The Snail and the Artist’s Trail

So so so busy with every thing so just a couple of thoughts to offer:-

Keep going…..

Keep going….

Never blow your nose on the same tissue you have just wiped off your oil painty brushes.

Don’t walk down from you’re attic studio late at night in the dark with mugs, cups, and old dirty turps and brushes unless you want to re decorate your hall.

All that’s wrong is right!

The opening of the exhibition was yesterday and it all came together really well, the standard was high and the work sat well in the space. I very much enjoyed seeing the work by the other artists and was finally able to fit the work to faeces of the people I didn’t already know. I was very pleased to be a part of the exhibition although I could hardly look at my own work. I wish I had got a better frame for the small oil painting or better still not put it in at all!

So what is right in the world of my work? I have come to realise that I will continue to make work now no matter how I feel about it. It is what I do and I will not put it off or make excuses about time. I think that I am now managing to weave it into my life so that it can move along with the flow and things somehow get done. As for the time I spend at my job, well that money gives me freedom, freedom from the need to sell my work, or make it sellable. I am still searching for something in my work and I think I need to become a little more experimental again moving forward.

Of course it would be lovely to sell something from the exhibition, I’ll let you know.

What a week, things have been so busy on all fronts I am so pleased it is Friday!

I took my work for the exhibition down to the White Gallery in the village last night so it can be taken to the Art centre this morning. Fiona who owns the Gallery was very kindly collecting all the work that people were unable to drop off them selves. Somehow I left three pieces, a print, an oil painting and a small watercolour. Fiona had just got the watercolour back from being framed for me by the gallery and thought I should put it in too, as all the pieces were quite small (I will find out later if they hang all three).

I couldn’t sleep last night, I worried….about the work not being good enough, about sending three instead of one and about one of the frames I had done myself not being white enough! What am I going to be like in May when I open the house for two weekends?

I am looking forward to the opening on Sunday though, and all the pieces are of course snails!

Well things are coming together. It seems an age now since this all started and now we are about to have our first exhibition. This first exhibition is a preview for the open studios and will be up in the Arts centre for a month.

I have work finished and framed but now they only want one piece per artist I can’t quite decide what to put in. I think it will be a print, though I did want to put in a painting and a print. Well there is the other exhibition in May and the open studio, so I can put it all somewhere! It’s just so long since I showed any work anywhere. Its like coming out of well…. somewhere, to be seen. It feels strange.

Wow I just looked and I can’t believe how long it’s been since I bloged I was sure I had done one this year but no…I am losing it, it’s been one of those weeks. Technology is against me as well as everything else.

We had a trail meeting on Wednesday; I was a bit late then sat there and felt very unconnected. The Map is in hand it sounds like it is going to be very good and there is going to be a poster too. Most of the discussion was on the map and poster. We then talked a little about the Feb. exhibition, I do wish I could help with the hanging but I will be in work and holiday days are just too precious, I ran out last year. At least I know what I am going to put in now, I have some prints framed and should get the framing for the painting I am going to submit tomorrow.It’s nice to see the work starting to come together I am forcing myself to finish things off and to try to rescue some paintings that are not quite there. I pulled one together last week but I think I lost another. I just can’t seem to make it work I think I’ll just put it away for a while.

I do need to get the current work sorted and finished but my head is already moving on to new work and a new project. I just have to keep it in my sketch book for a bit longer.