Welcome to the Gallery

Imagine is set in the Suffolk village of Long Melford.
This is an attempt to record the daily trials, tribulation and pleasure of running an art gallery.

Friday 4 February 2011






A year ago, for the very first time we exhibited the paintings by an artist named
Lindsey Carr.
I had admired her incredible and very unusual work for some time and was desperate to get her
work here on show in the gallery. As usual I can't remember how I came to know of her and I have no recollection of how we made contact, but we did, and of course in the fullness of time she showed with us. It was a joint exhibition with another incredible artist Mark Rowney.
In fact I have a feeling that their show together might have been my first ever post and attempt
at "blogging" [or talking to myself as it now feels].
At her first showing we sold only a couple of paintings and this bothered me, but not much.
Before she left to go home I asked if she would come back in a years time and have a solo exhibition of her unusual work. Her first and our first, if you know what I mean.
She agreed, and now here we are one year later with the days to the opening racing past.

Of course as time passed we sold everything that she had shown with us, something that wasn't too hard as Lindsey has built up [in her own quite way] a massive following.
During one short year she has gone on to greater and greater things, her work is seen around the World and is in greater demand.
But, if you were to talk to her you would never know of this.
She is modest, too modest.
No, that is incorrect, she has no vanity whatsoever and produces her art because she can and she wants to. She has no quest for greatness, just to produce great art.
This she has achieved but the only person unaware of this is her, like all real artists she
"just knows it can be better".
This week she told me that one beautiful painting wasn't good enough to show and that she would have to do it again.
Really? It looked fantastic to me.
But that doesn't matter she is working to her own standards not other peoples, and that I can
totally appreciate and feel humbled by.
She is way behind with the paintings and "toys" that she had intended to produce for us,
as recently a terrible event occurred in her life.
Why she didn't call me and cancel the exhibition I will never know, but I think that she felt that she owed it to me because she understood how much I wanted to show her art.
So this week we had a "wee" chat [as she would describe it] and I now have a greater understanding of what she is trying to do for me, and with very little time to do it.
What can I say?
Nothing , or at least nothing to convey how touched by the effort she is going to.

But I think in a way the exhibition will help her and give her a focus and a goal.
She is doing something to help someone else.
That someone is me.
She didn't want to let me down or disappoint me, plus she must know that their are a lot of people who are excited and looking forward to this rare event.
So in just a very short space of time she has been producing some incredible and totally different work. As and when she could she has sent me "snaps" of work in progress.
I couldn't be more excited, if only I could afford them I would purchase everything for myself.
I truly believe that this is a young woman who is on the verge of greatness.
But don't tell her that, she wouldn't understand what you were talking about.
Her paintings have always been beautiful but the new work has a gentleness and real sensitivity to it.
As one of her collectors in America told me earlier this week,
"it is all telling a story, I want to know that story".
I think the story is there for us all to see, or at least interpret in a way that means something to ourselves.
I have put some of her snaps on our web site and the response has been incredible, in fact I am
starting to worry in case there will be nothing left unsold when we open the door for the opening.

It had originally been intended as a one woman exhibition,
but now we have mutually agreed that it will be a two woman show.
Lindsey's paintings will be shown alongside the sculptures of Anne Morrison.
Both from Glasgow and both producing moving art.
It was one piece of Anne's that has given birth to the title of the exhibition.
'Wings Of Hope'.
It so fitted the events in Lindsey's life that I could think of no other.

I will tell you of Anne soon, but firstly here is a little of what we will show by Lindsey.

4 comments:

  1. As you suggest, when terrible events befall us and threaten to engulf us, work can be a lifeline that keeps us anchored to dry land and sanity, a line by which we can pull ourselves through the worst times. Thank you for being the perfect excuse for her to keep working and continue creating. Her designs and subject matter remind me of French toille fabric, only much, much, much better. I like her subdued palette -- she uses little white or light yellow, or bright colors of any shade, which allows her to use rich colors without their being overwhelming.

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  2. Lindsey Carr's paintings are truly fabulous! Thank you for showing her work online & being the best gallery owner on the planet. I wish I lived in England so I could see this show & visit your gallery.

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  3. I don't know with any cetainty who the luckier person is; Lindsey or you. I suspect it is God's will that the two of you are there for one another. I am a big fan of both. I am grateful to be along for the ride.

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  4. I love Lyndsey's work!! It sounds like she is an amazing woman as well as artist.

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