Hi Everyone
Just an update on the Exhibition before I am off on my holidays with no.2 son and DIL!
I think we had a really great Exhibition this year, the quality of the submissions was really excellent and we had lots of comments on the quality and variety from our visitors.
Firstly we had a lovely social time at the Cheese & Wine Preview on the Friday night again, thanks to everyone who came out and joined us!
I noticed that people were both visiting several times and going round several times and some really studying and discussing our art work in detail and especially our Frida Kahlo Fragmented Picture, which was an inspired idea from our Chair Carol West! What a great picture to choose and such great work from 36 of our members to each create their square so beautifully. Check out our website www.hadsart.co.uk if you missed seeing her in person. Thank you also to Dave W for his creation of the frame and all his battles with the perspex suppliers in order to affordably frame our Frida. Burbage Library are going to consider adopting her for a while so she may go back on show, subject to their committee meeting – will keep you posted. Thank you Carol for organising Frida – it will be tough to find another picture as good as this one for our next year endeavour!
Dave W had also taken up the mantle of helping us improve the Exhibition layout, we had a trip to Peterborough to look at commercially available Exhibition Boards but didn’t think they were robust enough and were really expensive. So after dragging him around several other exhibitions on the promise that there might be some car paintings and to look at their boards… , he came up with the idea of the triplicate double peg boards which were built for this years Exhibition. I think they were fabulous and I know he worked really hard to make them and the shed might never be the same again. The new boards made it possible to share the light out for all our exhibits and made the whole experience a lot nicer for our visitors – no doubt we will be looking to put Dave back in the shed for some additional new boards for next year, once he has had a rest! Thank you Dave and BIL Rob Earl who also re’revitted’ all of the existing boards.
We sold 36 paintings this year, this is an amazing total and I have to say one of the great pleasures for me is when one of our artists paintings sells. It means that someone, often a stranger, loves your art enough to spend money to own it and have it in their house or gift it to family or friends. You are a talented lot so this is no surprise but lovely all the same! I hope to see more of you having a go at putting exhibits in the future!
Finally we put the exhibition on mainly to showcase our work and to provide a community event which is affordable and friendly for everyone, but in order to do this we need to have volunteers to help us set up all the boards and bunting, iron table cloths, flower arrange, set up tables and chairs to 3 different layouts, hang and re-hang paintings to show them off to best effect, cater for cheese & wine and bake home made cakes and man our HDSA Cafe for 12 hours, wash up put away, administer the selling and collection of our paintings and then help with take down, hoovering and car packing. We had lots of volunteers for this Exhibition – it was great, thank you for all of your hard work, it is much appreciated and without it we couldn’t hold the event.
We met Steve Daly of Burbage Charity Bikes, who together with his wife has raised over £50,000 for breast cancer over the last year, Burbage Charity Bikes is not a charity, it is Steve and his wife receiving bikes people no longer want and then buying equipment themselves and restoring these bikes for sale. All the proceeds from the sale is then donated to their chosen charity. Steve is an inspirational chap and was very thoughtful in his presentation of our Best in Exhibition Prize, he visited on the Saturday and told me he was seriously impressed by the event and the community vibe in the room and made a lovely speech about this aspect ahead of the prized presentation. The Best in Exhibition was won by Dave Freer, well deserved with his lovely painting Italian Lake Scene. Shirley Simonetti’s MmmH Thank You was second and Dave managed to take third place as well as 1st with Up The Yard.
Here is a photo of Dave receiving his trophy from Steve and a picture of his painting. Lots more pictures from the Exhibition all on our website www.hadsart.co.uk
See you all in September!!
Best Wishes
Sara W