The Pittenweem Arts Festival… August 2018

“The occasion of a first solo exhibition for a botanical artist is very special – and I like to try and highlight those who are trying to make a career as a professional artist…  …I’m very impressed by the quality of both her work and the attention paid to presentation at her venue. It looks gorgeous and I only wish I was closer so I could pay a visit.” read more

I will write more… but I have to go to work now, it’s my last day at the festival….

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So – a wee write up now (in late October) – Exhibiting at The Pittenweem Arts Festival was a great experience, a tiring one (as some of you know I have a fatigue condition so an extended stretch on duty like that is a task for which I have to prepare and recover) but one really worth while doing.

As you can see (below), my room in the Stewart families house was amazing, the views were fantastic and absorbing (even on the final stormy Sunday), I never did see a seal or a dolphin, although there was a rock that really looked like a seal at times! I loved having cormorants to watch over though, I love it when they spread their wings out. The other exhibitors with whom I shared the floor were friendly, encouraging and supportive. I’m really looking forward to catching up with them again next year. It was really cool sharing with them as our collected output was quite diverse so it possibly attracted a wide range of folks who then got to look at the other rooms, which I think was really great.

It was interesting to see how visitors viewed my work, to hear their responses or lack there of and talk to them about my process (if they were interested), I especially liked the guy whom told me that he thought he detested botanical illustration until now!  It was a great learning experience, some of the processes we put in place worked really well, some not so much, I need to work out some better kind of stock system to keep track of stock, I have not worked that out yet! And in the heat of a sale during busy times remembering to ask all the relevant questions sometimes didn’t happen…

I want to give my thanks specially to all my mates who helped me bag up cards, to the Stewart family and Claire, Tracy, Dawn, Linda and Lindsay who made me feel so welcome, to Ros & Yvonne and Mum, Janet & Alex, I couldn’t have done this without your help.

Keeping up with the what I’ve been listening to bit… during the run up to the festival, I worked on processes and mounted and framed for about a month, so I switched to easy listening TV and managed to hard line the Gilmore Girls and Parenthood – a real Lauren Graham marathon which got me through when energy was flagging. Seriously so addictive, I had to ween myself off by listening to her autobiography “Talking as Fast as I Can” and then I chased that up with Sebastian Bach’s “18 and Life on Skid Row”, what a ride!