Devon Open Studios and the Song of the Sea

The Dreaming Lark

Hello Reader

(Notice the new logo?)

This months' news includes details of Devon Open Studios, an exhibition at Thelma Hulbert gallery and an inspiring trip to Cornwall!

Devon Open Studios

This year I'll be in Ashburton with two other artists.

I'm looking forward to showing my lino cuts and collages inspired by the otherworldly and folkloric landscape of Dartmoor, together with Helen Edwards, a mixed media textile artist using salvaged or natural materials to make functional or decorative pieces and Paula Wilson who combines materials including wild clay to make small unique tactile vessels with a connection to place.

We will be at 'The Orangery', Ashburton Court Guest House, 79, East Street, Ashburton, TQ13 7AL

Devon Open Studios is on 12 - 20 September and we will be open every day from 10.30 - 4.30

You can find all the details plus more about us and photos of our work here
Or pick up a brochure from a Devon gallery or art shop near you. Our brochure number is T32.

Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton

I'm delighted to have been selected to show my work in an exhibition with 10 other Devon Open Studios members, responding to a theme of return and renewal.

The exhibition is also running from 12 -20 September.

This meant I had to get 2 of all the prints I wanted framed!

This time I had them framed with art glass, which although more expensive is much less reflective than normal glass. I was a bit frustrated with the reflections on the glass when I put them up in the stable at Delamore Arts earlier this year, so the art glass should help that little problem!

You can find details of this exhibition here

Shadows and Mist at Grey Wethers framed in art glass

Cornwall!!!

No, don't do it, I hear you Devon folk shout!

It's alright I'm not leaving Devon with the beautiful moors where my spirit lies, but I was massively inspired on my recent trip.

I attended a coastal painting course at Newlyn and afterwards I walked along the rugged West coast, sketching and painting as I went.

You can see some of the places and sketches on Instagram and Facebook if you search for @the.dreaming.lark

Apart from the haunted cottage I stayed in all alone (stay tuned, that will be a story for another time), I was particularly excited by 'The Song of the Sea Cave' at Nanjizal cove. Just the name of it was enough to wet my folky appetite.

I've made several drawings of it and this gouache painting, and soon there will be a lino print of it.

When I was there the tide was coming in and great waves were crashing through the threshold of the cave. Beyond the sea was calm and blue. It was just like looking through a portal into the otherworld. But the most exciting bit was the where the threshold was, it was where the potential energy lay. Just before the waves crashed into the cave, there was a hazy square, what they call a 'thin place', the threshold between worlds. I left it out of this painting as it was difficult to describe, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to describe it in lino print, maybe it is better kept as a sacred secret.

The Song of the Sea Cave is a place where if the tide is right you can hear the song. It is supposed to be like a deep roar. Despite the tide energetically advancing into the cave, I didn't hear it there, however I did hear it along Gwynver beach (yes it is named after Arthurs's Queen Guinevere, spelt 'Gwynnever' in Cornish, and also translates as 'White Water')

For the first time I felt terrified of the sea as I paddled in the shallows, listening to the deepest darkest roar I've ever heard and realising then that the ocean is one massive breathing being.