'FOR THE LOVE OF COLOUR'

Life has been busy, so many things to do in the last few months there has been very little free time.

I hung my exhibition in February at 'The Gap Vineyard' as part of Grampians Texture. The workshops were well attended, but the Grampians fires seems to make many nervous. The weather was beautiful and thanks to everyone who went along to see my exhibition.

The vineyard has beautiful views to the surrounding area with the Grampians Ranges behind the vineyard, it is a lovely place to spend some relaxing time. Many visitors purchased a glass of wine and sat outside enjoying the view and some downtime from traveling and busy workshops.

The exhibition consisted of 21 paintings and 6 tapestries. The room is rendered brick, painted white with a lot of natural light.

I varnish my paintings with an oil based gloss. With so much natural light and tapestries absorb rather than reflect light. The tapestries hung a lot better in this space. Something that I did not really consider when I was working towards the exhibition.

You can see in this photo the difference between the paintings on either side of the tapestry, how much reflection is on the paintings.

There is a lot of work that I did not photograph, mainly because there was usually a lot of people in the tasting room while I was there. Two large oils on canvas 80cm square each that I have no photos of.

The annual major event for the Grampians Arts Trail is held over the Easter long weekend. It is the busiest time of the year in the Grampians and the area comes alive with visitors. I participated this year and my exhibition was included in the brochure. I went out over three days demonstrating tapestry weaving and talking to visitors. It was fun and there were over 400 people come through over the weekend. These two emu's walked in through the front entrance and spent the weekend looking for the exit. The vineyard is surrounded by a deer proof fence. It was decided to leave my exhibition up during the Grampians Grape Escape  held in May. The vineyard held a dinner at the winery on the Friday night. I had lots of visitors during the time my exhibition was on. Sadly I only missed by a few minutes some people who had traveled from Hamilton to meet me. I have no idea who they were and Laura told me that a lot of people had come especially to see my work. Thanks to all for the support and positive feed back. It will be a long time before I have a solo exhibition again. Life is full of other priorities at the moment.