Saltaire Arts Trail

On Saturday my Grandma Doris and her friend Dot came over to Leeds for a little family reuinion for her birthday. We decided to go visit the Saltaire Arts Festival, but stopped off at Rodley Nature Reserve on the way for a cuppa. It's a lovely area with improvements always being made thanks to donations given to the reserve. We didn't walk around the trail today but I did spot this cute little fella..


We ate in a lovely cafe in Saltaire when we got there that was called Vicar's I think. Joining in with the festival arts theme they had a huge cardboard Noah's ark in the window for children to colour in and make their own animals to go inside. I was sat right next to it and spotted this little critter!


Finally we ended the visit to Saltaire by going to the Salts Mill where David Hockney's gallery has been for as long as I can remember. He now had two floors devoted to him in his newest exhibition featuring this enormous piece trees, amusingly titled "The Twenty five Big Trees between Bridlington School and Morrisons Supermarket on Bessingby Road in the Semi-Egyptia n Style." It shows these trees in three different seasons, with the photographs taken from the same angle each time.


At closer inspection the grass and road on each strip has been worked into by Hockney with obvious strokes and marks. It is said that he made this addition to make the point of what you can see if you bother to look. Other items in the exhibition include new works produced on Hockney's iPad and iPhone. With a downloaded app called Brushes by Apple, Hockney has embraced these new technologies and manipulated his photographs in this way.

I enjoyed this older Hockney piece which was near the till desk on the shop level, which must have always been there but I just havent noticed it over the years. I thought it was quite fitting!


And finally the view from the exhibition window over the valley towards the canal!