{"id":1367,"date":"2012-04-10T18:34:22","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T18:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/?p=1367"},"modified":"2012-04-10T20:44:19","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T20:44:19","slug":"the-great-faberge-egg-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/?p=1367","title":{"rendered":"The Great Big Faberg\u00c3\u00a9 Egg Hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Faberge<\/a><\/p>\n

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Selected Faberg\u00c3\u00a9\u00c2\u00a0Easter Eggs at Covent Garden<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Anyone who’s walked around certain areas of London — such as the South Bank, Carnaby Street or Canary Wharf — during Lent this year might have been puzzled by seeing giant eggs dotted around on plinths. I discovered them on a lunchtime stroll in St. James’s Park which, like Green Park, was home to about a dozen of these mysterious objects.<\/p>\n

What made the eggs fascinating was that each was uniquely created by an artist, jeweller, designer or, even, architect — many of whom were household names like Bruce Oldfield, Sir Peter Blake or Sir Nicholas Grimshaw. (The architects’ designs were unsurprisingly elaborate and spectacular — see this article<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"Faberge<\/a>
Faberg\u00c3\u00a9 Eggs Hanging from the Roof in Covent Garden Market<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The eggs collectively formed The Faberg\u00c3\u00a9\u00c2\u00a0Big Egg \u00c2\u00a0Hunt <\/a>— a brilliant initiative devised in aid of two charities — Elephant Family<\/a> and Action for Children<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and based on the famous\u00c2\u00a0luxurious, jewelled eggs <\/a>created by Faberg\u00c3\u00a9\u00c2\u00a0at the turn of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

210 of the eggs were distributed across London in 12 zones<\/a> (some mentioned above) for enthusiasts to hunt down using Facebook or SMS to text donations to the charities using the egg’s number. I intended to track down them all but ran out of time before I spotted too many — although I did spot a few spectacular eggs in shop windows around Sloane Square and a few hanging from the underside of the Royal Festival Hall as well as those in the parks.<\/p>\n

In the week before Easter all the eggs were brought to ‘nest’ at Covent Garden and hours before they were all due removed to be auctioned off I managed to make a visit. I was very glad I did.<\/p>\n

I liked the idea of the egg hunt but seeing the eggs altogether around the piazza — some in shops, others hung from the roof, most arranged in rows on the cobbles — showed what \u00c2\u00a0extraordinary breadth of innovation and imagination had been devoted to the eggs’ conception. There were eggs that were quirky, eccentric, clever, beautiful, funny,\u00c2\u00a0witty, sensual, extravagant and thought-provoking — and all were completely individual. So it was appropriate they’d been dotted around London — a city that also well deserves that list of adjectives. \u00c2\u00a0The tourists in Covent Garden were definitely enjoying the surprise eggstravaganza (I finally succumbed to ovoid-linguistic temptation).<\/p>\n

I took a few photos (arranged in the collage above) of some of my favourites, although I didn’t photograph the one that’s made the most lasting impression on me, which was Egg 5 Around the world before bedtime<\/a>, (<\/em>which is covered in wistful flying childhood dream silhouttes against a beautiful graded brown background)\u00c2\u00a0by Miss Dee (who’s apparently a Brighton-based wall mural artist).<\/p>\n

As a bit of character development I was wondering which of the eggs Kim, the artist in my novel, might have created. I guess the proper answer is none — like all the artists and designers she’d create something unique — but I saw a few that would seem to appeal to her personality. The black egg with randomly flashing lights (Chicken by Jason Bruges Studio<\/a>) might be appropriate for her hip Shoreditch nightlife; the elaborate decoration of Charm by Spina Designs<\/a> ties in with her body jewellery (and she’d probably be interested in \u00c2\u00a0passementerie<\/a> too); but probably the most apt for spiky Kim would be Harriet Mead’s Ambush<\/a> — a plain egg climbed by two lizards about to devour a cricket. \u00c2\u00a0(Her artistic style might be reflected by Eggsquisite London, The Power of Plants and Sad Happy Frog Egg in the photos above.)<\/p>\n

The eggs in the photos at the top (clockwise from the top left) are: 14,\u00c2\u00a0Ascension\u00c2\u00a0by Caio Locke and 3D Eye; 169, Egg Letter Box by Benjamin Shine; 130, Eggsquisite London by Paul Kenton; \u00c2\u00a0179, My Generation by Vincent McEvoy; \u00c2\u00a0159, The Power of Plants by Susan Entwistle;\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>113, Sad Happy Frog Egg by Gary Card; 55, Metropolis by Rob and Nick Carter; 196 On\/Oeuf by Oliver Clegg; and the other side of Eggsquisite London.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Selected Faberg\u00c3\u00a9\u00c2\u00a0Easter Eggs at Covent Garden Anyone who’s walked around certain areas of London — such as the South Bank, Carnaby Street or Canary Wharf — during Lent this year might have been puzzled by seeing giant eggs dotted around on plinths. I discovered them on a lunchtime stroll in St. James’s Park which, like … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Great Big Faberg\u00c3\u00a9 Egg Hunt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[424,47],"tags":[135,818,816,130,154,819,817],"class_list":["post-1367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influences-2","category-research","tag-artists","tag-covent-garden","tag-faberge","tag-kim","tag-london","tag-miss-dee","tag-the-big-egg-hunt"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}