Waking up to the last day of the Spring Exhibition at Ocean Studios in the Royal William Yard, Plymouth. Megan Hall’s Sea swimming print sets the tone for the last blog of the exhibition. Today we are chasing orange. From the bitter cold of a dip in the sea to the gentle warmth of a barn in the countryside. Maya Sturtridge makes a little orange go a long way.
A garden image leads us to the garden studio of the artist, who created the last image of orange and ends the last of these Exhibition inspired blogs.
Last but not least in any sense. All of the paperwork and record keeping admin for this exhibition was created by Lynne Saunders. It worked like a dream.
Lynne’s Studio is called Figtreeshedstudio. Set in the countryside of the Tamar Valley. Her orange abstract is The End.
Not much time to ponder today as it was set-up day for an exhibition I am involved with.
My last moments prep started at 6am with my own work and then there were the many last minute reshuffles of the stewarding rota. I have a watercolour I have always loved but the title always seemed just beyond my grasp.Until today, I cant imagine who inspired the title…
And another favourite watercolour was found, after some time being lost. All packed up and ready to be sold.
My Daffodils and Moonflowers found a fabulous wall on which to settle.
And just like them I am settling, right now. A sofa and mint tea, two dogs and a pair of throbbing feet . After a day of being arty farty on unforgiving stone floors, I may not move for some time.
Grumpy greige was banished by bright sunshine and a -1 degree temperature. The local ferry was caught in a sunbeam. Sunbeams bounced off windows as I walked to meet fellow artists at our regular monthly meetings.
The prevailing natter was predominantly about exhibitions in 2025. One of which I am fairly well prepared for and another that I am not at all prepared for.
I started a doodle as I talked which is the first time brush and paper have met one another in 2025.
Honestly sunshine and talking to other artists is the best way to spend a morning.
What to ponder on a warm Bank Holiday Monday. This fabulous painting by Oonagh Glancy is the nugget of this ponder. It symbolises a coming together. For the first time since Covid, Drawn to the Valley also threw in mass catering at their Spring Exhibition. Coffee, tea, cakes and other treats were served at a huge communal table. It was the highpoint for visitors, simply sitting down and talking between artists and visitors, old friends, new friends, complete strangers and hungry bowling escapees from the Bowls Club next door. Competition whites smudged with spring-green grass stains.
Sally O’Neill Asheltor Woods
Everyone was talking about how much they loved the communal snack table. Isn’t that fabulous. The art, of course, covered all the faces of the Tamar Valley and was as glorious as has come to be expected of the first exhibition of the year.
Julia O’DellLynn Saunders
Artists of the Tamar Valley also get further afield.
Michael Jenkins St Ives HarbourJane Athron Looking Towards Lancaster Gate.Julia O’Dell Godrevy Lighthouse
And some of us stick close to home.
Juliet Cornell Tidal Pool
There was so much to contemplate and consider, what a great exhibition.
Another day stewarding at the Drawn to Print Exhibition. The two artists who were the primary curators and managers of this exhibition are not printers. I managed to dig out some old work from my long ago Fine Art Degree and,by complete luck, the act of applying typewritten text to watercolour pulls the work loosely into the Print family.
What a family we have joined! The Printers of Drawn to the Valley have been an amazing bunch of people to work with. Trusting us with their beautiful prints with our invented hanging system.
But they have also nurtured us. Debs my fellow non-prntmaking curator, managed this fabulous trio of prints. Her first in this medium. Printmakers talked her through the process on the phone.
Debs has been commissioned to create several runs of ‘ Smeatons Thief’
This morning I was excited to dive into the world of Tetrapak printing.
Not my finest artistic hour because I had more excitement than talent, but I did create a half decent Tetrapak image and while printing it effectively eluded me, another lovely printer shared her wisdom for future success.
For now I have just applied some digital magic to make me feel better.
My almost daily commute for three weeks is a ten minute walk from home. It covers the same paths that my normal daily dog walks take. Without the dogs, who are disinterested, for the most part, in a print exhibition, the familiar walk can be enhanced by taking a slightly different route. These stairs are just off my normally beaten path, but of no interest to the noses of my dogs.
Today was bin day and the big communal bins live in an old military building that has not yet been ‘improved’. The dogs would have loved to be with me as refuse bins and a hot summer day is a heady mix of flavours but I just nipped in to take this lovely old window in a grubby and unbuffed state.
Another love of mine is to see scarring on paintwork from regular use. Although that regular use stopped nearly 30 years ago.
And then there is the redundant heavy duty equipment with warnings , of limitations to men of my grandfathers generation.
Men for whom these numbers on doors had some significance.
I just love them as reminders of slightly archaic fonts.
I will leave you with two of my favourite doors.
One is an old storeroom and the other leads to a suite of artists studios. They are both at the end of the, currently empty, gallery space.
The exhibition today is in safe paws. Ralph is Stewarding this morning. Flushed with my experimentation on Yupo paper yesterday I whipped off a quick play on words this morning before I did the morning dog walk.
The morning dog walk was quite the sartorial revelation this morning. How many people really dress in the morning to match their local pavements/sidewalks!
Further on we sniffed out a fairy tale moment. A swimming Cinderella had dropped her golden slipper.
These are the feet of a woman stewarding in a Grade 1 listed building. The floors and the walls are spectacular.
Celia Over, and her amazing prints.
We are in the second week of our three week run at Ocean Studios and the public response is very positive. Holding an art exhibition in a Grade 1 listed building is not without its challenges. We have had to design a whole new style of hanging system. We also needed to persuade the artists to allow us to hang their work unframed, just simply mounted. So many artists trusted us to treat their work with care and respect.
The artists were also hugely supportive of our £10 ‘ Off the peg’ feature.
Stewarding at exhibitions like this is the perfect opportunity to really take the time to enjoy other artists work. Today I had the pleasure of stewarding with Gilly Spottiswood and Celia Over, we were able to have a good old natter and share hugely interesting and informative tips and tricks associated with printing.
I was trying a new style of plastic coated paper, called Yupo. I painted mussels from memory. A painting that surely has named itself, Mussel Memory.
Gilly was giving Drypoint a try for the first time.
Goodness me, spending time with art and artists is so rewarding. I have belonged to an art group for 4 years, most of that time I have been on the committee and most of that time has been in the time of Covid or post Covid restrictions. Zoom meetings, cancelled exhibitions and the over thinking of all things to comply with the latest restrictions and procedures has been the way all organisations have survived the last few years. For me this has given me a massive disconnect. Drawn to the Valley has roughly 160 members. For the most part their names are familiar to me, their faces and characters less so and often I am unfamiliar with their artwork too.
For the next couple of weeks I have the absolute pleasure of putting a name to a face and attatching a mental note of their style of artwork. I am overseeing the stewarding of Drawn to Print at Ocean Studios in the Royal William Yard, Plymouth.
COVID ruined my early involvement in setting up the exhibition but a deliciously negative test allowed me to attend the Private View on Thursday evening.
Two hours of mingling with artists and our guests on a beautiful summer evening with Champagne and the mellifluous sound of Seachanges. Two wonderfully talented musicians who came along to give the evening some glamour and sparkle.
At last an event like this is beginning to feel normal and comfortable again. People being comfortable in the company of one another. Which is why I chose the top image by Fi Smart, I know her name and we have exchanged emails, now I know some of her work and at some point in the next two weeks I am certain we will meet in person.
I met Celia for the first time when she came to a Drawn to the Valley monthly meeting at Ocean Studios. Until this week I was completely unaware of her style of work. Her work is just a fantastic extension of her, she exuded calm and beauty when I met her and here that exact quality is, in a beautiful print.
Here is my last , for now, image with some mystery.
I met Charlotte Sainsbury for the first time whilst I was serving Champagne at the Private View. I have loved her work for ages but never would have known who she was. She introduced herself to me and my mouth immediately gushed ” Oh, I love your work”
Nothing cool or reserved about that comment but , in truth I always love whatever she exhibits.
What to do on a damp Bank Holiday Monday when the dogs are at the groomers? Take ourselves off to Delamore Arts, a, not dog friendly Art Exhibition set in beautiful surroundings. This year is the 20th Anniversary of the event and I am ashamed to say that we were newbies, never having been before. In our defence we were not living in the South West for much of those twenty years but that seems a poor excuse to miss something so gorgeous and quintessentialy British in the very early summer. Regular visitors probably have a better chance of concentrating on the art,we were all over the place. Wowed by the parkland and the formal gardens before we even thought of looking at 3d or 2d artwork. Open for the whole of May this is an experience not to be missed. Full disclosure, there are lots of Drawn to the Valley Artists and Makers involved. I will only mention one DttV artist in this blog. Tessa Jane, who has been heavily involved in the organisation of this years exhibition as a local ambassador for Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis, the charity that is the beneficiary of Delamore Arts 22.
He Says Live With the World Inside You. Tessa Jane
The image below is the view looking out of the OMS Carriage Shed Gallery. Curated by Tessa Jane. So much to learn about OMS, the organisation, and Tessa Jane’s perspective as well as the valuable work being done by the University of Plymouth, all contained in a welcoming small space.
OMS seems to me, as an outsider, an organisation that supports people with MS to look outside and beyond their diagnosis. Hence my outside and beyond image.
I suppose in writing this blog without too much actual art I am encouraging local people to go and see this event for themselves. I am also supporting my own decision to go again and be able to write another blog that does talk just about art. Some hope!
Looking at plants like this was both diverting and the perfect preparation for looking at 2d art like this.
Wet Apples by John Hurford catches the eye at the Stables Gallery further away from the main house. Still authentically a stables, horses were being exercised as we exercised our minds. The Stables Gallery was the first one we visited after following the pencil trail.
A trail that took us, two cold water swimmers, past a swimming pond.
You can understand the pull and the fascination we felt towards just a quick sneaky dip in this tranquil water. But like the dedicated art lovers that we are we pulled our attention back to the job in hand and found life imitating art.
Gravel at DelamoreAzalea Leaves by Louis Victory
Then nature beguiled us into observing the search for pollen, by a very busy bumble bee. Who was up to his many armpits in the flowers of an Ichium.
Time to head off into the woods…
Portrait of Feathers Dawn Brooks-EnsorShattered Steve HedleyPlease Sit Isabel Coulton
Time to finish this particular Delamore Blog with my favourite sort of pictures. Its complicated…
Purbeck Form Four Andrew ThomasDuet Dianne GriffinWalnut Leaf Richard Cresswell
theoldmortuary.design 