Mural in Peebles

Detail of a mural depicting the history of Peebles in Pennel's Vennel,  by the artist MIchael  Jessing.

So much Beauty

 

The day started wreathed in fog and freezing cold, but stunningly beautiful.

The fog soon lifted and the sun warmed up the day beautifully.

Both Rueben and I had a good walk, he mooching around and me taking photographs.

The spiders had been very busy wrapping the knapweed in white shrouds.

I then went for a lovely lunch in Peebles after enjoying the fabulous sunshine in the Chambers Institute courtyard. We also had a BT engineer working away and this one seems to be fairly determined to finally discover where the fault is and fix it. Fingers crossed! I'm not very optimistic yet after everything that has happened over the years, but I would be very happy if I'm proved wrong.

 

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Mural in Peebles

A visit to Peebles brightened up my mood as it meant leaving the phone problems behind. You might have noticed I have removed my moan from yesterday's post. I print out this blog (using Blog2Print) each year and I don't want to take up space with all that negativity. Writing it all down was enough, it didn't need to stay there! We are waiting to hear what our service provider wants to do next if anything and take it from there.

Once in Peebles I went to see the new mural in one of Peebles' little alleyways (Pennels Close) off the Main Street and it was very colourful and bright. It pictures scenes from Peebles' history.

It also celebrates the fact that the Scottish Borders now has a railway line having been without one since the Sixties. It's sadly nowhere near us, or Peebles, but further east in the Borders. I have promised myself a train journey from Edinburgh to Tweedbank (it's final destination) one of these days but for today I admired the train on the mural.

After that I visited the Fibre X Five exhibition in The Gallery at Tweeddale Museum. There is a yurt right there in the middle of the room as well as much beautiful felt art. It's still on till the 24th October. Make sure you check the opening hours (the gallery closes for lunch and isn't open on Saturday afternoon or Sunday) and note the fact that the gallery has no disabled access. It's the same gallery where I had my solo exhibition in 2011 and upstairs from where I had the 52 Journals show last year.

Thank You!

It's over and done with. The 52 Journals exhibition has come to an end. I had it all prepared. I was going to photograph the closed door of the exhibition room but as it turned out too much loveliness was going on and in the end my camera stayed in my bag. Instead I had many visitors this morning,received a large bouquet of flowers and  4 more pieces were sold. John and I went for lunch with some of those visitors afterwards and had a wonderful time. . It was a marvellous end to what has been an amazing 6 weeks. 

With the pictures from my bouquet I want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who came to the show, bought pieces and cards (would you believe I sold the very last card this morning!), left wonderful messages in my Visitors Book, and gave me lovely feed-back on my work. Also a massive thanks to the Museum Staff for first of all putting on the exhibition and then helping me in all kinds of ways. I was made to feel very much at home in their Museum and Gallery.

Thanks too to everyone who asked when the next exhibition will be on. Give me at least a few years, please! But I will be hard at work on making more art very soon and I can't wait!

If you want to see a bit of the show again, you can! Thanks to my sweet and adorable friend Lenna who came over specially from Florida to see both the exhibition and me there is a video show of the show and me giving a talk about it to a group from Dumfries. You can find it here:


We will be taking all the pieces down on Monday but for the moment I'm just so over the moon with how it went and I didn't want to wait to say that THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!

Blipmeet at the Exhibition

I had some more blippers visiting the 52 Journals exhibition today and you can see Mr. and Mrs. Harebrain above. Needless to say that's their blip user name and it's Mrs. Harebrain that I first met on the Blipfoto site. My fellow blippers have been such a wonderful support to me during the show, which now has only one more week to run. It's one of the miracles of the blip community that we all feel like we are members of one large blipping family and I love meeting more and more blipping photographers in person. You can see the photo Harebrain took of me here.

The exhibition has also given me the opportunity to meet in person with friends I previously only knew online and of course the very best thing was that Lenna who I have known for about 10 years was over last week. She bought one of the pieces in the show called Shelter and you can see it hanging in her house here.

For those of you not in the know Blipfoto is an Edinburgh based site for photographers where the only rule is that you can upload one photo against the day it was taken. I have been a member for almost 4 years now and haven't missed a day yet but you don't have to blip every day.

It seems amazing that the exhibition will be over in one week's time. On the one hand the time has flown by and on the other it feels like I have been sitting in the gallery surrounded by my art since forever. I will be dedicating next week more or less full time to being there in person, but if you want to make sure I'm there send me an e-mail or alternatively phone the museum on the day of your visit on 01721-724820/

Tomorrow I will be at the Scottish Quilt Championships in Ingliston and I will reveal the good news I received regarding my two quilts in this show then!

From the window

 

From the gallery we have a lovely view into the courtyard of the Chambers Institute, where today we could even admire a wedding party. Again the gallery was lovely and busy with both visitors I knew and ones I didn't. I was already floating on air for reasons that will become clear on Sunday (or you might have discovered already on my Facebook page) and the day passed in a pleasant haze of excitement.

 

 

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Banner Headlines

 

I always approach the museum where the 52 Journals are on show from the same direction from one of the car parks in Peebles which might explain why I had never noticed the big banner hanging to the right of the entrance! As it was market day I parked elsewhere and was stopped in my tracks by this sight. It was another busy day in the exhibition and hurrah, another piece was sold!

 

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Busy day at the museum

It was one of the busiest days so far at the museum and I stayed all day so the only thing to photograph were the beautiful railings I look out while sitting in the gallery. They are original to the building.

 

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Peebles Lantern

This is one of the two lanterns that flank the entrance to the museum where my exhibition is being held. They looked so lovely in the sunshine.

It was quite a busy day at the show and I also met up with another fellow blipper who took me out for lunch. Thanks, Irene.

The telephone saga continues. British Telecom has trouble finding a specialized engineer to come out (probably because there are so many problems with their infra structure) but hope one might just manage sometime tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath. But I'll keep you updated!

 

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The show goes on

I spend another day at the museum today which brought more treats. First of all I discovered my picture is in our local paper, the Peeblesshire News together with other images taken during the Peebles Arts Festival. It was taken during the preview of my exhibition.

The other piece of good news concerns that red dot bottom right. This quilt was sold by my agent in The Netherlands, otherwise known as my mother. It's going to an aunt of mine, so that's another one gone to a good home.

And for the third good thing to be grateful for today, I then met up for lunch with a fellow blipper, Janet. It's great how many blippers I'm meeting face to face at the moment rather than just online! And I knew most of the people visiting the show today as well,  so there was lots of chat going on there too. You will find me at the exhibition again tomorrow morning. Just a reminder that now that the Arts Festival is behind us the exhibition is only open on Saturdays from 9.30 - 12.30 and not open at all on Sunday. Normal opening hours during the week are 10.30 - 12.30am and 1-4pm.

Finally an update on the phone! Sadly the fault is very complicated (trust our phone line!) and it will require a specialized engineer who might not manage to arrive till after this weekend. So in short the message is: don't phone our land line. I had a quite surreal conversation with my mother where I heard about one word out of every 4 she spoke and had to sort of fill in the rest. No idea if I got it right but fortunately we also had e-mail to clarify things.

Peebles Shield

 

As found set into the wall in the courtyard of the Chambers Institute, the building also housing my exhibition at the moment. I was there this morning and will be back tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon. I'll try and let you know as much as possible when I will be present but it's not guaranteed!

 

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In the gallery

 

I hardly took any pictures today but at the last minute remembered to capture the above view in the gallery. If you look closely you'll see another red dot has appeared bottom left, which was lovely and made up for the upset caused by the fact that one of the events of the Peebles Arts Festival was unexpectedly taking place in the gallery. It meant that for about an hour or so this morning no one else could get in there, including me.

I can only hope this didn't inconvenience anyone, and to give them their due I did get an unreserved apology from the museum staff. Fortunately I met a friend to have a cup of tea with and a lovely rummage along Peebles High Street and on my return met up with another friend who bought the piece with the red dot. I also received a wonderful birthday present from yet another visiting friend. Hurrah for Thistle Quilters ( they are all members, just like me).

So I should also mention that I will be at the show tomorrow afternoon between 1 and 3 pm but after that there will be a talk about John Buchan in the gallery. I think tickets are still available for the talk if you're interested.

I have been present at the exhibition most days since it opened because the Peebles Arts Festival was on. That finishes tomorrow and in the coming weeks I will pop in regularly but not be there all the time. If you want to meet up let me know and if I'm available I'll try to be there!

 

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Peebles Arts Festival

 I spend the afternoon at my exhibition and took the above picture through the window of the gallery into the courtyard of the Chambers Institution. You can see the Peebles War Memorial (with the copper roof) and also some sculptures that aren't normally there. They form part of the Peebles Arts Festival. It was a great afternoon at the show, meeting up again with a fellow blipper who to my joy bought one of my pieces (thanks, Paula!).

I also met up with a French photographer Angela Mejias who is in town for the festival where she has an exhibition of her pictures. She comes from Hendaye, a place in France twinned with Peebles. During her visit she told me about an exhibition she is organizing of art sized 12 x 12cm to be shown in Pasaia San Pedro in Spain and Hendaye in France and invited me to take part. Of course I said yes!

 Naturally I wanted to see her photographs and after John had collected me from my exhibition we wandered down Peebles High Street and then turned into Pennel's Courtyard where her show was on and discovered that we had strayed into a little corner of France in the process, as you can see above. There was lots going on. A performance by Marco Bardetorte, a singer and while he was singing the artist Bruno Aguerre was painting a mural.

 There was also a performance by Mysterieuses Coiffures (Christophe Pavla) as you can see above.and below.

Here you can see Marco Bardetorte  and Bruno Aguerre performing. The sleeping dog wasn't part of the act but was a wonderful addition to the street scene. There were also French crepes for sale so John and I found ourselves a table and sat back and enjoyed it all. When the singer launched in to the French version of La porte d'Amsterdam the afternoon took on a surreal but perfect atmosphere!

I was very impressed with the painter too. He used highly unusual materials to paint with such as netting and at one stage was throwing paint at the canvas from a bucket.

With a great result as you can see above.

Open for Business

Thanks to everyone who came to the preview of my exhibition. I deeply appreciate all the support. The above picture was taken just before the doors opened at 6pm. Afterwards it became too busy to take photographs as about 80 people or so passed through. I spend my time chatting rather than photographing.
More red dots have appeared too, which is very gratifying to see.

I went back to the gallery this morning when quite a few people visited too as part of the Peebles Arts Festival. Above the sign in Peebles High Street announcing my exhibition and the entrance is under the arch just behind the sign. As you can see I'm just next door to the John Buchan museum.

And this was taken inside the gallery this morning.

A Curtain of Light

The light today was out of this world even though it was in it. The day started misty and the above picture was taken during the dog walk.

But by the time we drove to Peebles the sun had started to make an appearance and for once I found a place to stop and take pictures.

It took me a while to realise I was being observed in the process and some minutes were spend stroking this soft sheep's head.

And when I turned around again the most beautiful vista of the day greeted me, just in time to click that button and capture it for all time.

Towards Peebles

 

Driving towards Peebles today I was struck by the appearance of the low hanging mist in the distance. Fortunately there was a convenient parking place so I could take the picture. In the foreground you can see that we had a severe frost sill lingering on the grass. In the distance the silhouette of cranes used in the quarry.

 

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Arts in Peebles

I was long overdue for an artist's date in which I go and visit somewhere and try and get in touch with myself. We've been out and about a lot this summer but almost always together. That's great but just occasionally I feel the need to wander around by myself usually visiting exhibitions so I can take my time and can also let myself get sidetracked by whatever comes across my path. The Peebles Arts Festival is still on till the end of this week so today I went and took in some shows I hadn't managed to see yet. I started at the Tweeddale Museum and Gallery and was struck by the beautiful flower display in the courtyard which also houses the Peebles War Memorial (the building with the copper roof above).

The begonias were at their most stunning and I almost lay on the ground to take this detail. Love that white/yellow combination. Then I entered (no photography inside) and visited the Crossing Borders exhibition (still on till the end of this week) featuring artists from the Scottish Borders and Northumberland. The art on display included woodwork, jewellery, ceramics as well as photography and painting.

Then on to the top floor (where I had my solo exhibition in 2011) to see the Borders Boys (on till 2nd November). This is an exhibition of male artists all having a connection with the Scottish Borders. My favourite among them is Bernat Klein, who is perhaps best known for his textile designs. His paintings are pure colour, with a great deal of textural painting. You want to reach out and touch, but I also wanted to drown myself in his colour compositions. Oh if only I had some money to spare I knew exactly which one I would have wanted to take home!

After that I roamed around Peebles seeing art in shop windows and galleries. I made my way back to the car using Northgate where I came across a most imposing doorway, as seen above.  It turned out to belong to the Lodge Peebles Kilwinning No24,  part of the Freemasons, which has been in existence since 1716.

This is a detail from above the door, with the Mason's shield. The text in Latin reads: "in deo est omnia fides", which translates as: all trust is in God. I was quite surprised I had never noticed it before. This is where my daily photograph on the Blipfoto site has made such a difference. I am observing even more of my surroundings as before and finding all kinds of hidden gems wherever I go.