HELLENS MANOR 2024

As a member of The Herefordshire Painting Club  I had the opportunity in 2024 to exhibit in a joint show during the Hellens Garden Festival at this beautiful Tudor Manor in Herefordshire.

I began visiting the manor in the early months of the year, the gardens were closed but footpaths run across the land and pass close to the house so I was able to gain a sense of place and to begin making sketches and gathering ideas for paintings.

In the build up to the exhibition we had two painting days at Hellens factored into the painting club’s programme, one of which was a tutored session. We also had a short artist’s residency.

I was asked to run the tutored day in the gardens, luckily and unusually the sun shone for us! and the session was very well attended. I started with a talk about my own techniques and ideas, more of a ‘show and tell’, rather than a demonstration, as I spread out my sketches on the tea tables and pegged rolls of lining paper ‘step by step’ instructions onto the bushes. There was an emphasis on the subject of ‘looking through’, exploring ways to tackle perspective and create distance. Some excellent work was produced on the day with some of the paintings having a well deserved place in the exhibition.

HELLENS ARTIST’S RESIDENCY

Sadly, artists residencies rarely mean that you move in, and are offered a temporary studio and access to the kettle and teapot! But the chance to exhibit at the Manor seemed too good an opportunity not to create an Artists Residency.

I approached Hellens, asking if I could be in the gardens for four days in a row at the end of April, beginning of May, and offered for members of The Herefordshire Painting club to join me. we really enjoyed soaking up the atmosphere and history of Hellens, the birdsong, donkeys braying, hens clucking and the chatter of the gardeners and volunteers, coming and going throughout the week. We gained a good ‘sense of place’ met the resident dogs and enjoyed each others company for coffee and lunch.

It was challengingly chilly with one day of gusty strong winds that blew my easel over and whipped up my sketchbook, sending pages flapping through the apple trees and down to the georgian stables.

Happily we were rewarded on the last day with sunshine and warmth.

There’s so much to paint and draw at Hellens I managed to complete most of the pictures that I’d envisaged and treated myself to a house tour on the last afternoon, curious to see the wonders inside the walls. I might have to arrange another residency INSIDE the manor!

The resulting exhibition had a great impact with a large volume of work on the common theme of Hellens Manor.

MUSEUM IN THE PARK, STROUD  ‘COLLECTIONS’

With felt maker Sarah Brooker

I met artist, Sarah Brooker, at Brewery Arts in Cirencester and we realised that we were working  in very different mediums but with almost identical subject matters,  Collections.  Feathers, cotton reels, hankerchiefs and cutlery!

We decided to exhibit together, and worked from both our own collections of favourite objects and each others. We first showed work together at Brook Street Gallery in Hay on Wye. Our approaches were very different but the paintings and felts complimented each other perfectly in a colourful collection of favourite things. We liked the idea of touring the exhibition, so approached the Museum in the Park, Stroud. We proposed a residency, where we would both work from the museum’s collections and would hold an exhibition of paintings and felts alongside the objects that inspired them.

We loved the large and light gallery at Museum in the Park and the exhibition was a huge success, with visitors especially enjoying the display cases of treasures and sketchbooks Sarah and I had brought from home.

Postcards were produced of paintings inspired by the museum’s treasures, for sale in the shop,  and  Sarah and I ran workshops to co-incide with the residency and exhibition.

ARTIST'S RESIDENCY AT THE DEAN HERITAGE CENTRE

I’ve always loved museums, especially smaller local ones that display my favourite subject, the artifacts of everyday life.

I approached The Dean Heritage Centre, here in the Forest of Dean with the idea of becoming an Artist in Residence. I wanted to spend time amongst the museum’s treasures, looking in detail and recording my favourite pieces in pencil and paint. I was on site with sketchbooks and drawing boards,  a couple of times a week for eight weeks of the summer, and also ran some childrens drawing workshops.

There was a  great response from visitors, who enjoyed seeing my work in progress around the museum, and were often  sparked into conversations by objects I was sketching,  ‘keen  to share their memories with me.

The residency culminated in a popular exhibition at the centre.