Rain stops play

I'm quite upfront and not ashamed to say I'm only a fairweather festivaler. The miserable weather yesterday quite discouraged my vague plans to head off to the Jazz Festival goings-on in the Grassmarket. As previously mentioned, jazz is not my favourite music, so standing around in the rain is not up there with any priorities.

I did manage to attend two openings at the art festival on Friday evening.  Kirsty O'Connor who paints and pots invited me to her new exhibition running during the festival period in the Shiatsu Centre in Bread Street.

I've seen a lot of Kirsty's pots and love them, but I've not seen her earlier paintings. She has some stunning paintings in this exhibition, in pastels and in charcoal.

The other opening was in the new foyer of the Usher Hall. I'd not been in it before the other evening and was so impressed with what's been done there. It's not a big space, but I think it is well designed and makes the best use of the space.

Lara Greene is an Edinburgh-based sculptor whose kinetic works are on show in the foyer for the duration of the festival.  I've not seen anything like them before, so am probably doing them a disservice when I say they are 'moving objects' placed on pillars and walls. They are constructed from pieces of musical instruments eg violin bows and metal, made to move by electricity and wires. There is a lot more to them than this inadequate description.

Most of the main fringe doesn't get underway till later this week, so I've no plans to get out and see anything in particular, but the Edinburgh Mela is coming up at the weekend so fingers crossed for sunny weather for that down at Leith links.