A couple of weeks ago The Strathearn Gallery in Crieff took six of my paintings with them down to the Battersea Park Affordable Art Fair. They sold two of the paintings and so on Thursday we drove up to Perthshire to collect the unsold pieces and deliver two small pieces (shown here) for their forthcoming Christmas exhibition.
I’m sure I needn’t remind you but the weather that day was pretty vile. The thought of lugging several big paintings from the gallery to the car park a hundred or so metres away, in heavy rain and gale force winds was not a good one, but as Anita was working Friday and Saturday and the gallery was closed on the Sunday, we didn’t have much choice.
It didn’t look to promising as we set out from Irvine in the morning. There were dark threatening clouds to the east and we thought the worst. ….but as we approached Glasgow the sun came out (who said it was rainy in the west?!) and we seemed to follow the bright blue patches in the sky all the way to Crieff. It made for a lovely journey, especially once past Stirling and into the Perthshire countryside. The trees looked great in the bright sun and the colours were really intense. As we approached Crieff though there was really dark heavy cloud sitting on the hills behind the town ….where we’d been walking only a few weeks before ….and it didn’t seem likely that the sun would last that much longer.
It remained long enough though, to get the paintings down the street and into the car without getting a soaking and we were soon heading off back in the direction of the A9 and Glasgow. I had broached the subject of driving back via Crianlarich …the scenic route, but Nita said it was going to rain and we wouldn’t see anything …and she got it right. We’d not got more than a couple of kilometres out of Crieff when the rain started …and it quickly turned into a deluge. It was horrible ….really wet and very dark …I couldn’t see a thing ….good job they don’t let me drive ey?! Well, it remained like this all the way back to Glasgow but by the time we were getting into Ayrshire there was a bit of sun appearing again and we were able to unload the paintings from the car into my studio in the dry ….quite amazing.
Anyway, The Strathearn Gallery Christmas Exhibition opens on Saturday 20th November 2010 with a private view from 11am – 3 pm.
Exhibition opening hours Monday – Saturday 10 am – 5pm, Sunday 1pm – 5pm
January 2011 opening hours: Thursday – Sunday, 12 noon – 5pm
There are works by many artists in the exhibition so it should make for a great show.