Tony and I hopped on the tube today and headed off to the Victoria and Albert museum. It is a different type of museum from the classic Art Museum. Instead it focuses on craft art. This means that it includes sculpture, glass work, dish work, wood work, silver craft, etc. It is a museum dedicated to people like me who build things and attempt to bring art to it.
We met up with Jeff and Damian who were going to show us around. Jeff loves ornamental glass work.
They had a huge exhibit on mid evil renaissance art. Though I'm not a huge fan of mid evil art, the renaissance pieces were amazing.
They have several huge rooms dedicated to sculpture, and they contain several of the world's most recognized masterpieces including Michaelangelo's David and Moses. . .
Of course they are copies. This museum is also used as a training ground for new artisans and craftsmen.
The silver and gold smith work is some of the finest I've ever seen. Most of it dates to the 1800's and represents the work of Europes finest crafts people at that time.
Evidently Prince Albert, when he married Queen Victoria, was so disappointed with the quality of the craftspeople in London that he had a massive exposition where he had the top craftspeople from all over Europe display their wares as well as having demonstrations of their various techniques. An early version of the Siggraph Conference that I attend each year in the summer.
At the end of the exposition, Prince Albert bought up all of the pieces and housed them in a new museum.
The Victoria and Albert museum has evolved from this.
There is even a plaque reading that the mission statement of the original museum, much like today, is to improve the quality and taste of the British people.
As an artist that has been brought into London, I wondered how many of the artists brought in for this exposition so many years ago decided to set up permanent shop here in England. Will I, much like these other artists, end up setting up permanent residence here? Time will show.
Though there wasn't a section dedicated to computer sculpting, you could see the influence computers have had in architecture, glass works and other disciplines.
In London, they don't celebrate Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. Instead, they celebrate Pancake Day. It is the same thing however. It is a celebration of something indulgent such as pancakes. I heard about the local American diner by my work serving FREE coffee and pancakes. As nothing is free in London, this was a treat. I rode the bus into work early that morning as it was pouring rain. I convinced one of my supes (actually the man who interviewed and recruited me to come to Double Negative) to join me in my quest to experience pancake day. 
We walked down to Piccadilly to Ed's Diner. It was quite the happening spot. They were serving crepe-like pancakes with nutella on them. There were people on stilts, magicians, etc. It was a fundraiser, awareness generator for a humanitarian group called "Random Acts of Kindness". It was a fun and goofy time.
