Cruel and Curious Sea II, fitting end to a perfect Summer

The warmth of September has faded into October and it seems a good time to reflect on a full on summer filled with family love, Tom home, lots of beach, social and friends time as well as a few days away. Italy, Port Eliot Festival, Minack Theatre, an art trip to Bristol and painting at Newlyn Art School and representation in a new gallery in Plymouth as well as building up my own space at the Barn studio.

The veg patch also gave us the best crop of tomatoes ever along with grapes, pumpkin, courgette, salad cucuamelons and tomatillos and endless herbs. Now I know why it felt like we were never just doing nothing and the tv was turned on a handful of times….. we were incredibly busy!

The last big event of the year for me was ‘The cruel and curious sea II”, and it didn’t disappoint. Fair weather meant people turned out to Stowe Barton in their hoards and with a bar and food this year, there was a real party atmosphere. It was also larger with more artists and more space to be shown in.

I had the same pitch as last year so knew what I was working with and on the day it all came together and had amazing comments from people having doubted it all at some times, mainly because it was so far removed from how I have painted over the past few years. But as always, pushing myself in a new direction led to new discoveries and practices that I can put to use in future work.

Part of the build up including being filmed at the barn studio with Rhodri from the National Trust, but suspect that the two hours filming might result in 10 secs of film in the final edit, but it was a lot of fun and as often happens, through talking about my art, it also gave me great insight into the what and why of my day to day painting head.

Cai from Hickory Nines, and Jeff from the National Trust work so hard to make this happen, and with other help from some crew, Stowe is transformed and transported into a timeless warp of cruel and curious sea and everything else and I can’t wait to see what happens next year.