Hybrid Devon Blog

AAF Bristol

Tim — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:13:47 +0000

We are getting this art fair thing off to a fine art hahahaha. No I mean we are honing our packing up of the van and setting up at the fair skills to new levels. All spurred on by Holly’s AS level exam schedule which is all this week, we had to be up to Brissol sorted and back by 5 which we did with consummate ease. It looks swell again for which we thank our artists and I hope sales go well for you all. The organisation of the fair by the AAF team is exemplary and contrasts with the horror stories I heard yesterday about the gallery section of a large and well known design fair in east London which was far from grand.

Photos will be forthcoming of our stand. Blogs are so very dull without a picture. Here is one of Dean’s fab sculptures which has my ‘first to go’ spell on it.

Landscape opening

Tim — Sat, 05 May 2012 14:01:20 +0000

A busy lunch time opening for our Landscape show with guests, friends and family and the moment worth blogging about? One of the artists (Mark) looked at one of the invited guests and said “Is your name Mary-Ann by any chance?”
“Yes it is ” she replied.
“Then the last time we saw each other was at college 32 years ago!”
They had both studied fashion and textiles at Central School of Art, in the same year, in the same group. How odd.

Been on a Tour

Tim — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:54:54 +0000

I had a very enjoyable tour of the Midlands on Monday and Tuesday. I experienced a myriad of weather conditions but managed to miss any flooding, though the rivers I crossed in Shropshire were very full and fast. Some high points were meeting our two new artists Jane French and Frans Wesselman and talking to them about their work, discovering a great viaduct in Rutland, going under an aquaduct in Telford with a narrowboat chugging across it, driving under an airship as it flew over the M5 (we need more of them as a means of transport, it looked lovely), passing historic battlegrounds of Naseby and Bosworth, spotting the most fabulous chalet bungalows ever, passing through villages with bizarre names – Cracklebanks and Sheepy Parva were a couple of favourites – and frankly just driving along Britain’s roads and looking. Bless you TomTom sat nav even if you were a bit tempremental finding a valid GPS signal at times.

My trip though long in miles and rich in experiences was nowhere near as long in time for this parcel that was returned to sender and arrived back with me this morning. I don’t know if you’ll be able to see the postal date on the photograph – in case you can’t it says 19th October 2010. Where has it been? And what has it seen?

(I can’t get this blog to stop lining text and pictures up in this random manner – it offends me and I’m sorry)

Stamp fiasco

Tim — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:16:01 +0000

Not our week it seems.

We salvaged an out of date mailing list off an old pc for the Landscape exhibition mailing and Jacqueline went to the Post Office to buy the 500 second class stamps to post them and they would only sell her 25 stamps!! Heated discussion with the manager. No budging them. Their option was to print them from the Royal Mail website on to paper cut them up and stick them on with tape or glue. Jacqueline came back fuming. We looked and the printed stamp is A6 and wouldn’t fit on an A5 envelope. I went to buy my 25. I said to Daphne behind the counter could I buy more as she knew we weren’t hoarding them and would be posting 500 letters later but no she stood by her manager’s choice to limit customers. I asked if I gave £9 to each of the fifteen people in the queue could they buy the 25 stamp allocation and then give them to me at the door? Yes that was fine, so I went off to the bank to draw the cash out and on my way I went into Dimonds the stationers to see if they had stamps. They did and were happy to sell me all of their 180 that they had. So I only needed £50s worth now at the PO that would be 5 people to ask but on the way back from the bank I tried WHSmiths and she was very happy to sell me the 125 more stamps I needed. Silly old Post Office. Silly Old Royal Mail. Good Old Dimonds. Good old WHSmiths.

Rare item. PO purchased stamps

Unwelcome visitors

Tim — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:32:39 +0000

Not much to say about them, but a straw poll of what people have said to me in person and on texts etc has ‘bastards’ in the lead.

The lesson however is BACKUP YOUR DATA. Go and do it now. If you don’t do it already go and buy a backup drive, don’t skimp and make sure data is in loads of places. We shall be using Cloud/remote services too.

Blu-tac

Tim — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:58:20 +0000

Where would we be without this marvel of modern stickery? Like remembering where you were when you heard about JFK, Elvis, Lennon and Michael Jackson I can remember buying my first pack of Blu-Tac (Ryman’s Charing Cross Road 1974). This is our company blu-tac blob that lives on the storage rack. I recently made it a bit more interesting!

Ah ha

Tim — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:56:06 +0000

Just realised another reason why they used Mr Best’s lights at the RSC !

The Bard?

Non gallery but of interest I hope

Tim — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:32:02 +0000

When Jacqueline and I had our few days off and went to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Twelfth Night at the RSC – excellent by the way, do go and see it if you get a chance – we particularly enjoyed the spaces they have created in the remodelled building and the quality of the work. It felt cared for and loved and celebrated british products and what greater product of britain has there been but the bard himself? The day after seeing the play we walked around the town in glorious sunshine and found ourselves back at the theatre in the morning considering tickets for Richard III (there were none and we thought it might dilute the previous night’s great offering) and found ourselves looking at the lovely architectural detail like the strips of timber dividing up the long stretch of polished concrete, yum; the leaving of the old wall openings and staircase on the original shell; the tiny weep holes above the strangely lintel-less windows in the tower. After more walking and chatting to a wench through the open window of Shakespeare’s birthplace ( I wasn’t only chatting to her because she was wearing period costume, I was thinking about the 1608 scene in our TVCT production) we found ourselves once more back at the theatre. Top floor restaurant this time for a glass of English sparkling wine, in the champagne method, Ridgeview from Brighton, bloody lovely. We enjoyed the bespoke sofas too, we looked on the underside of the footstool for their name and I looked them up when we got home and when I remember their name again I’ll post it ! The lighting too was great and british, ‘Bestlite’ designed by this man.

Robert Dudley Best

http://www.bestlite.org.uk/

Four Printmakers

Tim — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:55:55 +0000

The new exhibition season kicked off today with an impressive lineup of printmakers making a four-strong team.

That’s what I wrote on saturday but never got to publish it because of below, that also happened at 5 pm so I felt less inclined to post it but on reflection blogging is about real stuff and that was real wee.

I do so hate people who let their dog pee all over our A board, do they think the sign walks back into the gallery on its own, that someone doesn’t have to pick it up? The last person I caught letting their dog pee on the sign just walked off and ignored my shouting at them.

I was going to have a whole footy team analogy going on but my creative steam for that one is now on the transfer list and manager sacked so you are spared.

Real sky

Tim — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:29:10 +0000

I have put the hanging sign back up, but cunningly the other way around so the good side faces the town. To celebrate I took a photo to replace the one on the home page (homepage that was such a buzz word a few years ago but is just common parlance now) and although I photoshopped out the ugly (but necessary) no entry sign on the corner of Felix House (yes that’s its name) the sky colour is as it was. Have a look it’s soooooo blue and I was pleased to see I’d accidentally or should that be serendipitously managed to get a seagull in the frame too.

Hello Matilda. As you are my only reader, that I know of.
Lovely to see you and Tom yesterday.