A quiet weekend, after the busy days around 13^th February. Foggy, snowy and cold so Saturday spent indoors and on Sunday a drive through the fog to Leipzig. Leipzig, the home of so many figures I admire, Bach, Beckmann, Schumann, Mendelsohn and many more. The centre of town is deserted and I do a quick tour, town hall, market place, statue of Goethe and the Museum of Modern Art (Museum de Bildende Kunste). I am interested to see more of Nao Rauch’s (Leipzig hottest art property), work which is the subject of much debate in the Grafikwerkstatt, most of it negative. Heavily influenced by Kitaj I find it more interesting than the catalogues I have seen and am certainly impressed by his facility at both drawing and painting

Then to the museum of printing http://www.druckkunst-museum.de a delight, full of wonderful old presses and retired master printers dying to show you how everything works. A very happy couple of hours. Then to the famous Spinnerei http://www.spinnerei.de where so many of the Leipzig artists work but it is closed and desolate. Germans really do keep Sunday special or do they just keep it closed. On the way home a detour via Colditz and the Schloss, remembering John Mills and Eric Portman in black and white. The Sat Nav is participating in the movie and with a mind of its own takes me cross country through bleak wintery landscapes.
Monday afternoon I am invited to return to my mother senior school the Gymnasium Dresden Plauen, known then as the Deutscher Oberschule

I am met in the staff room by four members of staff, including the English teacher to translate, two senior history students plus the headmaster and the school archivist. There is coffee, good cake and a bunch of flowers for me; I am slightly overawed by this all! I tell them about my mother and her life after 1933 and they give me an original 1932 year book with her name in the graduating class. They show me round the entire school which was barely damaged during the bombing, including the site of a picture of a dance lesson I have already shown them. I am thrilled by this visit, I have a vast amount of material at home and I will both scan and send them material for their archive and small school museum, which is surely where it belongs.
A busy week in the studio, I am not tempted out much due to the weather. However on Wednesday I go in the snow to the Lukaskirche (next to where my grandparents lived) to hear Bach’s St Matthew Passion, with a baroque orchestra, boys and adult choir and excellent singers. A charity concert, tickets on the door and all very informal.
Thursday morning and a quick trip to the farmers market at the Schillerplatz next to the Blaues Wunder iron bridge. Much better than the supermarkets which I find over package everything, I am developing a preference for Konsum, clearly the Waitrose of Dresden.