Imagine Gallery

At the moment it feels like the 'lull before the storm'.

I have heard from the potter Jim Malone that he has fired his kiln, and now it is in

"the lap of the Gods".

Our forthcoming exhibition that is, not to be confused with anything of real meaning.

Sometimes it is easy for me to take too seriously anything that we are doing here in the gallery.

It's only art, and though my life depends upon it I must remember not to get carried away.

What the Hell! I like to get carried away.

If you can't make a mountain out of a molehill then you must lack imagination, or be normal.

Anyway, invitations are in the post at last and now all I can do is wait.

Well that's not strictly true, because between now and the 30th I must wrap and box then store

[carefully] everything in the gallery, drive to the Lake District, stopping for the night at

'The Green Dragon'

in Yorkshire [I'm getting excited now], visit Jim to collect the pots for the exhibition, make a detour on the way home to the 'Withnail & I' film location cottage, photograph every pot,

put them on the web site [plus a couple on the blog], make new displays, set everything up.

Then sit back and get "plastered" at the opening on the Sunday.

Sounds good to me.

If it wasn't for the worry I would look forward to it.

So with one or two things on my mind it was lovely to have a surprise visit from the artists

Paul and Terry Rumsey.

Paul whose work I showed in an earlier post has been doing some etchings for me, I had all but forgotten about these with my own problems recently, so it was a very timely visit which lifted

my spirit and had me excited about things that really mattered in terms of having the gallery.

Sometimes it gets easy to lose your way and to remember what you are trying to achieve.

You might recall that Paul's work is a "little dark", which is also a" little" understatement.

I love it, his pictures tell stories, many stories, and most of then born from your own imagination.

He has given me his own descriptions and explanations but I enjoy putting my own interpretation on them, correct or not. I'm sure other people do the same.

In the 'Philosophers & Globe' picture, despite the seriousness I can imagine the man on the left

saying "yeah, whatever. Who wants another pint?

Now that is philosophy I can understand.

I don't mean to make light of his pictures, I love them and the thoughts they provoke.

I feel so lucky to have such a sought after talented artist come to us.

This weekend he is off to France for an exhibition of his work.

Which is a coincidence as next year [it had better be a long year] I ham hoping to exhibit his work with a Frenchman named Jean Fontaine.

Jean is someone I have been in contact with for a couple of years and it has been a case of waiting for the right time to show his work, I think that it will happen next year but at the

moment there are a few things in the "melting pot" so let's see what happens.

It was funny seeing Paul Rumsey today as looking at his work it suddenly reminded me of one of my all time favourite artists.

Robert Lenkiewicz.

Paul's work had a lot the emotion and strength and atmosphere seen in Robert's and I can't

offer higher praise than that.

It's strange that they even look slightly similar, although Paul has short hair where as Robert's was always long.

I do hope one day to get enough time to talk about Robert and his work, plus my one meeting with him.

As I say Paul's visit brightened my day so here are a few of his pictures.

The first is 'Ship of Fools' which I think has a certain Tolkien feel about it [figures in water].

The next is ' Philosophers & Globe', complete with my favourite drunk.

The next is called 'Reversible Head', this is two pictures, try looking at it with your head turned from side to side.

Ugly, beautiful, but very clever.

The next is a picture of a piece by Jean Fontaine.

Lastly, my hero. A self portrait of Robert Lenkiewicz.

Self portraits by him are fairly common as he tended to put himself in a lot of his work,

I have even seen his last unfinished painting, the only thing perfect and finished was his face.