It was a lovely, though overcast and drizzly, afternoon when my friend Jo and I went to Kurrajong to hang my exhibition, ‘From Parkes to Paris’, a couple of weeks ago. And it was a busy afternoon at The Village Kitchen, too; the lunch crowd was not entirely gone until about 2.30 and then, as Jo and I got to work, Shane and his team had to set up around us for an engagement party that night. But we did it! Huge thanks to Jo for her help, and of course Shane for the opportunity.
This weekend I’ll be delivering works for the Ku-ring-gai Art Society’s Spring Exhibition; I’ve also submitted entries for the Waverley 9 x 5 Landscape Prize, the Glenaeon Art Show and the Hunters Hill Art Exhibition – fingers crossed! Most fun was my entry for The Biblio Art Prize, as this year I was allocated ‘The Weekend’, by Charlotte Wood. The picture above shows my dog Izzi, putting the final touches on one of my submissions – ‘Damaged’. Finn, the canine character in the book, is a damaged dog. He’s old and crippled, dirty and smelly, arthritic and incapable, blind and deaf. But of course his owner loves him, largely because he’d been a gift from a very dear friend – a gift she believed had come from the heart. As the book comes to an end, however, the truth is painfully revealed.
Some unrelated-to-painting news – a couple of nights ago I made my first (and no doubt only) appearance as guest author at a Book Club! After the disruptions of Covid, the invitation extended to me by my friend (and glass artist) Karina Vallins, soon after ‘Sophie’s Sister’ had been published, finally eventuated. As someone who has always tried to avoid any kind of public speaking, I’ve come to realise that there’s one thing I would happily talk about for hours – my experience writing ‘Sophie’s Sister’. Writing it was such an unlikely and joyful thing, and the period long ago around the time I wrote the first few drafts was a time in my life that I will always remember as one of the happiest.
If you’d like to see some of my paintings, here’s where you’ll find them …
‘From Parkes to Paris’ (solo show) at The Village Kitchen, 83 Old Bells Line of Road, Kurrajong, NSW, to Friday 28 October
KAS Spring Exhibition, St Ives Village Shopping Centre, Monday 10 October to Sunday 23 October
ASMA’s ‘It’s all in the detail’ at the Manning Regional Art Gallery, 12 Macquarie St, Taree, NSW, to Saturday 15 October
ASMA (Tas)’s ‘Little Gems’ at Rosny Schoolhouse Gallery, Lot 2 Rosny Hill Rd, Rosny Park, Tasmania, from Thursday 13 October to Sunday 6 November
And on the last weekend in November, my Open Studio.
Until next month.