Lockdown 3 continues .......

So, now into February, and well over a month in complete lockdown.  But I’m relieved to say that it hasn’t been entirely unproductive time for me.  

As mentioned in my previous ‘news’, my solo exhibition at The Fishslab had to be cancelled, along with all the other exhibitions due to be held there over the next few weeks.  So instead, this lovely gallery has arranged for a few images from each booked artist to form a series of mini on-line exhibitions, now showing on the Fishslab website.   Check out www.fishslabgallery.co.uk to see some of them.  Thank you Fishslab, you really are a little gem!

 And then a friend of mine who was planning to bring a posse of friends to the exhibition, asked if I would do a little presentation for them via Zoom instead.  I was a tad dubious, never having done such a thing before.  But then I thought ‘what the heck, nothing to lose’ and decided to give it a go.  The dining table was pushed aside, plinths and shelves were set up, and I put out a selection of pieces.  One of the ‘posse’ kindly sorted out the Zoom invitations – and lo and behold!  an on-line viewing took place.  There were a couple of technical glitches but we each had lots of wine and snacks to hand so it was like having a very jolly Private View, except we were all in different parts of the country.  (In fact, one couple was in the USA, so can I claim it was an International exhibition?)  Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and now I can’t wait to meet all the attendees in real life just as soon as it’s allowed.  And in another first, I then had a go at making a very short video of the ‘exhibition’, which I’ve put on my Instagram feed.  Please have a look if you have a spare moment.  It’s mercifully short, even if it’s not very slick!

Also, a group of friends and myself have come together to form Axiom Collective.  We’re all creatives who for some years had been bumping into each other at various artistic events and creative Meet Ups.  Over time we became friends, and when Lockdown 1 came last March, we resolved to keep in regular contact via zoom.  We ‘met’ most weeks, finding our chats very uplifting during a strange and worrying period.  When that lockdown eased, several of us managed to meet in real life and over coffee and biscuits, someone suggested it might be good to become a named group, continuing to support each other emotionally as always, sharing knowledge and expertise, and with strength in numbers making promotion, publicity, exhibiting etc much less daunting than dealing with these things individually. As you might imagine, much discussion and tossing around of ideas followed, but to cut a long story short, a small band of us formed Axiom Collective. Currently members are - Bev Saunders, who runs Edge Picture Framing from her home workshop; ; France Tetreault, ‘The Music Lovers Abstract Artist’ who paints in her home studio; Stella Chapman, brand designer and founder of SALT Design Consultancy; Zel Hunt, recently retired art therapist, and an accomplished contemporary artist and photographer; and yours truly!   We style oursleves ‘the group who connected in a time of disconnect’, and Stella has designed our wonderful logo.  Why not follow axiom.collective on Instagram and see what we get up to?