Granite and Gesso

 This film was shown for a week in November 2025, ending with the Winter Festival. I really enjoyed this film and watched it twice through.  Hetain worked with craftspeople and hobbyists across the country, cataloguing the things people do quietly, often behind closed doors, for their own well-being.  These things are of huge value and give a sense of identity.   The film takes excerpts of people doing their activities, practicing their crafts and the things they make.  It's meditative and full of a quiet joy.  There is so much beauty in the things people do.  I think it would be easy to focus on the traditional too but there were plenty of aspects from both male and female groups without an attempt to make things unisex.  The car fanatics were male, stood looking stern with their beautiful cars and the wild swimmers were female and joyfully cold.  Crafts featured included needle felting and a potter making tiny vases but also painted mi...

 This exhibition is running until the 30th November 2025 Although I am not Cornish, I have lived in Cornwall for a long time and am married to a Cornishman.  I really appreciated the viewpoints offered in this exhibition.  The exhibition tells the story of eight people, with the full stories online and excerpts and photographs in the gallery.  I really appreciated Seamus' observations that Cornwall is a complex place, you get to know your tiny bit, but your bit may be very different to someone else's bit.  That tourist's who say they know Cornwall very well and come here every year, don't know Cornwall really, because it's impossible even as someone who has lived here their entire life to truly know Cornwall.  It's a big county. I felt that for those that live locally, the exhibition was full of validation, things we can relate to.  Its great to see different perspectives and expand your own.  For those that don't live here full time, the tourists...

 This is a lovely museum based in Truro.  Entrance to the museum is £10 but includes an annual pass.  The museum used to be a bank and it's a grand building.  The first room you enter is double height with a gallery round the first floor.  At the far end of the room is a grand staircase which splits to the left and right part way up.   This first room covers Cornwall, it's history and identity.  To the left is the Minerals Gallery and to the right is the Nature Gallery.  These three galleries have recently refurbished and look great.  The collections in these three are permanent. Upstairs, the gallery is used to display art and this is also a permanent exhibition featuring a rotation of art held by the museum.  There is a further permanent exhibition upstairs which looks at ancient civilizations and includes the mummified remains of an Egyptian priest.  Not sure how I feel about human remains, but it's a fascinating exhibition ...

 This was a good fun night.  Josh is a familiar comedian to many because of his regular appearances on television.  He was exactly as you would expect.  While he engaged plenty with the audience, it wasn't in a way that humiliated those he spoke with.  He is not a mean comedian.  I like that.  It makes me uncomfortable when comedians are mean though I know many find it very funny.  I know also, that many deliberately choose to sit near the front just so they can get picked on.  It's a matter of choice. Josh is not a comedian that needs to pick on people to be funny, he just is funny.  There is a 'set' but it feels very fluid.  I imagine if you saw multiple performances, they would likely be quite different.  There would be threads of material in common but it was clear that he dropped some threads and added others.  For instance, he started talking about the show Gladiators and then moved on to something else without expan...

Cornwall's only city is a lovely place to explore.  I think my favourite way to get to Truro would be by boat.  I have only done this trip once because it comes from Falmouth.  The Fal River is a beautiful ria, a river valley that has been flooded by the sea.  It's network of wooded creeks are lovely.  Enterprise Boat Trips run boat trips up the Fal from Falmouth to Malpas, a small village just outside Truro.  There are also some boats that stop at Trelissick Gardens on the way to Truro.   The Fal is not as it once was with regards to shipping.  Its hard to believe boats used to come all the way in to the heart of Truro.  Lemon Quay and Back Quay have long since been filled in to create the Piazza.  The river is tidal and frequently an expanse of mud is what you find if you follow the river out of the centre of Truro.  This is why the boats dock at Malpas.  In 2025 the boats had a connecting bus service in to Truro. ...

 This tour has now finished but they already have dates for their next tour released, The Legends in Vegas. Strictly Come Dancing is a huge part of many people's lives in the UK.  It has brought dance in to homes across the country in a way it just wasn't before.  While ball room and latin may not appeal to the youngest and coolest of us, I think Strictly has contributed to the popularisation of all forms of dance.  It's been going since 2004 and has seen many stars come and go and had it's fair share of controversy over the years. There are dancers who became huge parts of the show and retain their loyal fans, so that even though they are reaching their 50s, people still want to see them perform.  They still have star quality.  Five of these stars have come together to form the Legends.  These are Vincent Simone (King of the Argentine Tango, short Italian, great eyebrows),  Ian Waite (very tall, amazing legs and openly gay), Pasha Kovalev (all ro...

 This exhibition has now finished. Luke Jerram is an artist who is probably best known for his very large models of celestial bodies.  His projects have included Gaia (the Earth), Helios (the sun), Museum of the Moon and now Mars.  Each of the models is huge, metres across.  High resolution NASA photos are used in the reproductions and they are lit up from the inside.  They also rotate slowly so you can sit and contemplate.... There are more than one of each of these and they may be in more than one place at a time.  They have been touring cathedrals across the UK for instance but they also visit festivals, museums and outside spaces.  There are some incredibly striking images of these models in different places, for instance Helios suspended within the ruined Fountains Abbey. We were lucky enough to see Gaia at Truro Cathedral some time back so I was determined to see Mars when it visited.  It is awe inspiring to see these models and fascinating ...

 This exhibition was at the cathedral from 13th October to 2nd November 2025 Tucked away at the back of the cathedral was a small but mightily moving exhibition called Tears of Gold.  The exhibition features self-portraits made by Christian women from north Nigeria who have survived violent persecution.  Some of them were kidnapped and forcibly married to members of Hamas.  Others were raped and tortured.  Some were accepted back in to their communities while others suffered further persecution and loss.  But they were all traumatised. The portraits were produced as part of a programme to help them deal with their trauma.  Many of the portraits included golden tears to represent transforming suffering in to hope.  I loved the inclusion of vibrant African fabrics. Each self-portrait was accompanied by a little detail of their story and a portrait of each woman by Hannah Rose Thomas, a British artist who worked with the women. These things shouldn't...

In recent years, Truro Cathedral has become a great venue for the community with many events that you would not perhaps expect.  I would say that of these the one I least expected is the Cathedral Masquerade Ball on New Years Eve.  It looks to be an amazing black tie event with aerial performers and alcohol till the early hours.   It isn't such a stretch to imagine concerts and the like, if you also have a ball there, but they regularly have silent disco's and yoga too.  Truro and Penwith College hold their graduation ceremony here.  There is also a popular Christmas Market. My absolute favourite events appear to be annual at the moment.  The first is by an artist called Luke Jerram, who creates huge models of different celestial bodies, such as the moon, planets and the sun.  These have featured so far in the autumn.  In January, there have been displays by Luxmuralis which feature a staggering array of projections set to sound.  Not to...

 I love the Hall for Cornwall.  Its a really great venue and looks amazing following it's recent refurbishment. It's a historic old building that was originally the city hall and included a market place and civic rooms.  Originally, it backed on to the river with boats mooring at the back but Lemon Quay and Back Quay were infilled in stages creating the Piazza.  In the 1920s, the market hall was remodelled as a performance space.  Although it was used for music events, it was also used for fatstock shows. Following a period of deterioration it was renovated and reopened as a theatre in 1997.  I went to it during this period and it was very different to how it is now.  It was one long slope of seats to the back with a walkway across halfway up.  It felt like the building had been covered up and hidden inside It closed again in 2018 for refurbishment before reopening in 2021.  The theatre now has seating on three floors so has considerably incr...

It can be hard to know what you are going to get when you visit the theatre.  You read a few lines but most of the time, you just don't know.  Maybe its a musical you know some of the songs to, a play you know the story or genre of, a music artist  or celebrity dancers that you know.  Its good not to always see the familiar though and take a risk. When I saw Hidden in the listings for the Hall for Cornwall, I knew I wanted to see it.  Described as dance circus, I thought it would be stunning and pictured a series of dance performance acts. We had good tickets, brought early and had a great view.  We were in the side slips and sometimes you can miss a little of the action on the edges of the stage closest to you and the closest back corner.  This production though took place on a large floor covering that finished a metre or so before the sides of the stage, so there was literally nothing we missed. Unfortunately, my husband ended up not being able to g...

This is an tiny ongoing exhibition in one of the lifts at Tate St Ives. It would be easy to do nothing with a lift but when you only have so much space, I guess you start to see things differently and get creative.  The lift within the exhibition space is a prime display area.  Children at local schools worked with artist Peach Doble to create their own works of art.  All these different images have been combined and placed on panels that replace the original panels in the lift.  Its a stunning and overwhelming display of creativity.  There are so many things to look at and I have never been in such a small and colourful space that is so full and exuberant.   It was so lovely, I went up and down twice. I like the idea of giving local children a place in a world class art gallery

This is a smaller exhibition in Gallery 10 of Tate St Ives until 8th March 2026. I really enjoyed this exhibition even though it only consists of six works.  Ahmet is from Turkey but was given a two month residency in St Ives, where he developed new work inspired by the local landscape.   Ahmet has a series of work inspired by the standing stones of Anatolia which he adapted to St Ives with four new works on display at the Tate.  These works are Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and Venus and evoke neolithic standing stones, the geology of the area and the metals mined here.  I loved the tiny glint of metals shining through on works that looked so perfect, they could otherwise have been prints. On the opposite wall were two pieces that were completed over a number of years and must have been meditative pieces worked on between others.  They were both huge, maybe three metres long?  They appeared to be thick white paper painted black.  The images were created...

 This display has now come to an end Anna Farley is an autistic artists who likes to subvert art galleries.  We all know they can be stark and uncomfortable places.  Things are not soft, you can not touch.  There is the sensation that you can not talk too loud.  She has created a little comfortable, playful oasis in the the art gallery that encourages many of the attitudes artists themselves develop.  A playful, experimental spirit. It might look like a children's play space but I think it's much more than that.  I enjoyed exploring the space myself and I suspect many adults bringing children here, enjoy it just as much as the children they accompany.   There were comfortable bean bags, a book shelf, tables with different collections of objects to arrange and things to look at.  There was a large window looking down into the room between the ticket office and staircase which houses a Barbara Hepworth sculpture.  Along the window led...

 I caught this exhibition just before it finished on the 2nd of November.  It was a large exhibition occupying the whole of the extension. Liliane was born in 1939 in New York but now lives in London where at 85, she continues to create.  She is from a Russian Jewish family that arrived in New York from the Netherlands shortly before she was born.  When she was 9, her parents separated and her father moved with her to Geneva, with her mother following to Lugano, also in Switzerland.  She studied archaeology but also has interests in light and materials and was an early pioneer of automation in art.   This exhibition covers her long career and gives a really nice representation of some of her different types of work.  I think it's important to understand that some of the pieces are absolutely ground breaking and she was a true pioneer but that to our eyes now, they appear simplistic and dated.  As a child I remember watching Dr Who and being a...

Short version...  Get the train from St Erth, even if you drive.  It's beautiful and convenient.  There is plenty of parking at St Erth plus mainline train connections.  From the station, it's a flattish walk into the centre of the town.  The train journey is worth it for the views alone and is considered one of the most beautiful train journeys in England. St Ives is a beautiful town beloved of artists and tourists.  It began life as a fishing village with a sheltered harbour at the western end of the St Ives Bay.  From the coast, the land slopes upwards and becomes steep quite quickly.  The original village is a warren of tiny streets, alleys and staircases but back from this area, there are more open Victorian terraces going up the hillside. It was not designed for cars! This is a really really important thing to consider when going to St Ives.  There is parking but parking is at a premium with all the car parks in the older parts of town ...

 Tate is a huge name in art in the UK.  They have three huge museums; Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Tate Liverpool and one smaller one, Tate St Ives.  Tate Liverpool is currently being refurbished though until 2027 and is in the much smaller RIBA North.  The Tate museums are generally free but you pay and have to book to go to the major exhibitions.  This is not the case for Tate St Ives, you can enter the building for free but you need to pay to enter any of the galleries. The building is lovely.  It sits above Porthmeor Beach and has a grand loggia that was designed to capture and amplify the sounds of the sea.  You can sit in there on ampitheatre style seats, open to the air, but largely sheltered from the Cornish elements and just listen to the sea, although you can not see it.  This loggia is above road level but there are a variety or routes in including a shorter stepped route, a longer stepped route with more distance between steps and a s...

I live in Cornwall and we are a long way from the rest of the country and the big venues of the major cities.  That does not mean there is nothing going on.  There is a hugely vibrant community with a large number of venues, big and small.  Sometimes it can be hard because many of the venues are small and they are spread all across Cornwall.  I have decided to include visits to Devon, the rest of the UK and even other countries, because this blog is not just about what you can do in Cornwall but what you can do from Cornwall. It's easy to get stuck in a rut, going to the same places, perhaps being to anxious to try something new.  I know this can be an issue for me and I tend to research wherever I am going, trying to make sure I avoid any pitfalls and know what I am doing.  I often read Tripadvisor reviews too and find people don't talk about what I want to know. I am a scientist rather than a trained artist but I love art, theatre, history and pretty much...