The Willoughby Gallery

When you visit a place for the first time in the sunshine there is a sense that you feel like a tourist, especially when that place is pretty and rural. and while walking around Corby Glen prompted memories of my childhood summers spent grubbing around in fields wood and ditches, this is not the place of my birth, I am a visitor here aware that I am at the surface of things, just getting aquainted.  this is the start of a project that will be about two years to completion involving preparing work for the Willoughby Gallery for a solo show in 2019.  The project includes a narrative element collecting stories from the community, memories of place and trade.

The Gallery is far more beautiful than I imagined, and is

currently housing an exhibition of work by two Lincolnshire artists: Lyn Lovitt and Mike Lovitt.  Lyn's Pregnant Pots are really beautiful, and her print line is echoed in Mikes simplicity of line in his relief carvings.

The building was originally a school funded by Charles Read in the 1660s who made his fortune importing through Hull.  Hull was a major importer of wood and I will be interested in finding out whether this is where his fortune is from.

The school was converted into a Gallery and library in 1965 to commemorate the life of local aristocrat and art collector  Timothy Willoughby de Eresby, who died when  lost at sea. Within this small village in almost the centre of England, there are these links with the international, the sea and the local.

Corby is a name with nordic origins meaning small woodland. The "Glen" was  added in the 50s to distinguish it from the  other more industrial Corby and  is named for the river.  This area would have been covered by the Danelaw.

The gallery itself is really quite beautiful, with views of farms and the bowls green from the windows.  I am delighted to be showing here.

As I walked round Corby Glen most people were either at work or hiding from the heat, the streets were almost empty.  Wherever you are in Corby Glen you are close to the edges, close to the fields which surround it.  I have a sense of a place leading onto another, of a rich history which has probably be more well documented than you would expect for a community of its size.

The landscape in this part of Lincolnshire is not the flat lands of my personal stereo type or babyhood,  but soft limestone hills.  The presence of limestone and the colour of the soil in places makes me wonder whether there might be ochres in this soil.

The other materials which seem relevant are wool, wood, straw, charcoal...

There is a friendly talkativeness in the people I have met so far, I am really looking forward to collecting stories here. I have already heard about firefighters pulling horses out of ditches, of girls driving through the village as children jealous of the Corby Glen children freed from school for the day for the Sheep Fair, of the appeal of watching the automatic sprinkler on the bowls green.............

And in the initial bits of research that I have been doing of a Motte without a Bailey,  viking hieritage, a village doubling in size between the 1979 (when David Steel wrote a history of the place) and now. So while this is a place of long history, mentioned in the Doomsday book, it is also a place of change.

I have taken a  load of photos but will need to take more.  My current feeling is of peering into something new, where there is more beyond, and perhaps more beyond that too.

Preparing for #ArtFairMalaga #heatwaveUK

So the PV for Small Experiments in colour is over with two sales.  I hadn't really expected sales from this venture so that is really nice.   I was delighted to get an email from a-n's Pippa Koszerek and have Small Experiments in colour included in this weeks events in her piece:

Events: flaccid beauty, ancient landscapes, and histories of trade in this weeks a-n

Now it is time to get on with preparing for  Malaga. The heatwave here maybe helping me acclimatise but it is not helping my brain to work.

I have taken some advice re e media and tried to start today but my brain is befuddled by the heat so once I'd followed the relevant people I only managed one tweet!  Let's hope it is a bit cooler later.

And now I'm going to get some cold water!

What does it take to put on your own show in an alternative space: Small Experiments in colour

The show is up, thank you Barbara Beyer for your help, and the posters are delivered and now laminated so I'm off for a walk around the locality to cable tie them on to railings, and visit local places I can ask to display them: So how did it get there...well Barbara had had a show in this space and when I went to her private view she asked me if I'd like to show there too, and introduced me to Marianne who is the art coordinator, so first of all it was a personal contact....

Then I got into discussions about when with Marianne, so I sent her a link to my website which she liked.  And because I had a body of small works ready to go I was able to go from first proposal to putting it up in about two weeks, she initially had suggested when I was away in Malaga which I couldn't do and then someone else dropped out....so then it has been very busy.  First step: choose the works which will go together in a coherent collection and fit with the space: Well I have been experimenting with these pigments and had a group of work which did that job because I have been working on them for about a year, and only a few have been shown before at the Talented Art Fair.  So then I wrote the artist statement....

And then there was the process of selecting exactly which pieces,   it was fantastic to have another eye to look over with me, Barbara again...

Then it was a question of grouping them and framing them to form groups, which involved a trip down to town to pick up some frames, and a dig in some cupboard to use some frames I already had...

and a trip to the woods and the cafe to remind myself of the lay out and take measurements to be sure that they will fit, and make a plan of the wall hang

 and take some random tree photos

 Then pack up the ones I am planning to take plus the all important tool box

Once the work was in place change the hang plan of course, and regroup work to fit the space and the fittings that were meant to have been removed by the last person, but haven't been.  Design the poster

With lots of help from Barbara who is very skilled in tying knots in fishing wire amongst other things hang the work.

Now that the actual work is hung and definitive create a price list and 

 Get the posters delivered a second time because I was at the set up when they tried to deliver them the first time.

Then send out invites, post on instagram and twitter, realise I have not changed my twitter settings only when someone messages me to say they can't be retweeted, struggle with resetting them, get my car broken into in the middle of this and have to spend time talking to the Police. Finally get my twitter setting public again. 

Realise that the laminator I ordered has not been delivered, check the order and realise Amazon has not sent it because in the order there is something for which the price has changed by 1p and down, so I have to reconfirm the order.  

Put up posters in the dryness of the cafe.  Wait til Monday for the Laminator, and now that the posters are laminated and the weather is beautiful it is time for a walk with some tags and I'll get those posters up.  The private view is Friday 16th, if you'd like to come please email sarahneedham@artfromlondonmarkets.com by the 14th so that I have time to get enough glasses together for the wine!

Small Experiments in Colour @queenswoodcafe @barbara.ba @oaktreeandtiger @conradcarvalho @muswellife

So this week I have had help from Barbara Beyer (instagram beyer.ba) in setting up for the show and will have her lovely help tomorrow.  I have been to see Conrad Carvalho for social media advice and been putting things together for the event itself.  It's busy and I don't have much time to write..today's achievements have been finally succeeding in changing my twitter settings with a bit of help from @muswellife and designing and ordering my publicity posters

Small Experiments in Colour