Rhubarb donated by another plot holder on our allotment is in. 2 crowns.
Early seed potatoes are also in.
Lots of sowing of seeds this weekend just gone which is very exciting. They all sound so glossy on the packet; swiss chard, chinese cabbage, fennel…. Will they battle the English weather, pigeons who are poised to attack and the heavy clay soil of Herefordshire?
On the art front, I got two of my drawings into the Drawn exhibition at the RWA in Bristol which runs from now till June 2nd.
http://www.rwa.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/2013/02…
It was quite an interesting experience. I had never submitted my work to an open before so had no idea what to expect. I entered two drawings that I had made of prison hulks. One is a tiny image on a large piece of paper of an historic prison hulk called Endeavour. The other was a single hulk in profile drawn using carbon powder.
I drove to Bristol and parked near to the venue. After walking up a hill for 10 mins which seemed to get harder as I went on with one of my drawings flapping around in the wind, I arrived at the entrance to the RWA and found a hive of activity. People were parking at the small entrance to drop off their work. There were a wide range of artists delivering work. You had to go down to a basement area, lay your work on a table and unwrap it like it was a baby having it’s nappy changed, then triumphantly (or not in my case) reveal the drawing to the staff checking in. That was the strangest part. I clutched mine close to me, with the image facing my body. Other more confident artists were psyching out the opposition by thrusting their drawings outwardly facing, to the staff on the check- in desk. One poor woman was even manhandling this huge wire sculpture down the stairs.
I then had to go back to the car which had an hour’s time limit and collect drawing no.2 and scuttle back up the hill at Clifton avoiding pensioners with shopping trollies and students in gaggles.
I then rushed back to the car with about a minute over my time but thankfully Bristol was kind to me that day. I got in the car and drove down to Spike Island where I had a delicious lunch in their very funky cafe before seeing two shows there, Becky Beasley and Uriel Orlow. It was absolute heaven to sit in the darkened space and watch Orlow’s double projected films.
Set in Northern Armenia amongst a redundant Communist concrete housing estate that was never completed, the film slowly tracks human activity with a magnificent backdrop of a mountainous landscape.
It was so refreshing after the oddness of the morning.
Beasley’s work was interesting too. Extremely meticulous and purposeful photographs and sculptures which involved strange shaped cucumbers (back to the allotment). I thought the work was beautifully curated and elegant.
I haven’t seen my work at Drawn yet as the private view took place on the night of the snow but I am going on the 30th to see it and to meet Karen Wallis, the artist in residence to talk about drawing. Looking forward to it.
