New Pots By Archie McCall

I love it when I find a group of pieces that go so beautifully together.

This is Winifred Hodge's watercolour 'Gentle River' with ceramics by Archie McCall and some tulips that I got in the sale bin in the supermarket!

Archie McCall was head of ceramics at Glasgow School of Art and recently retired to concentrate on his own practice.

We are delighted to be exhibiting his work and I am really enjoying finding the perfect spot for each of his pieces in the gallery. It's not hard when the work is so serenely beautiful.

Burns Tartan Logo

 

Artist Richard W. Boardman has reworked our logo to go with our current 'Inspired By Burns' exhibition. The background is Burns check tartan, I love it!

Richard lives in Lucca, Italy but keeps up to date with what's happening at the gallery through our web site and Blog and I'm always pleased to hear about his latest artistic projects. I'm excited to say he will be sending us more of his wonderful bronze sculptures this year.

When I eventually move into my new house I will be taking a Richard W Boardman 'Siren' sculpture with me. It's one of the pieces of art that I'm most looking forward to having in my living room.

Galloway News Burns Exhibition

A nice wee piece from The Galloway News last week about our Burns exhibition and Opening on Saturday. If you click on the picture you'll be able to read the article.

Nearly Ready

Everything is coming together ready for our Opening tomorrow.

We rearranged the large front room to make space for the tasting table and made sure there was a comfy chair in front of the fire for Tommy Thomson to recite his poetry.

Lots of people came in to see how it was all coming along and one lovely customer brought me a bunch of white heather. It looks great on the table (pictured above).

Hannah McAndrew  arrived with two gorgeous jugs inscribed with text from A Red, Red Rose.  Very romantic and a perfect Valentines gift.

Most of the work is on the web site but some of it was behind glass, and too difficult for us to photograph (like the stunning charcoal Tam O'Shanter drawing by Alexander Robb pictured above) so it's not all there. You will have to come to the gallery for the full 'Inspired By Burns' extravaganza!

Hope to see you tomorrow.

Inspired By Burns

Scotch Bonnet by Fiona Watson

Please join us in the gallery for poetry and food at our Exhibition Opening on Saturday 28th January.

• Burns Tasting Buffet from 2 pm to 4 pm with food provided by Thistle 'B' Scrumptious, 207 King Street, Castle Douglas DG7 1DT

• Recital of Burns poetry at 2.30 pm by actor Tommy Thomson, member of Crossmichael Drama Group. The group have been phenomenally successful and recently were finalists of the yet to be transmitted ‘Stagestruck’ SKY Arts programme - watch the series to find out what happened!

The exhibition will feature work inspired by Robert Burns – paintings, original prints and ceramics inspired by the subjects of his poems, the places he lived in and wrote about. Work will be by artists from across the region and beyond

Exhibition opens Saturday 28th January 2012 and will run for three weeks until Saturday 18th February 2012.

All work in the exhibition will be for sale.

Part of The Big Burns Supper festival programme : http://www.bigburnssupper.com/

A Year of Creative Scotland

Sorry for my Blog silence. All my spare energy away from the gallery has been taken up with house renovations. I will get there eventually (so I keep telling myself!), and it WILL be worth it in the end, but at the moment, I'm just a bit tired. It's the second renovation project I've taken on and I haven't got used to the unpredictability of it all.

Anyway, back to art - the essence of life! 2012 has been hailed as the year of Creative Scotland so it will be interesting to see what goes on around the country to mark it.

On Christmas day Jill gave each of us a journal to do a Drawing A Day to mark this year of creativity. Some of my drawings are so embarrassing when I look back at them but on the whole I am enjoying it. I think it's a good way to give your brain a different way of thinking for a short period each day.

If drawing while watching TV in the evening is good enough for Grayson Perry, then it's good enough for me. He thinks some of his best drawings are done while he's watching TV, and not actually fully engaged in either activity.

I've begun to look back at the drawings already and recollect how I was feeling or where I was when I did them: 'that was when I had loads of time to sit and concentrate on what I was doing', 'that one was drawn in front a huge roaring fire', 'that one was done when I was totally exhausted' etc etc. Really, a drawing a day is like a diary with no words and it's a pretty honest one at that.