New Births on the Edge of Winter

GREETINGS to you all, should you still be here on this quietest of blogs!

This is a small note to you from the depths of my busy creative, mothering days as we descend into another wintering. As you might be able to see in the photo above, taken by Tom recently, I am pregnant with our second child! We await their arrival any day with tender and jubilant expectation. As this year turns into next, we will be four!

Here, I am standing with our son inside a Bronze Age hut circle on Dartmoor, marvelling at the thousands of years that have passed in that place, and wondering about the people who made their hearths inside those stones, who raised their children there on the high moor, who went in and out of those doorways and whose house walls still stand, even in these strange days at the furthest end of now.

And this brings me to tell you about something that I have been thinking on for some time, and which now seems timely to share with you. As you may have noticed, my painting and blogging and general artistic output have been very quiet for the past three or so years since my son was born. I am still wrestling with the challenges and gifts of trying to be an artist and a mother, and this second child coming has caused me to think on this more urgently, and finally to boldly ask for support. In a world where we are connected to community across the world in such a uniquely creative way, and at a point in my artistic life where I feel that in order to keep making work I must call upon the energies of those who have loved what I do for years, I have launched a Patreon, which I invite you to go and read ~ it tells my tale and explains my request.

As I write over there on my Patreon page, the hope with asking for this kind of support is that I will be able to create a regular financial stability underneath my work at a time when it's particularly and uniquely hard to be able to devote focused time to my artwork. If you have enjoyed and been nourished by this blog, my posts, paintings, writing and thoughts over the years, I would be massively grateful if you would consider signing up to be a member of my Patreon community. You will be adding rich black compost on these art-seeds I am planting. This is the place I will be sharing my works in progress, artworks and writing from now on. Those who have signed up will be able to see these, as well as choosing from a variety of other delicious offerings...

I do have a new blog, too, as well as a newsletter, if you'd like to sign up to receive those.

Portrait of Tom and me on Dartmoor, pregnant with our son in 2015 by Ishka Michocka.

And there I leave you, with warmest appreciation for your continued interest in my work and wishes for your wintering to be both restful and enchanted. I shall likely be quiet for a time over these dark hibernatory days while we welcome our newest one into our family, but I hope that with the coming of the new year and a renewed strength grown from this Patreon community, I will be creating more paintings and wonders to share with you, wherever you are...

  

A Fourfold Fable

FABLES ARE BEING PAINTED in this South Western corner of England, and gathered for a unique and extraordinary exhibition of visual storytelling, to which all who would come and get lost in myth are invited! I'm delighted to announce that for the past while I have been concocting an exhibition of paintings for your delectation which will be held in Exeter over the first two weeks of December.

A FOURFOLD FABLE

An exhibition of mythic paintings by four Devon artists

✦ 29th November - 12th December 2014 ✦
The Glorious Art House, 120 Fore St, Exeter

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✦ Anna Georghiou
✦ Rima Staines
✦ Michael Broad

✦ Phil Bird

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This winter, four mythic artists working from studios in the heart of Devon will be bringing their storied and otherworldly paintings to The Glorious Art House in Exeter.

For two weeks, as the nights draw in, you are invited to join us in the upstairs gallery on Fore Street for this extraordinary exhibition of visual storytelling and have uncanny enchantments reignited in the hearth of your old heart.

Original paintings, framed and unframed prints, cards, handmade items and more available to buy. Plus three floors of coffee, tea and delicious food!

120 FORE STREET

EXETER

DEVON

EX4 3JQ

map

Opening hours: Mon-Sat: 07.30-18.00 Sun: 10.00 - 16.00

Facebook event page link

I'm very excited to be exhibiting with three other incredible painters who also dip their paintbrushes into the pigments of the otherworlds. The Fourfold Fable exhibition will be held in the gallery on the top floor of the wonderfully colourful Glorious Art House in central Exeter. It's a warm and friendly cafe too, serving excellent coffee, tea and food, and we'd so love it if you could come and join us! You'll find one or more of us in the exhibition space every day, so do please feel free to come and chat and enjoy the fabulous view over the city of Exeter.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd whet your appetites with some art and studio photos from our four artists...

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First, I want to introduce you to Anna Georghiou and Phil Bird - an artist couple (also talented musicians - see their music site Troubadour's Garden) living and working in Okehampton, Devon, whose work just blew me away the first time I laid eyes upon it. I felt I'd found kindred art-spirits; both Phil and Anna's paintings are full to the brim with story and peopled with soulful and uncanny beings. I was lucky enough to visit their home and studios recently and I share here some photos from my enchanted time in their Aladdin's cave of creativity.

Anna Georghiou has lived and worked in Cyprus, where she has family connections, and you can see the wonderful clarity of Mediterranean land and myth woven into her beautiful timeless works. She can spend years on a single painting, coming back to work on it again and again over time. Her works are large and textural in their painterliness. There is a powerful narrative shared amongst the people in her paintings, and the colours sing with light from distant skies.

The Calling by Anna Georghiou

Anna's Devon studio

Anna works on a clay sculpture

Close up of a painting in Anna's studio

Anna transports a painting on the bus 

The Blessing by Anna Georghiou

Close up of painting in Anna's studio

paints!

Anna's studio in Cyprus

Anna's Devon studio

painting by Anna Georghiou

Anna at exhibition in Slovenia, 2008

Anna's studio

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Phil Bird's paintings are incredible layered narratives rooted in a deep visionary realm. Phil works on many paintings at once, and has a long career as an artist, spanning varying styles. These days his wonder-full paintings are small canvases, bursting with otherworldly stories, glorious colour, texture and myth. I find them utterly compelling.

Imaginary Constellations by Phil Bird

Phil's Devon studio

Detail of painting by Phil Bird

Looking toward Phil's studio, detail of his painting in foreground

Phil's Devon studio

Detail of painting by Phil Bird

Phil's studio and paintings hanging on the wall

Phil in his Cyprus studio

Voodoo Hat by Phil Bird

Phil's Cyprus studio

Persephone by Phil Bird

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Michael Broad is a painter, book illustrator and writer. His picture books have been nominated for the Kate Greenaway medal and shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize and the Nottingham Children's Book Award. He works from his studio in Exeter, and also explores themes of folklore and myth in his paintings. When I came across Michael's work for the first time, I felt I'd found another kindred storyteller in paint. His beings have a lovely melancholy and a sweet tenderness to them, and the beautiful night-time world of his paintings conjures a vivid and magical dream-sense of the world which shimmers just alongside this one.

Nocturnal Birds with Golden Gown by Michael Broad

Michael's studio

Feeding the Wild One by Michael Broad 

Michael at work in his studio

Michael's studio with current paintings in progress for the Fourfold Fable exhibition

Current work on Michael's easel

The Night Procession by Michael Broad

The Watcher and the Comet by Michael Broad

The Groom by Michael Broad

The Chair and the Crowd by Michael Broad

The Secret by Michael Broad - exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition 2014

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And so lastly, I come to my own work, with which you are all familiar, but which you can peruse at my website, should you be new here! In the spirit of sharing studio photos, I'll show you a few glimpses of my studio-through-a-trapdoor, which I have thoroughly loved inhabiting this past year. There are occasional peeks of work in progress, but for the grand unveiling of yet-to be seen paintings, you'll have to come to the exhibition!

The Alchemist by Rima Staines

Rima's Dartmoor studio

Rima's Dartmoor studio

Rima's Dartmoor studio with painted sign

Rima's Dartmoor studio - with The Alchemist in handmade wooden niche-frame 

Rima's Dartmoor studio - the woodburner corner

Come Away O Human Child - oil painted wooden clock by Rima Staines

Dark Mountain by Rima Staines

Rima's Dartmoor studio - in spring!

Rima's Dartmoor studio - drawing board in sunlight

paints, coffee and chocolate!

Rima in studio mirror

Rima's Dartmoor studio - puppet carving in progress

The Weed Wife by Rima Staines

Rima paints The Weed Wife

Rima's Dartmoor studio - October 2014, with new work in progress.

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And that's the four of us! A fabulous company, wouldn't you agree?

If you're local (or even a train-ride away!) and would like to come to the opening, please drop me an email. We'd all be most grateful if you could share this with friends and art lovers who might fancy a trip to the West Country this December; there'll be lots of small items, prints and cards and suchlike to buy too, if an original painting is beyond your budget. Feel free to share the flyer (above) and poster (below), and put these dates - 29th Nov - 12th Dec 2014 - in your diaries for an early winter feast for the imagination...