and the world famous Betty’s tearoom, with its delightfully old fashioned shop downstairs, manned by two perfectly polite, tie-wearing shop assistants, straight out of Victoriana. But wherever you go in this picturesque little town, the imposing gothic structure of the immense York Minster is never far away.

Having had our fill of Betty’s tea room, and of course a requisite Yorkshire pudding, we headed straight for the Minster. The Minster is an impressively sized and decorated Cathedral, and one of the largest of its kind in Europe. It is in  fact the second largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe, with its present architecture dating back from 1230. Unsurprisingly, the cathedral is rich in its gothic decorations, its medieval carvings of creatures and kings, its shrines and chapel, its intricate choir stalls and equally sumptuous organ pipes. But above all things the Minster is famous for its exquisite stained glass, and of those there are many.

Upon entering the Minster, we initially gawped at the entrance fee – £9, not including a tour of the tower, although owing to the gloom which had descended upon the city, we thought it was probably safe to give that a miss. Having bought our tickets, and swallowed the cost, we began to understand why the admission price was so high. Not only is the cathedral brilliantly preserved, with interactive displays for the visitor and a host of curiosities and architectural splendor to view, the Minster is undergoing a major renovation of those very same windows for which it is so famed.

The “orb”

The windows, which are the largest examples of surviving medieval stained glass windows in the world, are a spectacular display of medieval craftsmanship. Some 2 million individually painted pieces of glass make up the cathedral’s 128 stained glass windows which need constant renovation and cleaning in order to preserve the masterpieces for future generations. However, so often it is impossible to fully appreciate the true intricate beauty of a window on this scale, from the ground. On our visit however, we were in luck. Of all the windows, the most stunning is the Great East Window, the likes of which was undergoing renovation when we visited. Usually this would be cause for complaint, but not so on our visit – rather, having opened a new “orb” to display freshly renovated panels from the great window, we were afforded the invaluable opportunity to study the intricacies of the windows, lit from behind, in all their detailed beauty.

The results can be seen from these photos I took inside the orb. It’s hard to believe that these intrinsically contemporary images stem from the medieval period, with their gorgeous details such as leafy damask backgrounds, radiant angelic faces, and the use of vibrant coloured glass which, when cleaned, gleams to stunning effect. I was so overawed by the beauty of these windows that I felt compelled to devote an entire post to their glory – how sad that the entire window cannot always be so admired in its details. But without a stairwell allowing visitors to reach the top of the window and the various levels in between, there will inevitably be beautiful panels such as these which will forever be confined to the sky-like heights of the cathedral, viewed in detail only by those charged with the window’s renovation. How fantastic then was this opportunity to see a few of those panels up close. Suddenly that £9 entrance fee seemed excellent value.

The orb will remain at York Minster until 2015. The restoration of the Great East Window is expected to be completed by the summer of 2016.

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Nov 5

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Norm Christmas Cards – now for sale on Etsy!

Halloween is over, the evenings are quickly darkening, and there are only 7 weeks until Christmas – so the time has surely come to get your Christmas cards in order. Here on the Daily Norm, we like to help out with these little things, and in the spirit of spreading the Norms’ reach criss-crossing around the globe this festive season, the Norms have printed their very own Christmas cards in the hope that readers of the Daily Norm from around the world will also help to spread a little Norm festive cheer this year.

Hot off the press, these Christmas cards are prints of my 2011 paintings, Santa Norm and Snowman Norm. With whimsical, quirky, colourful and Christmasy artwork, these cards are both original and artistic ways of wishing your friends, family and associates a very Happy Christmas. With these cards, you will truly be sending a work of art this Christmas!

The Cards consist of a high quality, semi-gloss image printed onto sizeable A5 cardboard (148 x 210 cm/ 8.3 x 5.8 inches). Each cellophane wrapped pack of 10 cards comes with 5 cards of both the Snowman and Santa Norm design and 10 matching white envelopes. The inside of the cards reads: “WARMEST WISHES FOR A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR”.

And most importantly of all, they are available on my Etsy shop right here!

Now I don’t mean to turn my blog into a sales room, but since Norm is the new Holly (not to mention the Ivy), these cards are pretty much a must for those in the know this year. Need I say more?

Seasons greetings from the Norms (it’s early I know, but Norms are very organised creatures).

Nov 4

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Sunday Supplement – The Spanish Double

For the last few weeks on a Sunday, I have been exploring the collection of 10 paintings I created during my convalescence from an accident between 2008-2010. True, the subject matter is not easy to write about, nor, possibly, easy to read, but I hope you will agree that these paintings are amongst the most worthy of my works for further exploration and examination. They are, after all, a representation of a potent threshold in my life. When I underwent not just physical change but mentally was forced to mature and re-evaluate life in a way I have never before considered necessary.

In today’s Sunday Supplement, I am featuring two of my accident paintings which almost formed a sub-category of their own. Both were painted, unlike the other 8, when I was convalescing in Spain, both have Spanish titles, both are painted with acrylic paints, rather than oil, and the result of the colours used makes them, in my opinion, a bit more “pop art” in finish.

Desayuno del Norte

Desayuno del Norte (2008 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

In the first of the two, Desayuno del Norte (“Breakfast of the North”), I cross-referenced a Lowry-inspired Northern industrial landscape with symbols of breakfast “desayuno”, while mixing in images direct from the legal world to which, at the point of painting this work, I had prematurely returned. Of all my accident paintings, this is perhaps the hardest to explain. It was a mood, a time experienced – a collection of various representations which at that time drove me to paint. In the purple-grey background, a sense of my depression and frustration at that time is shown, a time which is appropriately catalogued as Christmas by the holly on a jug of sticky dark gravy which pervades the piece. The industrial landscape is proliferated with an abundance of mauve smoke, while from one of the bigger chimneys in the foreground, the question “why me?” looms large.

While in the accident paintings before this one, I had painted feet, here, I paint a trainer – the specially fitted trainers which were integral to enabling me to travel into work and get around each day, along with the crutch, whose presence cuts across the canvas on the right. Meanwhile, in referencing breakfast throughout the painting, the eggs mark a note of the fragility of my recovery, the blood-like jelly pouring from the trainer suggests my continuing pain, the orange represents my location at the time of painting – Marbella in Southern Spain – and the Marmite gives a clue as to my fading appetite and loss of weight  – it was the only thing I could often bring myself to eat, spread on the toast hovering somewhere below it. Meanwhile, running throughout the painting are the double yellow lines of road markings – these representing prohibition and interdiction – a cessation of my liberty, both physically and in my profession in the overtly constrictive legal world of London’s Bar.

La Marcha de los Champiñones 

La Marcha de los Champiñones (2009 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

Road traffic symbols are continued in the second painting of this series, La Marcha de los Champiñones (“The March of the Mushrooms”), which represents two major events of my continuing convalescence a year after the original accident – first the fact that my leg became wracked with infection, and secondly that I was required to have my leg re-broken, in order to correct a fixed flexion deformity which had occurred during the healing process (in other words, the leg had healed at a fixed angle, and was unable to lie straight). In this work, I show my leg being re-broken, cut here into slices, each slice revealing, by way of the mushroom-symbol, the spread of infection throughout the limb. Meanwhile, on the outside, huge mushrooms loom over the slightly surreal scene, as the spread of infection becomes worse.

The road traffic symbols in the meantime become more prevalent in this piece. The leg is cordoned off behind road-works ribbon and a road-works warning sign, while the tools and paraphernalia of the workman are all around, including the various pins which were, in reality, holding my leg together (as shown by “windows” allowing the viewer to peer into my metal-ridden leg). A sign diverts pedestrians past the works, but also reminds viewers that throughout my convalescence, one of the worst experiences encountered was the continuous stares of pedestrians on the street, forever gawping at my leg encased in its pins and illizarov frame and covered with dressings and scars.

Meanwhile, the egg which was solid in Desayuno del Norte, has now cracked. The fragility of my steady recovery had given way, and I was back to square one.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Oct 31

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The Daily Sketch: Prepare to Scream… It’s Normaween!!

The full moon is out, and gliding past, the menacing silhouette of a Witch Norm casting a midnight spell. Beneath the moon, the creepy dilapidated outline of a once glorious house, now abandoned, boarded up and left to decay and ruin comes into view. Within the dark echoes of its now empty chambers, something is stirring. A momentary white flash, a flutter in the breeze, the creak of a lone shutter moving in the wind. In the overgrown gardens, the century old tombs of the long dead previous occupants are starting to move. At the strike of midnight something quivers through the ground. The large, rusty Victorian gates swing open, the stone demon gargoyles upon the plinths come to life, the heavy tomb lid begins slowly to shift and at the window of the house, the previously dark interior is replaced by the screaming wide eyes of a Norm devastated by fear. All around the old mansion, Norm ghosts begin to waver and whir in the wind, moaning and howling at this witching hour, and amongst the graves below, the Vampire Norms awaken, eager in their hunt for their fresh intake of sickly sweet blood.

Norms at the Halloween House of Horrors (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Are you scared? You should be. For tonight is Normaween, the night when the Norm dead come back to life, when no Norm is safe from the razor sharp teeth of the roaming Vampire Norms, and every little Norm will cower under his or her bedsheets as the screams of the Norm dead pierce their ears and bring the horrors of the underworld to life.

Keep your lights on, don’t dare go to sleep. Just prepare to scream – for tonight is Normaween!

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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