We had a great time at Brockenhurst Show. For a small village, in the heart of the New Forest in Hampshire, Brock really draws the crowds. The village hall is enormous and having a train station helps to bring in the crowds. We had great artists this year – Adele Thomas, Margaret Beal and Anne Hellyer among them. Big names in traders too, with the likes of Art Van Go and Mulberry Silks. The WOWbook stand did very well and it was great to see so many members. There was an exhibition by the Gathering Memories team. They are raising money for the Alzheimers Society by asking people to produce small, stitched works which will be auctioned at the Willis Museum from 30th June to 4th August and Southampton Art Gallery, 12th to 30th September. Or you can bid on the website www.gatheringmemoriesuk.wordpress.com You can see some of the entries in this blog – the standard was very high.
My piece was called Memory Tree, Fractured – see below. The finished piece shows a figure trying to straighten the tree while all the memories fall down and collect as flotsam below it. I stamped some text on it and then reversed it as my mum had a friend with this horrible disease. Poor Daisy, previously an avid reader, was unable to make sense of the text as she said it was all going backwards. So this piece is for her.
The exhibition had some lovely pieces so do please support them.
My Multicoloured WOWbook online course has been going great guns and we are now on Texture – having had a whale of a time with colour. These little strips are some of my own texture experiments. Flotsam and Jetsam were great fun to make and use up all kinds of bits and pieces. The lower one was used in my Alzheimers piece.
We are about to return the wonderful work of Diane Bates, who is featured in the next WOWbook. Diane is hoping to show her Painted Lady collection in her new house at some stage and I can tell you it is well worth seeing. The house itself is lovely and Fiona has insisted on coming with me to return the work to Diane. So we are off on a WOW jolly, leaving Clive in charge of the cat – or is it the other way round? You can see some of the collection below.
It is not just the stitching that is top class – Diane’s drawing skills are awesome.
This is her workroom – full of wonders. We’ll take more photos on our trip and it won’t be long before the book is out with a big interview and lots of lovely photos. Can’t wait.