The main, most recent news is of the successful exhibition at the Workshop on 24-26th August. I just sneaked in before the regional Art Wave festival – for which I had been too late to book. The exhibition happily coincided with having the Workshop repainted (including of course the same blue door) and some minor repairs completed. It was a good, jolly, and successful occasion – thanks all round especially to friends Rosemary and Lesley. They are both themselves artists (a potter and painter respectively) and although they weren’t exhibiting on this occasion must do so next time around. The exhibition included Liz’s lino cuts – which were very popular, and a range of my work including the two most recent works I’d mentioned having in mind in my last News post: paintings of Harveys Brewery and the Needlemakers, both in Lewes. I wrote then how I’d long admired the work of the 1920s American ‘Precisionist’ painters. But if I’d had their abstract-realist style in mind for these two paintings, it didn’t quite make it onto the canvas where the realism literally of bricks and mortar proved too tough an opponent. Maybe next time.
Meanwhile, however, I’m pursuing a second theme from earlier work: pathways. One intriguing thing I’ve been made aware of in this connection – thanks to the travel writer, Robert Macfarlane – is that our word ‘learning’ is derived by way of Old English and Proto-Germanic from the word ‘liznojan’ meaning ‘to follow or find a track’. ‘Who knew?’ as Macfarlane comments. I’ve also had a kind gift of some hand-made paper. This will clearly require some careful pen, brush and ink work.