Open Studios week.

I've been busy this week setting up for the Open studios week exhibition. Last year was held at the Fire station and was a great success, It tied in nicely with the firefighter theme of most of my work last year and the unusual location drew in plenty of people, and importantly donations for the Firefighters charity. This year I've been painting a variety of subjects, and ironically time spent doing work for the Open Studios committee and designing a trail leaflet for the local artists has left me no time to paint or prepare!

The Fire Station would have been more difficult this year as we have a lot of new equipment, including a new digital communication set up which requires the Fire Appliance to remain on charge at all times, leaving No room for exhibiting. I had provisionally organised another venue, but realised at the last minute that I simply have too much work on to up sticks for a week, and no time to prepare the venue. So this year I am exhibiting at home, its far from ideal as there is no parking space and no access for people with mobility difficulties, and of course my boisterous dog. Hopefully we can work around these things & some folks will pop by. Its always great to see the work out of bubble wrap and on a wall, it helps make sense of it all seeing it together. I am also looking forward to being stuck at home manning this exhibition for the week and hope to get caught up on lots of work. My Framers, Geoff & Ann did an amazing job at turning around lots of frames in 3 days this week, they are Brilliant !

Happy Beltaine ! XX  Hope to see some of you this week.