Last week I was contacted by Jean and Hilary, the two former owners of the successful Gallimaufry Gallery in Blairmore, near Dunoon. They explained that they were organising a sale of artwork in Oban, in order to raise funds for the relief effort in Haiti, following the recent devastating earthquake there. They asked if I would be interested in taking part and if I could let them have a piece of work for the sale. This is a great opportunity to support those who do the real work and so the only question for me was which painting to donate for the sale. I wanted something that was quite bright, something that would hopefully catch the eye and in the end decided on a painting that has developed over a number of years.
'Below Ben Oss, winter'
Interestingly I originally did this painting for a show organised by Jean and Hilary at Gallimaufry a number of years ago. I’ve had the painting in my studio ever since and have always like the colours but as time has gone by and my work has developed, I’ve felt I could improve it. I’ve never really been one for that ‘don’t go back to a painting once it’s finished’ malarkey and so a few months ago I decided to‘re-work’ it. As I’ve said in previous blogs, my work is very gradually erring more towards the abstract and is certainly more painterly. I’ve been using broad sweeps of paint in many of the more recent works and this is how I’ve‘re-worked’ this painting. The basic underlying structure is still there, but a new semi translucent diagonal sweep of blue / purple, has completely changed the composition. I am very pleased with this new version and hope someone at the Oban sale will like it too.
The work will be part of the sale which will take place on:
SATURDAY 27TH FEBRUARY AT THE REGENT HOTEL IN OBAN – FROM 2.00 – 7.00PM
Many artists will be taking part, so if you can get along your support will be much appreciated. Full details of the event below. If you are an artist yourself and would like to take part in the sale, please contact the organiser Jean Thompson by email: jean_thompson47@yahoo.co.uk
Help for Haiti
To raise much needed funds to relieve the suffering of people in the devastated island of Haiti, an Art Sale will be held on Saturday 27th Feb. in the Regent Hotel, Oban from 2.00-7.00pm. Many Scottish artists will take part to make a truly eclectic collection of works.
Among those is Elizabeth Bruce, a Scottish contemporary artist whose painting style is representational but not photorealist. She has worked in all media on a variety of subjects, usually concentrating on acrylics – still life, treescapes, figures, interiors and landscapes. In January 2003 she was elected a member of the Glasgow Society of Women Artists. Her work has been shown in various galleries in Argyll, as well as the RGI Kelly Gallery and the Lillie Gallery, both in Glasgow, and the Torrance Gallery in Edinburgh. Elizabeth likes to keep her work within the Affordable Art bracket and prices start as low as £25 for an unframed lino-cut, while paintings are all between £140 and £500.
Sue Challis has lived and worked on the West Coast of Scotland for over twenty years. Educated in North London, she qualified as a lecturer in craft and design and youth leadership. She now concentrates on acrylic painting and pen & ink drawing. When she is not painting, Sue and her husband run the Raven Trust sending containers of aid, medical, educational and small business start-up equipment to Malawi. Sue loves the bright colours and dancing light of the North West Coast of Scotland and this is passionately evoked in her work.
Aiming to be there in person is award winning artist, Keith Salmon. Keith combines his twin passions of hill walking and landscape painting in his work. What makes him truly remarkable, though, is that he lost much of his sight almost 20 years ago. Despite these “difficulties”, his work won the Jolomo Award for Scottish Landscape Painting in 2009. Describing some of his visits with partner Anita to some wild and remote glens and summits, under all conditions throughout all four seasons, Keith says “Even with my fuzzy vision this is a truly wonderful and stunning landscape. In my paintings I try to capture something of these incredible places, something of their sheer scale, complexity and beauty.”
This sale of art is being organised by 2 former gallery owners who will donate all profits to Mary’s Meals for their ongoing work in Haiti. Many of the artists are donating the full sale price of their works to the appeal. One such is Calum MacFarlane-Barrow whose son Magnus runs this international movement from Dalmally. The following news update comes from their web page.
“Mary’s Meals has been working in Haiti since 2006 providing meals for over 12 000 children in schools in Cite Soleil, Gonaives and Hinche. We now know that our seven schools in Cite Soleil have been damaged, but not destroyed. We will be working to help repair and rebuild these schools, to support their pupils and to assist with the wider recovery in the capital in any way we can.
In the city of Hinche, we have started to provide food and medical supplies for earthquake victims and their families who have arrived looking for food and treatment. Many have nothing but the clothes on their backs and these regional hospitals are now over-flowing as well. When local stocks run out, as we expect them to soon, we will make arrangements for aid to be brought in from the Dominican Republic.
It is becoming clear that the recovery effort in Haiti will need to be long term and widespread. Anything at all that you can give to help us will be appreciated.”
Please come along to this event to help this cause and maybe pick up a prized original art work. Prices will suit all pockets from £1 art cards to the much bigger paintings.
Like the rest of the country, Irvine has been pretty cold for the last three weeks now, despite the influence of the Gulf Stream!
My friends’ wife having pre-booked their car for Friday, we went by train. This meant an early start, catching the 06.30 train from Irvine and arriving in Largs just 50 minutes later …while it was still dark!Not really good for me as the limited bit of sight I have deteriorates very rapidly as the light fades. In the dark I am almost totally blind …. but as we had to walk a way through town to get to the start of the path we were taking, it wasn’t too bad.
Once off the path the snow was quite deep and up on the tops … even deeper. Under normal conditions this is very rough ground and this had now filled with snow. If it had been compacted and hard it would have made for great walking but instead the snow had an icy top layer covering in places, two feet or so of loose soft snow. It was hard and very slow work at times trying to force a way through it and we quickly realised our initial plan to walk over several of the hills wouldn’t be possible. Instead we decided just to try and get to the first summit …Brown Hill at 388 m. This sounds a grand place but in reality is no more than a slightly high bump in a huge area of frozen bog and moor. But if really didn’t matter. The views, both distant and close up were amazing. The snow was sculpted into amazing shapes by the wind and was covered by animal tracks.
We returned towards the main track as the sun was setting and were once again treated to a colourful display as the setting sun turned some of the hillside a beautiful shade of pink and purple. The final walk back towards the town was accompanied by the reassuring crunch and clink of our crampons on the thick ice
Well, the run up to Christmas this year has been quite a good one. I’ve got a number of paintings completed this month ready for the exhibition at Strathearn Gallery in February. This is a group exhibition, containing work by the seven finalists of the Jolomo Awards 2009. They’re asking for around eight pieces so I’m hoping to include nearly all new work.
Tomorrow will be the last day for a couple. This year I’ll be spending a quiet couple of days with my partner Anita. Last year however, things were a little different. Anita, who works at the local hospital, had drawn the short straw and was working a twelve and a half hour shift on Christmas Day. I decided I might as well do the same thing …and we’d start our Christmas at 8 pm when Anita finished work. She said that she’d drive down to the studio and pick me up on the way home. Well, all was fine. I had a nice walk down to the studio in bright winter sunshine on Christmas morning and then spent an enjoyable day painting. By evening though the weather had turned bad and a fierce gale was blowing and it was raining very hard. At eight o’clock Anita rang to say she was leaving work and I closed shop and made my way from the back door of the studios to the main gate …which I had to close and lock. Not concentrating, I put my white cane under my arm and proceeded to walk across the courtyard towards the gate … trying to find the padlock key as I went. In the total darkness I hadn’t notice a large wheelie bin that had been blown across the courtyard in the gales and was lying on its side right in my path. I tripped over it’s open lid and fell face first into the empty filthy, wet bin!
As I’ve said on a few occasions, I’ve really not been getting out walking as much as I used to. The excuse is that I’ve just been too busy this year. But that’s really not good enough. I’m getting unfit and I rely on the walks for the information needed for my paintings.
We were looking down on the main road so familiar to us ….and suddenly it looked very small against the vastness of Rannoch Moor and the hills of the Black Mount. This day though, wasn’t just about walking and trying to get some fitness back into aching leg muscles, it was also about trying to get some new information for paintings.
Until around 1990 my sight was very good. Then as it deteriorated I found that I had to interpret what I saw in a completely different way. This has taken quite a lot of adjustment over many years and now after a lengthy period of fairly stable vision, I move around with surprising ease, particularly in places that are familiar to me.
It was an amazing day. The moors themselves are quite beautiful, wild and generally feature-less but in places with expansive views out towards the Glasgow conurbation. It was a stunning day weather wise too, with bright sunshine and large roving rain showers, producing amazing colours and contrasts. The most mind blowing bit though was the turbines. Man made as they were; set in this bleak landscape, I found it almost impossible to assess their size, and the distance between each of them. They were in fact, huge, each one of them around 55m high and each one with three colossal 45m blades. With my sight so limited I could only see the nearest of the turbines and so as we walked through this massive moor land site, the views were almost always the same to me. It reminded me of what they say about the universe ..it looks the same from where ever you are.