out in the open…

“Exhibition preparations” 2022

Storms were forecast.

Organizing a first exhibition, out in the open, was suddenly raising a whole list of concerns.

What would happen if it rained, how could I protect the artwork? What if there were high winds?

I am pretty good at imagining catastrophes.

I wasn’t really too concerned about the weather conditions keeping people away.

Having agreed to doing an exhibition, I laid out some artwork on the living room sofas and with the help of my son, I set about selecting a small collection of nine paintings.

Not knowing how much space I would have, thinking about the practicalities of framing, thinking through the logistics of transport, deciding that I would be making prints of a small number of paintings, enabled me to limit the collection.

I really enjoyed the process of selecting and rejecting, making choices based on unity of theme, contrast of subject, vibrancy of colour.

With the exception of one painting, “Rockflow Scape”, all the artwork was inspired by recent walks in the Auvergne.

First Exhibition Selection.

Working on this website while preparing for the exhibition helped me to focus on practicalities: how I would pack the artwork, the printing of Certificates of Authenticity, the labels to describe each painting, the pricing.

In doing this work I discovered many parallels with past experiences:

• preparing for conference presentations

• the technical aspects of theatrical productions

• the organisation of film shoots from my days as a production assistant in London.

Now, writing this, I find joy in the creation of this website, excitement in getting ready to be “out in the open”.

I have learnt so much in such a short period, I feel that taking this time, developing the framework for this site, learning to work with these web applications, finding work-arounds to constraints, is not separate but an integral part of making the art that I choose to share. In 2010, when I was preparing for to speak at my first national education conference, I spent hours writing an article in French, building a website and then starting a blog.

When something is important to me, I put my heart and soul into the venture.

Perhaps nobody will visit this site and read what I am writing or see the art that I am doing.

I am stoic, I am only concerned with what I must do, I am giving everything that I have.

There is a quote of Andy Warhol that I love:

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone decide if it is good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding make even more art.”

Open day.

Everything was packed into a large plastic box, I was as ready as I was going to be. When I arrived at the exhibition site, I was pleased to discover that the organizers had provided covered market stalls, tables, chairs, and wires to hang artwork on.

First exhibition set up.

With a little help from my friends.

With the help of my wife and daughter, Thomas de Ligneris from the Association des Artistes d’Auvergne, and Flora Gueton a neighbouring artist, we got the exhibition set up.

I was struck by the generosity of the people and the camaraderie of the people on the different stalls displaying arts and crafts.

As the day went on, I was able to take time to talk with the other artists exhibiting, and had long conversations with a few passers by who took the time to look at my artwork and who gave me very complimentary feedback on what I was sharing. I always find the perspectives of others fascinating, it’s always great to come across people who have surprising reactions.

What I really love is meeting and learning from others.

Even if there weren’t many people who came to that market, and nobody to my knowledge sold very much or anything at all, time didn’t go slowly, I was much too busy talking with the others, learning about where they were exhibiting, learning about how they lived their art.

There’s something that Flora said to me which resonated, even if it is hard making a living, her meetings with other artists had confirmed to her that she was on the right track.

This was my first exhibition, out in the open.

There were many lessons learnt, no sales, many meetings.

I don’t know where my path will lead me, but this was certainly a memorable step.