The Whitworth, Andy Warhol Exhibition

So, if you've read my previous post, you'll know that yesterday I headed to my local art gallery in Manchester, The Whitworth. When I say local, I literally mean that it is opposite my flat and is only a two second walk; with this being the case I've been meaning to go and check it out for about six months now and I've just never gotten round to it. As it was such a lovely day yesterday and as I heard that there was an Andy Warhol exhibition going on, I just knew that I had to go and check it out before it finishes. The gallery itself is soo lovely; its got the right balance of historic architecture as you'll see in my photos of the exterior but it also has such gorgeous contemporary aesthetics as well. The gallery is actually situated in Whitworth Park which means that there is an amazing view from the glass cafe. This gallery actually turned out to be one of my favourites that I've visited as it was just so quirky and dainty, with so many different twists, turns and stairwells leading you to what felt like a never ending array of art; I'm definitely going to be paying it many more visits in the future.

Besides, the gallery itself being so lovely, the Andy Warhol exhibition was equally as amazing. I had an absolute whale of a time just roaming around and admiring all of his work of which I have always been a huge fan of. After visiting one of his exhibitions in Tate Liverpool a few years back, I didnt expect this exhibition to be as good as it was in such a smaller, less well known gallery but, it definitely exceeded my expectations. The exhibition was full of so many of my favourite Warhol pieces including 'Gun' (1981), 'Electric Chair' (19640 and 'Self Portrait Strangulation' (1978). Warhol is one of my favourite artists partially due to the controversy of his work but also because his work is symbolic of so many political and social issues. As mentioned above, two of my favourite pieces are 'Gun' and 'Electric Chair', both of which were part of his Death and Disaster collection; a theme that became more prominent throughout his work following his near death experience in 1968. The 'Electric Chair' particularly strikes me as it captures the event of the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg during The Cold War (For those of you who don't know, The Cold War has always been my favourite part of History to study). This piece captures the height of political tensions during this period of time in a morbidly artistic way and I absolutely love it.

Before I get too caught up in my admiration of Warhol's work, I'm just going to leave it there with how mind blowing and how influential both he is as a person as well as his work. He is genuinely an artistic genius in my eyes and his work is of paramount significance. Below, is a small compilation of some of the photos I took on my little trip to the gallery yesterday so you guys can share the experience too. 

 

If you want to go and check out the exhibition, you've still got time; the Andy Warhol exhibition is going to be open until April 16th. I definitely recommend that you go and check it out, the work is amazing!

The Clueless Blogger

Sunshine and Daffodils

Finally, the sun is out and Spring is in the Air! Today, it officially felt like Spring was here (Well in Manchester anyway), the sun was out from the minute I opened my curtains this morning and it was such a nice feeling to feel the sun shining through my window after so long. I decided that you know what, I'm not going into university today because instead I'm going to enjoy the rarity that is the sunshine.. dont worry I was only supposed to be in for an hour anyway so it wasn't too bad. Although, I did end up spending a lot of my day doing work anyway which kinda makes up for it in my head but it was just so nice to give myself the day off. I spent most of the day sat on my floor on my tapestry, drinking coffee and doing assignments but it was just so lovely as I was sat by my big open window in my flat and it generally just made me so happy and actually more productive as I was actually enjoying doing my work with the help of the sunshine. I was so content in my own little world listening to Happy Mondays in a celebratory gesture as today I also managed to get myself and a friend two tickets to go and see them this year, ahhhh! Today was a good day!

After doing some work, I decided that I was going to go for a walk in the sun, go to the local art gallery and maybe pop into a cute cafe somewhere to grab a well deserved cappuccino and a slice of cake. It was so lovely to be able to put a cute summery outfit on considering I've basically been purely dressing for the drizzly rain and freezing cold recently which means that I've been forever living in old grandad jumpers and mom jeans. So, to make the most of the weather, I popped on my favourite yellow jumper, my dusty pink pinafore, docs, grabbed my Levis jacket(outfit details below) and headed to the gallery. Although on the way, through the park, I couldn't help but spot some daffodils and of course had to make the most of this photo opportunity so against her will, I forced my flatmate into becoming my photographer for the day ha ha, don't worry I repaid her with coffee.

As I said, we headed to the gallery after exhausting my camera with daffodil photos and just roamed around the Andy Warhol exhibition that was going on and then headed to a coffee shop. It was such a lovely day and it's made me so much more excited for Summer to come along now as I can't wait to have more days out like today just roaming around, exploring in the sunshine. It's amazing how much the sun can uplift your mood! Anyway, thats all for now but keep an eye out for a follow up post of my time in my local art gallery, The Whitworth.

 Outfit details: Yellow Jumper: Vintage, Pink Pinafore: Topshop, Levi's Denim Jacket: ASOS, Doc Martens, Dogtooth Socks: Topshop, Fishnets: Primark, Kanken Rucksack 

Lets just hope the sun comes out more frequently from now on so I can go out and take more blog photos without getting rained on!

The Clueless Blogger

Sundara Karma

The other night, was an absolute blast as I got to see one of my favourite bands at the moment live in Manchester. Basically, at the moment I'm absolutely in love with Sundara Karma and I'd been waiting impatiently for months until the night came around that I was actually going to go and see them. They were honestly incredible. Despite the crowds being absolute twats, with underaged kids drunk falling everywhere, it was still a brilliant gig. As you all know, I love nothing more than going to gigs and listening to live music so you can imagine how much of a good time I had. I ended up taking one of my friends with me who had never been to a gig before so this was such a cool experience for me to introduce her too. Unfortunately lmao she hated how rough it was ha ha but I guess you either love it or you hate it, kinda like marmite. Anyway, there's not much more I have to say on the matter apart from go and check out Sundara Karma if you haven't already, they're an amazing band with a kind of indie pop vibe; my favourite songs of theirs include 'Flame' and 'She Said' so go and give them a listen (I'm aware that this is a pretty short post but I feel like my photos speak for themselves ha ha).

*Just your typical indie in ripped fishnets loving life*

Summary: I walked away bruised, drunk and smelling of beer; what a fabulous way to end the night! 

The Clueless Blogger

Getting A Tattoo

So, a few weeks back I did something that I've been wanting to do for a few years now... I got a tattoo!! Like I said, I've wanted one doing for so long now so this was a crazily exciting experience for me. The only thing that had been putting me off getting one, was that I kept on changing my mind on what I wanted doing and up until this point I hadn't found anything that had really struck a chord with me. I mean like nothing really stuck out for me that shouted, 'Yes, I want that on my body forever!'... until now. 

So after hours and hours on Pinterest, I finally found a tattoo that hit me as soon as I saw it, I knew that was what I wanted from the minute I saw it. Virtually straight away, I messaged this tattooist that I knew and booked myself in because I was so adamant on getting it, I mean it was pretty spontaneous at the time and was just after a few drinks one night and I just thought why not. I decided on getting a tattoo of a tarot card specifically the moon and to be honest there was no specific meaning as to why I got it; I just absolutely love the illustration and thought it was an amazing piece of art to have put on my body permanently. When I looked in to it, I read that the moon tarot card is a symbol of mystery, illumination, dreams and the unconscious. After looking into the meaning of the card, it made me want it even more as I just love the idea that it symbolises illumination and the idea that if I'm having a bad day or I've ran out of hummus or something drastic along them lines, I can just look at my tattoo and it reminds me that there's always that glimmer of light. 

A week later I went and got it done and I'm not going to lie I was so nervous ha ha. I mean I consider myself to have a very high pain tolerance considering the piercings I have but even I couldn't prepare myself for what I thought the pain would be like. It turns out it was the most painless thing ever and I worked myself up for nothing. It was such a cool experience, I generally found it so relaxing and enjoyable the fact that I was just sat there for two hours whilst he did it and I could just lie back, relax and forget about everything. Its so hard to describe but I generally felt no pain what so ever.

I honestly urge anyone who has ever considered getting a tattoo to just go and do it. I mean why not? Like I said the pain was absolutely nothing and I'm so over the moon with my tattoo (unintentional pun) that there are so many more that I wish to get done and the only thing stopping me is the fact I need to save some money first *sighh*. I've generally been on Pinterest non-stop since I had it done, in search of another one to get done.

Anyway, if you take any thing away from this post, it's that you should just go for it! I mean why not, just go and get your body covered in art!

The Clueless Blogger

Anti-Trump Protest, Manchester 04/02/17

If you've read my last post, you'll already be aware that yesterday, I had the absolute pleasure of experiencing an Anti-Trump protest in St. Peters Square, Manchester. One of the things I love about Manchester, is the fact that you have events like this on your doorstep, something that I'm not used to considering I'm from such a small insignificant town. 

The protest was an absolutely insane atmosphere, there were hundreds of protesters all united with witty banners and chants; I have never seen so many angry anti-trump activists in my life. There were various speakers, who uplifted the crowds encouraging everyone to not give up the fight and to continue to resist Trump. My absolute favourite sign has to be the one in the above top left corner as this guy created an Anti-Trump pun out of one of my favourite human being's (Bob Dylan) song, 'Mr Tambourine Man'; it was something of creative genius. It was so inspiring to see everyone united against one entity.

For me, it is simply obvious that Trumps actions are inhumane and barbaric however despite this, some still believe that he is doing the right thing. I mean yesterday following the protest, some young lads came and asked me, 'why are you holding a Trump sign?' of which I simply replied, 'Why are you not?'. The response of the guys generally baffled me as they claimed that 'he hasn't done anything wrong yet (...) give him a chance'. I was generally outraged at their audacity, I mean the key word there is YET, I man he has already signed the Muslim Ban so how on earth can they declare that statement and also why should we give him a chance? If we do, it will be too late; it is clear that Trump is a chauvinistic, misogynist, racist, inhumane, fascist, xenophobic unfit leader, how can people not see this? The lads then continued to bore me with statements on how he would bring the 'business back into the country', by this point I had to walk away before I lost it.

I generally cannot fathom, Trump's mind set as surely only a deranged lunatic would want to create a wall to exclude an entire ethnic group as well as banning an entire religious group from entering the US and have I forgot to mention his desire to ban abortion? A genuine human right that all women should be entitled to. Trump is now closing off the US borders and prohibiting various people to enter the states, with the only public justification being that of protecting the country from terrorism although it is clear, that this is merely Trump attempting to justify his fascist xenophobic ideology.  I mean preventing whole race and ethnic groups from entering the states isn't going to stop this, it will merely cause revolution. Where has all the humanity gone?

Let Trump enforce a wall and you watch the Mexicans tear it down; let Trump ban abortion and you watch how many women will continue to have them through unsafe procedures, therefore jeopardising the life of women across the US; let Trump ban various ethnic groups from entering the states and watch how Trumps isolationist approach will backfire when terrorism isn't stopped. The people will speak up and it wont be long before they revolt if this man continues with his fascist behaviour as Dennis Skinner rightfully compares him to the likes of 'Mussolini and Hitler'. We as humans will not stand by and let this happen I mean, historically when have the people ever remained silent?

Before, I get way too into this political spiel (I feel it may be too late for that), I'm going to stop here and just leave it there, otherwise I will be here all night. I'm aware that this post isn't as light hearted as my typical content however, I feel as if it is an issue that is highly important to take into consideration as it affects us in Britain in terms or our relations with the US considering they are our biggest allies and does that not make us guilty by association. Should we not be standing up to his behaviour rather than condoning it? How can we be seen as a country who accepts his policies? Does that not just make us as bad as him? Anyway I shall leave it there with my final point being, please get involved with politics and help protest against such a fascist dictator, as we do not want another World War on our hands, thank you!

The Clueless Blogger

Today's Adventures

After not leaving the flat all week due to having to return back to uni and actually go to lectures in order to get a degree *Yawn*, I felt that it was much needed to head in to town. Me and my flatmate  had planned to go to this place called Black Milk in Afflecks which for those of you who don't know, is the first cereal cafe that arrived in Manchester. As I hadn't been to The Northern Quarter in absolutely ages, I couldn't wait to head back to the hippest place in Manchester (in my opinion anyway). So, Black Milk was absolutely insane, its the daintiest little cafe ever on the second floor of Afflecks, which meant that it had a really cute view over The Northern Quarter and as it was such a lovely day considering we're still in February, it meant that we got to sit by the window and feel the warmth of the sun on our backs. There are copious amounts of cereal boxes shelved along the one wall and then there are various pieces of Bowie artwork and The Stone Roses, Rolling Stones stickers across the walls; I mean I'm hoping I'm painting a cool picture here guys because it was indie heaven basically.  Anyway, there was so much to chose from on the menu from freakshakes to cheesecake and then of course to cereal, but not just cereal... cereal cocktails! Yes, cocktails; you could choose from various cereal concoctions that they had already created or even create your own, you even had the choice of having an edible chocolate bowl with your cereal in, if that isn't perfect, I don't know what is!

I decided to create my own cereal concoction so I went for lucky charms because they're my absolute favourite.. with party rings, whipped cream, sprinkles and strawberry milk; it was honestly the most incredibly delightful thing my taste buds had ever experienced.  If you can't tell already, I 100% recommend that everybody should go there!! Unfortunately, I was so hungry when my cereal arrived that I completely forgot to take a photo, which absolutely broke my blogger/insta-hoe heart.

After visiting Black Milk, my flatmate had to head back to the flat so I decided to stay in town and just roam around by myself. I mean, I've always wanted to have the confidence to just go out and do things by myself so I decided today that I would do exactly that. I headed back to the Northern Quarter, Polaroid camera in hand listening to Bruce Springsteen and just decided to explore down all of the little back alleys of the streets. For those of you who haven't been to The Northern Quarter or just Manchester in general, there are copious amounts of alley ways that make it so easy to get lost but are also super cool as this is where you will find the coolest graffiti. This is something that I absolutely love to do so I just decided to get lost in the dingy intertwining streets. It was so nice to just be at one with myself and it was so nice to have some alone time as at uni, you're virtually with your friends 24/7 so it can get slightly crazy and overwhelming sometimes so it was just great to have some thinking space, doing what I love to do.. taking arty farty photos. 

Later on, I met back up with my friends and we headed to the Anti-Trump Protest that was taking place in St. Peters Square. I have always wanted to experience the atmosphere of a protest and I've never had the chance to before as I'm from such a tiny little town and typically the larger protests take place in the likes of London. However, as I heard that there was going to be a protest going on and for such a cause that I'm so passionate about as I can't stress enough how inhumane Trump's Muslim ban is a long with how wrong his view are towards women.. I just had to go and check it out.  The atmosphere was absolutely insane, it was crazy how many people had gathered to fight for the cause, banners in hand and with the wittiest slogans and chants, it was phenomenal. Anyway, I'm not going to talk too much about the protest itself as my next post will be solely dedicated to it, so check that out! 

That was basically my day summed up and it was so so lovely. I've decided that I'm going to spend more of my days exploring Manchester as although I have been here almost six months already, it's such a big city, that there is so much that I'm still yet to see. I also want to try and force myself to be way more independent and confident so I'm planning on going to the cinema by myself next week (baby steps) and then maybe to some art galleries and museums. Anyway, I'm going to sign this off here as I need to get ready for a Fleet wood Mac event at the zombie shack tonight which I'm so ecstatic about, woo!

The Clueless Blogger 

Change Is Good

A lot of people really hate change in their life, some people even fear it ; I mean as humans we all have routines that we carry out, we all go to the bar and 'say the usual'; we all go and buy the same style pair of jeans (sometimes feeling wild and going for a different colour). Thats because we're creatures of habit. People love the permanence of having set routines and therefore for them the idea of change is just out of the question.

I feel like I was one of those people, I always used to say, 'I want to do this.. I wish I could... I want to change this...' even though, I knew that I would never do any of those things. I used to enjoy having a routine, getting up at exactly the same time every morning for sixth form (Late); walking there; moaning all day until I could go home; watch tv all night; sleep and then do it all again the next day. It was so boring.  There were always things that I wanted to do and never got round to doing it.

Luckily, I've realised this now and ever since my last year at sixth form, instead of saying that I'm going to do stuff, I've actually been making an effort to do so. For me, I've always loved piercings and I've always talked about how I want this and that done however, I never got round to doing it (1. Because my mum wouldnt let me until I was 18 but 2. Because I was frankly quite pleased about the first excuse because I was too scared even if I were aloud). I feel like for me turning 18 actually made me realise shit, you can actually do all the things that you wanted to do before because now no one can stop you and I then realised tI'm now actually holding myself back. So, last year I went and got some piercings; I started with my septum and then my tongue and then my nose (I already had my lobe and cartilage done). This was the beginning of embracing change and actually doing what I've always wanted and I can honestly say I am so happy with them, I absolutely love my piercings and although they are a controversial point amongst friends and family or even just old judgement strangers, it's something that I dont care about because I love them and I finally did something daring and changed my look.

Another change for me quite recently as you can see from the above photos, was that I got my hair cut verrryy short (Well for me anyway). Before this month my hair has always been extremely long, I mean it was down to my bum! And although I used to love it, I actually began to loathe it as I have such thick hair, it just became a chore to handle and I felt as if I never knew what do with it because I had so much of it ha ha. I have probably been saying for the last 2 years how much I want to go a lot shorter and everyone always used to tell me to 'Never cut your hair short...You'll regret it... I wish my hair looked like that...' and for this reason I never went shorter. But this month, I decided to take a leap and just cut it all off, I mean I found it pretty scary (scarier than getting piercings even) because it was going to be such a huge change for me. However, I can honestly say that I'm in love with my short hair and it was the best decision that I've made in so long. It feels so much healthier and lighter and so much easier to manage ahhhh!

After cutting my hair, I told myself that this year is all about change and doing things that I've always wanted to do. For me, I've never really believed in new years resolutions or the whole 'new year, new me' so I'm not really calling it a resolution, in fact i'm going for the mantra that 'Change is good' and embracing it. A few things that I've been wanting to do for so long is to get a tattoo; save enough money to renew my passport so I can go travelling; get my daith pierced and to go to a festival. So far, this year I have already gotten my tattoo!! Of which, I will be doing a blog post very shortly on so I'm not going to talk about it here and also I have been selling my old clothes on Depop and have in fact saved enough money for my passport and its been less than a month into 2017. This means that I'm going to be planning a trip to Berlin or Poland very shortly and me and my uni friends are even planning a summer trip to Switzerland, which I'm so excited about! 2017 is going to be a good year, I can feel it!

Anyway, as I've clearly emphasised, change is definitely good! I feel like everyone needs some change in their life to make it more exciting and to escape from the restraints of routine because let's be honest how boring does it get when you're just going through life doing the same old things?

Sometimes we just need to go for it in life and stop holding ourselves back. Go do new things and embrace change!

The Clueless Blogger

A Weekend In Manchester

With Christmas indefinitely over and my Christmas break sadly drawing to an end, it came the time where unfortunately I had to head back to Manchester for exam weeks. Although, I couldn't wait to get back to Manchester, I was absolutely dreading have to go back for exams despite only having one, I also had numerous essays due that I hadn't even started *Queen of Procrastination over here* Ooopps!

But anyway, inevitably I had to go back and succumb to the torturous amounts of hours stuck in my flat cracking out essay material whilst attempting to revise and also having to go back to cooking for myself, something I hadn't done in over a month. Urgh, it sucks being an adult and living alone. However, before I got back to all of the dreaded student life business, my Mum drove me back to Manchester to help me unpack and then decided to stay the weekend. This was absolutely lovely as its the first time shes stayed since I've been living in Manchester which meant that we got to spend the whole weekend exploring Manchester, shopping, eating and drinking cocktails; what better way is there to spend a weekend and with what better company?

It turned out my mum had booked us in for afternoon tea at the most beautiful hotel, Radisson Blu Edwardian; which was honestly the poshest place I'd ever been to, being the common gal from the midlands that no ones ever heard of (to put it in perspective how posh it was, the waiter actually put our napkins on our laps!). It was such an amazing place, we drank Prosecco cocktails, had finger sandwiches and scones and had an all round lovely time. Sadly, I forgot to take photos in there as I was too busy indulging in food and Prosecco, ha haa.

The next day, my Mum treated me again, to dinner in The Botanist as she knew that I'd been dieing to check this restaurant out for so long. I can happily say, that it is now one of, if not my favourite restaurant! The whole restaurant was designed like a greenhouse and the botanical vibe was everywhere, it was as if we were eating in a little potting shed and it was the most adorable setting ever.  The food was absolutely phenomenal, I had a chicken and chorizo pie, complete with mushy peas and mashed potato which was amazing and my Mum had fish and chips, which was served in the cutest wooden palette with a plant pot of mushy peas and a watering can with tartar sauce in.. Yes, it was served in a watering can, how cool!We spent the rest of the day shopping and then my mum had to head back home, which meant it was time for me to actually get my head down and do some work, urghhh!

 

Above, are all of the photos taken at The Botanist which I just can't get over how amazing it was. It was such a lovely weekend where I was able to have a break and just forget about uni work for a while and then set me in the right frame of mind to actually get on with revision. I'm actually thinking about writing a blog post on coping with exam stress, which will be less focused on how to revise and how to stop procrastinating but instead, will be more focused on relaxing and taking time to chill because self love is the most important thing which people tend to forget when they're overwhelmed by work.  The post should be up shortly this week so keep an eye out. The Clueless Blogger