Annual Exhibition.

Our Annual Exhibition opens this coming weekend, and I'm so proud to have been part of a great team of workers and organisers. Many people's jobs are dirty and unnoticed, like the team who bring the blocks and screens from their deep dark storage shed that used to be part of a chicken farm. The Committee members who organise all the paperwork, making sure that the insurances are in place and remember to book the hall a year in advance, oh, and make sure that we have enough money in the kitty to pay for it all, especially the lighting.

The proof of a great team is in how smoothly the Exhibition comes together, how it looks effortless and easy even though it is far from it. So many Members pay their fees and exhibit their lovely work, but so few realise just how much work goes into it. If they knew, they would join me in thanking the unsung heroes, the people who bring this enormous undertaking to it's stunning conclusion.

This is the 75th year of the Exhibition which began in March 1934, when a group of artists got together and planned an Exhibition of their work. My favourite of these artists was Flora Twort. She was a very independant lady for her time, setting up a bookshop in Petersfield with two of her friends and then buying her own cottage in Church Path which was also at the time her studio. Having spent a good deal of time in her cottage, which is now a museum, I feel very close to this remarkable lady. I was minding an Exhibition on an icy November morning, armed with a thermos of coffee and sat in what would have been her bedroom, surrounded by beautiful art. Hearing the sounds of tinkling china coming from the tea room downstairs, I drifted into a daydream, where I was a visitor in her home, listening to her making us a lovely pot of tea that we could enjoy while discussing her latest paintings. So lost was I in my daydream, that I almost saw her walk into the room, look out on to the green in front of the Church before turning to regard me!

Anyhoo, back to the present time!

This year I volunteered for the postition of Craft Manager, it's a huge responsibility and a lot of hard work, but I'm so glad I took it on. I had two other people helping me, plus P, who worked her little socks off.

We took this


to this in two and a half days.


And we went from this


and this


to this in that time too. The pictures were hung by another Team and somehow, we co ordinated the paintings and sculpture so that it flowed in a perfect sweep around the room with no clashes of colour or form. To the right of the picture is the huge crane 'thingy' that shifts things!


I'm so pleased with how my pieces turned out, and they look lovely beside the other work entered.