Flat Iron Building exhibition at Bernie's Chocolate Bar.

Bernie's Chocolate Bar in Margate, is part of the Flat Iron Building, Imperial House, on the corner of the High Street overlooking the sea. Bernie has been interested in the history of the building since starting her business and to celebrate it's third birthday she has organized an exhibition looking at the history and showing artists responses to it.

 Imperial House was originally called Imperial Hotel, and is one of the worlds oldest flat iron buildings, and was built over 20 years earlier than the famous Flatiron building in New York.

Imperial Hotel images from a local history site here

The exhibition includes painting, photography and illustration and I have a wooden box in the exhibition, that I have drawn a picture of the building on.
The box, an re purposed tea box, was made to look like an old souvenir of the flat iron building, painted and distressed.

The exhibition is open till Thursday 2nd of March 2017 at Bernie's Chocolate Bar, Imperial House, High Street,  Margate CT9 1AT

You can follow on twitter @flatironmargate

Winter Cheer exhibition at Bernie's Chocolate Bar

Marion Armstrong hanging her work with Triston looking on.

I have three paintings in the Winter exhibition at Bernie's Chocolate Bar in Margate.

Called Winter Cheer, there are seven artists showing work. Alan Longley, Megan Metcalf, Ruth Le Ber,  Marion Armstrong, Dosh Archer and  Triston Wallace.

Triston Wallace's photographs

The exhibition is on till the end of January. Bernie's facebook page here to check on opening times.

There are photographs, paintings, prints and illustrations on show and cards and prints for sale too.

I am showing three  Buddha head paintings, acrylic on canvas.

Alan Longley's work

Ruth Le Ber's sea themed pictures

Megan Metcalf's illustrations.

As part of out theme on Winter Cheer, we held a Its a Wrap event last Saturday,where we took lots of wrapping materials for people to bring any gifts that they wanted to wrap.

It was a free event with any donations to Thanet Families in Need.

We had fun and some have some donations for the charity too.

Dosh was reusing crisp packets as wrapping.

Some of our wrapping.

Snowdrop Day at Goodnestone Park Gardens

 

After a few wrong turns and wondering yet again why there are so few sign posts for certain places, Ruth and I found Goodnestone Park Gardens.   website here.   It was their Snowdrop Day with the gardens open and plant stalls from Kent Hardy Plant Society.  website here

It was very muddy, but the day was fine a mixture of sun and cloud and the snowdrops were glowing white around the gardens.  It was interesting seeing the winter bones of the garden and it would be good to see them in the following seasons.

Some magnificent old pine trees,  walled gardens and woodland walks.  As well as the snowdrops there were Camellias in flower, Iris, Daphne, Hellebores, Aconites, and Primulas and some beautiful large Hamamelis or witch hazels, one with a very heady perfume.

 The stall holders had specimen snowdrops, I hadn't realised how expensive they were, as well as ordinary, snowdrops, iris, and other hardy plants. We bought a few flowers which I will be drawing and painting before they go out in the garden. I started with the double flowered snowdrops.

Souvenirs of Cliftonville exhibition by Sadie Hennessy

 

I went up to Resort Studios with Ruth today to see Souvenirs of Cliftonville an exhibition by Sadie Hennessy.  I'd met Sadie when we went down to the Art Car Boot fair in Folkestone last year and had bought one of her prints there. Sadie's website

   Article about the exhibition in the local paper here

 

This exhibition has arisen out of Sadie's residency and shows 14 commissioned portraits of local Cliftonville residents.  The portraits include found ephemera, the residents own memories and different aspects of Cliftonville.  The portraits give a sense of vintage postcards and have a celebratory feel to them which is very attractive.

The whole exhibition is styled as a souvenir shop which satisfied two of my ideals, an exhibition and a shop. The good news here is that Sadie has produced some great souvenirs to buy at really good prices. So you can purchase, soaps, badges, sweets, mugs, postcards and snow globes amongst other things.

Do go and visit the show if you can it is open on February 14th and 15th, 21st and 22nd   12 till 4pm.
Resort Studios website

Pettman Building
50 Athelstan Road
Cliftonville, Margate
Kent
CT9 2BH

Work on the Mr Lion Project

I have been working on some pieces for the Mr Lion project that we have been exploring in Blank Canvas at the Turner Contemporary Gallery. Link to Blank Canvas facebook page here.

Artist Lucy Steggals suggested the project following her own exploration of other figures from a series of old cards she found. Lucy's website here.

It has been an interesting few months, also working with other artists, playing around with ideas about Mr Lion's character, where he might live, what possessions he might have and what he looks like amongst other things.

We all have different ideas about Mr Lion and will be showing some of these in an exhibition, details to follow.

I have an artists book made from Japanese paper, collage and print, using the letters of the name Mr Lion and have a sketch book where I have been keeping ideas.

Decorated boats in Ramsgate harbour

 

 

I took a walk along Ramsgate harbour to see the boats that have been decorated for Christmas. The Royal Temple Yacht Club with the Ramsgate Marina Association have been running a completion for the best dressed boat for Christmas.

 

As the light faded more and more boats switched on their lights and made a lovely display for a lot of people who were also walking along and taking photographs as I was.

Along with flashing lights were the yachts with lights lighting up their sails standing out in the marina.

A very enjoyable way to spend a while and get into the festive spirit. I hope it continues to grow year on year.

Jeremy Deller at Turner Contemporary Gallery.

It was the opening of the new Jeremy Deller exhibition at the Turner Contemporary Gallery on Saturday. link to gallery site here  Part of the exhibition called English Magic, has been on tour since it was first seen at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

The British Council  has an article about Jeremy Deller and the British Pavillion in Venice here.

On the opening day, the Melodians Steel Orchestra were playing and the gallery was packed. The orchestra played music from Jeremy Deller's film and other works and were joined by The Big Sing, Turner Gallery's  resident choir. They also performed a piece arranged by Emily Peasgood part of the SoundsLikeArt project.

I really like the sound of the steel drums, which seem to have a particular energy that is uplifting.

I made my way upstairs during their performance to stand and look down at part of the orchestra from above.

The main galleries had the English Magic exhibition and some small Turner paintings chosen by Jeremy Deller.  I only had a brief walk round and will go back several more times before the exhibition ends.

The large wall art pieces are dramatic, the figure of William Morris overturning a luxury yacht in the Venice lagoon, and the Hen Harrier holding a crushed Range Rover in it's claws.

Other exhibits include Neolithic hand axes, photos from the Ziggy Stardust Tour of 1972  and text based banner type works.