Stop. Look. Listen.

At the end of April myself and three friends, laden with food and canvas, bundled ourselves into a car and drove down to a very picturesque part of the countryside to visit the Art Exhibition of our friends Rachel and Darren Allwright.  They are an amazing and very creative couple, (just check out their blog All Things Allwright, where they display all these wonderful creations) and it had gotten to the point where they had so many works of art in their house that they were beginning to get in the way!  So they put on a fantasic evening of live music provided by Darren and friends, tastey homemade food (including some very amusing Kate and Wills cupcakes left over from a street party to celebrate the royal wedding.)  It was a lovely evening, and great to meet up with past friends who also knew Rach and Darren, as well and new ones from their lives before and since I've known them. The atmosphere was so warm and friendly, there was a real sense of connection between everyone, but of course the real focus of the evening was the art.

Rachel was 2 years above me in the same course (and in fact I remember her showing me around the floor of the building used by the final years and offering me some of the tea she kept stashed up there) and I've always loved the brightness and thoughtfulness of the pictures she creates.  Darren I will always associate with boundless enthusiasm and a vast array of woolly jumpers, but he has been bitten by the artsy bug too (as well as being a musician.) and it was great to see what they'd been up to since they were married and to support them by buying some of their art!



We had a silent auction, and I saw a piece I loved very early on so I put in a bid, but it was only in the last 10 minutes that a bidding war started between me and another guy!  We kept driving each other up by a couple of pounds each time, but just as I reached the limit of how high I could bid he switched to another painting in the series.  I won!!  It turned out he'd liked both and hadn't been able to make up his mind so... I helped?  That's the version I'm sticking with anyway!  Anyway, I got my painting, and it's now installed on my bedroom wall.  I look at it and wonder if the figure is coming or going.  The house on the horizon is home, a place of warmth and safety and freedom, but he's standing on the edge.  Is he admiring it?  Is it his or someone elses, and is he hesitant to approach?  Is he coming home after a long jourmey or taking a last look before embarking on a new one?

It's said that art is supposed to make you think, and I like that it does.  I get the feeling I'm going to see this painting different ways a time goes by, and I look forward to finding a place for it when I get a home of my own someday.