OPEN STUDIO at Artspace coming up ... so lets go to the beach !

We've been taking Joel's work over to Artspace Portsmouth preparing for his Open Studio from 25th-27th May , tidying up and sorting out  , some how there's always alot to do !

Barbara phoned in monday night suggesting we go painting in the morning as the forecast is so good . So I phone Joel to see what he thinks ' Joel do you want to go clean up the studio .. or go painting with Barbara tomorrow ?' Well there's no contest surprisingly !! He's keen . So we all meet up at Prinsted and its scourching !!

The tide is out and its breath taking ....how lucky are we !!? 

It gets so hot we have to take Joel home  by 11.30am  .... roll on Summer ...

Barbara's exhibition at Zimmer Stuart ISLE OF SKYE

Barbara's Exhibition opened the Friday before Joel's. So I took Joel along to see it .

Its totally wonderful, the work looks effortlessly simple and free, such a sense of space  and light . Barbara went through a lot to reach this point and it was completely worth it !!

On the way home we divert to Slindon to visit Mark and Rebecca Ford in their remarkable garden , its full of their extraordinary woven willow structures/sculptures . Rebecca make us tea and we sit on the teak benches Mark made , and admire the view .

Its lovely for Joel to have a complete break from his work, and focus on something else ,  it might be nice to come and paint here in the summer , there's a willow pod perfectly positioned so you can sit in it and see all the way  to the sea !

JOEL'S CHANGING LANDSCAPES EXHIBITION

Elisabeth and I collected all Joel's paintings from his studio and took them to the Oxmarket Arts Centre in Chichester . We put the show up making the lillies on the invite the first painting you see on entering the gallery. It was such a lovely sunny day we had a little picnic on the floor of the gallery and watched the black bird visit its new nest , ( made in a wonderful willow instillation by Mark and Rebecca Ford) in the courtyard. The paintings work well in the space , we weren't able to stick to Mikes original hanging plan as we added some pictures that Joel hadn't concidered putting in !
 Joel and I went to do the pricing and labelling on Tuesday morning and do some more leafleting . Its Joel's first viewing of his show as he was in dialysis on Monday, and I think he was pleased with it !? But as ever too polite to say otherwise !
Joel's Mother couldn't spare his laptop to put in the show with the running blog on so I've put mine in and already had a comment from Cliff . I just set up another user account so that only the blog can be viewed .
The lovely Sofia has been marvellous making sure we have all we need , including lemon and ginger tea at regular intervals !
We also bought a Khadi Papers note book for signing in and comments/feed back, so all is complete.

The stress has all been a bit much for Joel who is at home resting , hopefully he'll be well enough to attend on Saturday's for 'meet the artist' 11-3pm