Exhibition

The sun was slow to come out again this morning, and it felt cool on our walk with Xena. Ridiculous to still be wearing a jacket when walking on 3 June. We had a lovely long walk and then went straight on to our local café, where we had coffee, a doggy ice cream for Xena and chatted to the owner. Our village - its hardly a village, just one high street - is going to undergo major changes - every building along our small high street is going to be either changed dramatically or knocked down and rebuilt, we have seen the plans and we think it will be amazing for Oxshott. But of course not everyone shares that view and many resist any form of change. We currently have some really ugly 1960's buildings that spoil the area so the newer building will be a vast improvement. The developer is a local villager and is very sensitive to the community so it will be handled very well, with the tenants in the existing building not being negatively affected while the building takes place. The café owner is very excited about the proposed changes.

After lunch we went to The Horton Arts Centre to hang my prints for the exhibition that opens on Tuesday evening. Gavin came with me to hang my prints as I am useless at that kind of thing, while he had them up in seconds. It is a bit tricky with wires and clips etc. The Arts Centre is the newly refurbished chapel from a site that once housed a cluster of five 'mental hospitals' as they were called in those days - it was the largest psychiatric asylum centre in Europe, and the first one was built in 1899. During the war they were used as a war hospitals, and then continued as psychiatric hospitals after the war right up until 2005 when the buildings were sold for redevelopment as housing. One of the hospitals also played an important role in the development of induced malaria treatment as a cure for GPI, a form of advanced syphilis.  

This image is of various members of our club hanging their prints. In the extra are the three images that I am exhibiting. The pink peonies image looks very good in print, the colours come alive on the fine art paper that I used. It has been awarded Highly Commended.  

The afternoon has been sunny and much warmer.