I think last week I said I was trying to finish a large painting before we hung the exhibition on Monday. Well …it was finished but not until well into Sunday! After that I had to remove all the painting gear that I’d accumulated over the last four months so that we had two clear clean gallery spaces for the exhibition. This took quite some time and it was 10pm by the time I had everything done. The trouble was that I still had one 80 x 80 cm board that I’d primed with gesso a few weeks earlier and that I’d planned to do a new drawing on. So, even at the very last moment I thought I could get a final drawing completed and announced to my partner Anita that instead of going to bed I’d be working late! And I did …until around 03.00! The result however was not as hoped for and the piece I did was dreadful….but I enjoyed myself even if I did feel shattered the next morning when Markus, Mike and Andrea arrived first thing to hang the exhibition!
The work went up fairly quickly and by lunchtime we had it almost complete and looking good ….leaving just a few things still to do. The local press arrived in the evening for a preview and at the end, Michael Lauter announced that I was now on holiday.
We had the Preview last night at 8 o’clock, but it was a worrying few hours as all day the sky had got darker and the humidity higher. It had to end with a bang and the 1st thunder storm arrived at 5 o’clock…great stuff. As it turned out though, we were lucky and by 8 o’clock, it was dry again and around 60 people gathered in the courtyard as Holger (Chairman of Kunstlerbund) and the Mayor opened the exhibition and Markus gave a wonderful speech, recounting how I came to be working in Speyer. This being the Pfalz, there was plenty of local wine flowing and by the end of the evening I had sold 2 paintings and was having discussions with a local businessman re him buying my big, 4 metre long drawing for his restaurant in Speyer.
What a night, finally got to bed at 3:30, but not before we’d been treated to an amazing piece of unaccompanied, improvised singing from one of Speyer’s best loved singers and musicians, Klaus Fresenius…quite brilliant.
Click here to see my Speyer Art Exhibition Paintings
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