Catching my Breath

Its been so busy the last few months and for the first half of this year. Trying to organise dedicated time in the studio has been hard, I’m not good at dipping in and out. I need quiet time & space, where I can decompress and clear my head of the noise of daily life. My day starts with a swim and once in my studio I zone out by working on my meditative drawing practice, once in flow, I can then move on to creating my paintings. For this reason I don’t have the internet and I switch off my phone, all admin is done in the evening.

Himley Park & Hall

August saw me exhibiting in a group show of Black Country Artists at Himley Park & Hall, 14th August – 20th October. I displayed some stoneware pots with temoku and nuka glazes reduction fired. With a series of abstract watercolours, I have been asked to do a Solo Exhibition, later on this year

The New Art Gallery Walsall

December I was exhibiting with Walsall Society of Artists, in their 74th Annual Exhibition, 13th December 2024 – 2nd February 2025. This was a fantastic exhibition with artists demonstrating, each weekend and I arranged and acquired funding for two collaborative events Art Meets Poetry Live and edited my first book, an anthology of all the poems and artworks in the events.

A Plea Sent Back in Time

You may not see the sun, but I assure you it is shining. Behind the trunks and branches and that most malevolent breeze, there sits a sun that won’t be stopped in forcing life back to these trees. You may be reluctant, but I plead with you to keep walking. The crunching leaves beneath your feet are something other than dead. The soil will repay their nourishment by guiding them to green from red. You may want to halt indefinitely, but you shine like that sun you can’t see. Time is cold but yielding. Walk through the forest with me.

By Sam Hunt

Primordial Dark Forest

The next frame I came to, Was an eerie painting on the wall, Wanting to draw me in. “Quick, move on, don’t stop, don’t think about it!” I did move on, other pictures to see, And so I circuited the gallery. But then I was back again, Standing before an opening into the woods. The foreground path would drift then lift, Coming into focus, then fading out undefined. A mist swirling around where feet would fall, An acrid burning taste in my dry mouth. “Watch out! There’s a gas escape in the trenches!” Looking up, the trunks of the trees were lost, As the mists of time, of understanding, repositioned, Sometimes revealing the base of the trunk, Sometimes just the branches, Bare and fruitless, all colour drained. The black mud oozed over my boots, slimy and smelly; The path beckoned, whispered voices of another place – I stood before this imploring picture, entranced. Then I disappeared…

By Graham Foster

I head up the Exhibition Team for the Walsall Society of Artists, which has given me a greater appreciation of the work involved, in mounting large group exhibitions. I’ve also been in charge of Media, I’m better at doing theirs than my own, it is so much easier to be subjective about someone else’s work and promote it.