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An uninterrupted day in the studio.
Visit Joyce in Cheltenham General; she's really wanting to be at home again.
Item on the 1 o'clock news - someone has tried to cover up the part of a male nude painting that offended them in an exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath, by sticking something over it and damaging the picture in the process. The exhibition is of the work of David Cobley who generously donated In Pink, a self portrait, to the Star Art exhibition.
Then on Saturday Review a review of the play by the cartoonists Peattie + Taylor based on the Alex strip which started out in Robert Maxwell's Evening Standard before moving to The Independent and currently the business section of The Daily Telegraph (who have given it a glowing review). On nights where there have been corporate audiences the actor Robert Bathurst says he can see all the Blackberrys flashing in the stalls. The three strips that Peattie & Taylor have donated to Star Art can be seen at starart.uk.com/alex.html
Plus a piece on the newly restored St Pancras Station from which the Eurostar will arrive and depart they mention the sculpture of the Lovers by Paul Day (who also shows with Galerie Alain Blondel); they were not generous with their assessment of this piece which they felt might be too sentimental.
E mail from Nadine saying she's working on the women's art exhibition featuring Mary Fedden, Dora Holzhandler and me. I e mail her back asking for further details and she says she will ring to clarify and discuss. It's going to be a very busy period as I've also said I will let Sharon at the Fosse Gallery have a work or two for her Christmas show!
Am again working on the Cantilever commission for Christmas.
E mail from the Art Consultants asking if I could let them have images of anything available for another of their clients.
Toyah has sent an e mail with a link to iTunes where a single from her latest album has been pre released. so enjoy this amazing new work; her voice is really powerful and it is hard not to dance whilst listening to it. It's fantastic, her best work ever. I think it will have a mass appeal.
Julie and David Rogers come in the afternoon to collect the painting that she had commissioned to celebrate his birthday which was in May. It's wonderful to see the pleasure on his face; although he'd seen the painting in its infancy it has come a very long way since then. They delighted in the personal references, particularly to the Wychwood Music Festival of which he is one of the founding directors.
Phone call from Wallace who has now finished his exams and is waiting the results; we discuss Starart.
We're so excited as Nathan has just phoned about our loaning some props (for a music video) and happened to mention that he'd received an e mail from his publishers to say that they have just received the review copies of his book 'Short Films and how to make them' which will be published on 28th of this month.
We go to the new Gloucestershire College campus which is a stunning building with beautiful aspects over the old Priory on one side and the river on another. Gleaming white and blue in the sunshine. we are here to look at the spaces that Greg Smith has invited me to show some of my work and also the remaining Starart pieces. My three large canvases will hang in the atrium as a backdrop to the opening ceremony and the small Star Art works will be exhibited on easels in the room where the buffet will be served.
R goes up to London to collect stretchers and paints from Cornelissens; also to deliver two small Grecian stone pillars and a 1920's screen that we have, to Nathan for the music video set he's creating next week. but the highlight of his trip is seeing a prepublication copy of Nathan's book in the middle of the window of a bookshop in Great Ormond Street. He says it looks beautiful with a still from Nathan's polar bear film on the cover and is quite a sizeable tome. He doesn't see Nathan when he delivers the props to his studio in Hackney as he's still at Central St Martins filming with a group of his students there.
Meanwhile I'm busy on commissions.
Nice uneventful day so am able to make good progress on commissions.
Ring the Art Consultants to find out when the newspaper paintings are being installed.
Working on the Cantilever commission.
ditto
ditto
Barrie from the Darkroom rings to say they have someone in who would like to order copies of the two prints (' Locals" and "Nationals" that they are currently exhibiting for us for Starart. he says she is known by me and I discover it is Kim who works at the Sue Ryder Home as either artist in residence or arts co-ordinator.
E mail from Karl and Sharron Monday to say how pleased he is with the
painting that Sharron had commissioned especially for his 40th birthday.
She had been so excited about the whole process so it's very pleasing to
know that he is enjoying it.
Still working very hard on the Cantilever painting.
Rick Rumrell, the American lawyer, rings for a catch-up chat as he's been in London for a couple of days on a case.
The studio's very dark and I resort to turning one of my strip lights on in the morning; by mid afternoon have switched them all on and have the curtains drawn.
The incessant rain makes me think of the poor people in Bangladesh; how horrendous it must be in the terrible flooding with thousands of people dying and thousands more being made homeless.
Whilst R is putting up a couple of shelves for my Mum I'm working on the Cantilever commission I have the sudden inspiration of sending Rick Rumrell an image of Simon Quadrat's primitive Crucifixion painting. It would seem so appropriate for him as Rick is an evangelist (does a pod cast for a Californian religious programme) and is also a lawyer. Simon Quadrat has spent most of his working life as a criminal barrister in London then in Bristol whist painting and is a highly thought of Royal West of England Academician. I think Rick would also like the idea that it's going to further creativity at the National Star College as he has always been a great patron of the arts. And bless him, he e mails back within the hour to ask how he can buy the piece.
Richard has put the three new Star student
christmas card designs on the Starart
website. They're vibrant and stunning; I've already bought some for
us, my Mum and Henrietta. Two designs by Spencer Brazier and one by Kaella
Campbell. They can be ordered through the Starart site and at £3.75
for a pack of 10 they are a brilliant buy too !!!
ORDER FORM
It's head down this week finishing the Cantilever Bars commission.
ditto
Call from the education officer at the Museum asking if she could chat to me about Portrait of the artist watching her children grow (which is in their permanent collection) as she frequently uses it in her talks and gets asked many questions about it. We decide on the 14th December.
Get up very early - closer to the time I usually go to bed! - for the Bishop's Breakfast which was today being hosted by Professor Patricia Broadfoot, Vice Chancellor of the University. There is a group reporting on their findings on the older people in Gloucestershire and we are joined by Christina Snell CEO of Age Concern and two or three others from the county who work in the same field.
Shortly after returning to the studio we set out again, this time to the Docks in Gloucester for the opening of the new Gloucestershire College Gloucester campus. Have the privilege of being taken on a tour round part of the new campus by Andy Ginn, the director of Arts & Media. It's wonderful to peer through glass panels on doors into vast workshops where brick walls and corners are being constructed, or the engineering workshop which feels a little like a scene from Modern Times and the joinery workshops with Pompidou Centre-like pipes running down to each bench to extract the dust. We pass the Bishop and other members of the Breakfast group coming on tour in the opposite direction. Andy then takes us out into the grounds of the Priory ruins which are very beautiful and he tells me that they will probably show films there when I suggest it would be a wonderful place for performances. Then it's time for the opening. My three paintings look quite small even though two are six foot square, hung above the speakers. I am quite taken aback and surprised when Greg Smith mentions them and thanks me. later he introduces us to John Denham, Minister of State for Innovations, Skills and Universities. We are rather pleased as Helen, Principal of the Star College, has joined us so she is able to have a word with the Minister whom she hopes will come and visit the Star College.
Anita (editor of the Echo) comes to collect her Tiger print. We spend an enjoyable couple of hours chatting over coffee and talking about how we arrived in our chosen fields. R caries the print to her car and then goes down to the village to pick up a copy of Weekend Magazine as she had said they have the reader Offer on the two newspaper painting prints Locals and A Good Read, both in aid of the National Star College, giving it a full page spread with an article on how I got to know the College.
Later Sarah Daley, a business development consultant, comes to collect her Ivon Hitchins lithograph. She says she was at yesterdays opening as she is a governor of Gloucestershire College but also advises the Star College on its Appeal and has a rather good idea for raising money as her donation to the College.
Up till 5.30 working on the Cantilever commission.
Simon and Caroline (of Cantilever Bars) come to see their commission; they are very pleased so it's full steam ahead having it photographed for reproduction. Continue working on it until 4 am.
R takes the painting to be photographed and then delivers the transparency to the HPL printers in Swindon.
Richard takes a phone call from Lise Noakes, ordering a copy of A Good Read. Lise was Mayor of Gloucester last year when she officiated at the opening of the Paradise exhibition at Gloucester City Museum and where she bought Band of Angels.
Busy finishing two small paintings for the Fosse Gallery Christmas show.
Interesting post which includes the alumni magazine for Cambridge University sent by Martin Day who has noticed a large reproduction of Money Matters, a corrugated painting I did in the 80s. He wonders if the University owns it as they have the second largest collection of women's art in the world. they have just received £100,000 heritage lottery funding so that they can make it open to the public. they don't own Money Matter but do have Radio Pram, a large construction from my 2003 London show.
We deliver three small works to the Fosse Gallery where it's full of paintings stacked against the walls either having come down or ready to go up. Tomorrow Sharron is off to collect a couple of Mary Feddens.
We then drive on to Thame to visit Jane in Thame Community Hospital where she is until the move home next week when they have adapted the house and acquired the necessary equipment to care for her there. The nurses send us into the Day Room where the lights are dimmed but no one in sight and then in the darkness outside we spot her sitting with Roy and two of her friends from the village, drinking wine. Roy says the hospital have been very good in allowing Jane and her visitors to sit outside so that she can have a cigarette. Later Roy gets me to push her back to her room in the large wheelchair where Richard learns to operate the hoist for her transition to the bed. it's a rather wonderful but relatively simple machine which seems to be a large sheepskin sling but care has to be taken as her bottom can slip through the end if it's not positioned well. I rub her feet and ask if she has ever had reflexology. I don't know quite how that works but I know that foot massage is supposed to be therapeutic. Roy says she has been very bright and awake this evening for much longer than usual and kindly puts it down to our presence. We leave the hospital at seven and he asks if we will join him for supper in his village pub. We discuss Jane's condition I say that I don;t think she has deteriorated more than when we saw her at the end of October.
Henrietta, Kev and Isaac arrive about 10pm; we have a lovely hour or so with Isaac rushing around to all his old haunts and familiar toys. It's not many minutes before he says 'tractor' and points to the french windows.
Kev drives Richard and I to the Nuffield Hospital for R's hernia repair operation. I stay with him whilst the anaesthetist does his examination and leave just before the nurse comes to take his blood pressure etc. Then Kev runs me back home. He and Henrietta take my Mum shopping whilst I watch over the sleeping Isaac who is taking his afternoon nap and offer tea and mince pies to Wallace who has come to collect the piece he had purchased (the composer Martin Kiszko's autographed score) and the Leonard Mannasseh for his sister Madge, that they bought from the Starart exhibition.
Isaac wakes just before 4 o'clock, at the same time Henrietta rings to say they have had a text from Richard and also spoken to him as he still hadn't gone into the operating theatre. I try ringing him on his mobile and discover later that is just the moment they take him in. I ring the hospital just after 5 and they've just brought him back to the ward after the operation which went well. Ring again about 7.30 when I'm able to speak to a groggy Richard who is obviously very drowsy but sounds happy that it has been done.
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