AOH at Pretty Neat Gallery

 

Well, the diagram of what Pretty Neat Gallery & Studio will look like, has now become a reality! The gallery has been open for a couple of months or so now, and kicked off with Artists Open Houses which is no mean feat. 

I first met Paula, the owner and founder, at a workshop at Made & Making where I was hosting an autumn themed workshop which didn't end up being very autumnal at all! (You can see the blog post about it here.) She was one of the participants and we got chatting and she mentioned that she was planning on opening a gallery studio in Kemptown, Brighton, selling artist's seconds or work which they didn't feel they could charge full price for but was still eminently sellable to the right people (and for a slightly more budget friendly cost). It would also have workshops on all kinds of different creative subjects, some of which Paula would teach and some she would have tutors come in for - and was I interested in being one of the tutors?

I said yes but then there were complications with the initial location, and then the second location had to be done up so things kept changing but finally it was move in day, and within a week or so of getting the gallery space ready with furniture, painted walls and signs above the door - it had filled up with artwork and was open to the public as part of the AOH trail! Amazing work on the park of Paula and her team. 

We weren't able to get to the open evening for the gallery which was a shame, but went to visit it at the weekend instead to see my work on display alongside several other local artists, all using different mediums. (The above photo has been pinched from one of the other artist's who went to the open evening.)

The set up is a real mix of table displays, wall and shelf displays, with the artists all mingling in together rather than being in a block. Which is interesting because often galleries keep work all together rather than muddle it up but it works surprisingly well in this setting. It's the first time my work has been in an actual gallery though (apart from pop up exhibitions) I think so that's amazing! 

There was apparently lots of interest in my pieces and a few little bits sold, I'd taken cards, prints and framed/hooped originals. I didn't make any major sales though until the day after the AOH exhibition ended and then I sold an original hooped Stitchscape! Woohoo!

I wonder what it is about people not seeming to want to buy textile pieces. At several events people have purchased painted art without really thinking about it, but the textiles - although it earns a lot of discussion and chat about methods and mixed media etc - is a much harder sell. I'm definitely in the wrong industry. 

I really hope that the gallery continues to do well. I know they have lots of different exhibitions planned throughout the year, and I have lots of different workshops booked with them as well, all of which you can find on my events page, or on the PNG calendar page. 

If you don't know where it is, the gallery is in Brighton Marina which has a surprising amount of other things going on there! There is free parking, for starters, and you can also go crazy golfing, eat at a variety of restaurants, go on marina tours in a boat, there are little cafes, a selection of shops....all sorts of things! So definitely make a day of it - we did, after visiting the gallery we took a hungry Fin for lunch at Nandos across the road and did a little wander around the marina. I did try and convince Reece to do a boat tour but he wasn't having it...I'll work on him!

 

Batemans & Standen

I've mentioned Monday Club before - it's a little weekly outing that my Parents, Toddler F, myself and my little nephew, Toddler Z have been doing for a couple of month's now on a Monday morning. Dad has been working up to retirement and had a lot of holiday days to use up before his official leaving date so he took off every Monday to go through it, which meant that we were then free to all go out somewhere exciting. 

It was always fairly local and Toddler F and I would usually hop on the bus in the morning, get off nearer to the parents' house and we'd all pile into the car - The Mother squeezed in the back between two child seats - and head off to somewhere. 

We've also enjoyed some really lovely weather this Spring so, although it wasn't always the warmest, there were lots of beautiful sunny moments. 

Quite often we've headed to fairly local National Trust spots as we are all members and it gives the boys somewhere to rush around and explore, throw sticks into rivers and examine worms and ants in great detail. For the grown ups there was guaranteed delicious cakes and coffees so it was a definite win-win. 

This particular National Trust spot is Batemans, somewhere we've been to lots of times before and has appeared on this blog before (in 2015 for definite). It was the family home of Rudyard Kipling, the chap who wrote the Jungle Book, and it has been preserved pretty much in the way he left it, as if he'd just walked outside for a bit. 

The gardens aren't that big (in comparison to other National Trust sites, not in comparison to the average person's garden! Especially considering that my garden consists of a balcony with a few pots) but they are always beautifully manicured and planted, with different sections to it. 

There are a few walled gardens, and you walk in from the carpark and ticket office just at the top of the vegetable patch with pleached fruit trees and a little orchard and all sorts of things growing. 

Another section of the walled garden leads to more apple trees (which the boys found great fun in autumn, collecting the apples into little piles) and the back of the cafe. 

There are more ornamental type gardens, a very controlled rose garden around a fish pond, but then, through a little archway is a much wilder planted area with a stream, beautiful wild flowers and a dirt path which takes you to the flour mill at the end of the garden. This is the bit the boys like most, you can play Pooh sticks and there are some children's things to do in the mill, or you can spend hours watching water filter through little grates in the millpond and trying to spot newts. 

Another of our little adventures took us to Standen, with a couple of extra family members this time. It had its Easter finery on so there were lots of different activities to play with as you walk round. 

This has definitely appeared several times on my blog before and, if you click through to this post in April 2017, you'll see what we had expected to see this time around - but wasn't there....tulips!

It turned out that we actually knew one of the gardeners there who came up to say hello, and we asked her about the lack of tulips as it's a well known part of the Standen calendar. Apparently they had planted them all as usual but everything had been afflicted with Tulip Fire, a fungal disease which makes the plants look like they've been scorched in a fire, and they had to be dug up which is such a shame. 

They still had some very pretty areas of planting, although slightly barer than usual perhaps, and there was a lot of work going on in the garden, it was teaming with gardeners and wheelbarrows. There isn't such a lot of ornate garden planting here, it's much wilder or looser with lawns surrounded by shrubs and trees rather than boxy flowerbeds.

We did do a very whistlestop tour around the house, but with three boys under the age of 5, their interest in comfy chairs and William Morris wallpaper wasn't held for long. We stayed longest in the room where a volunteer was playing the piano as they wanted to dance to the music, or in the conservatory with all of the Easter cacti and succulents but mainly it's easier to just let them be small boys out in the wilds of the garden. 

The house is full of Arts and Crafts workmanship, and Morris & Co wallpapers and textiles - the servants corridors are completely papered in Morris Trellis, and there is now an exhibition about Morris in some of those rooms. 

It's another house where you have lots of vaguely tamed but not orderly areas. Follow this little path, trip up some wide steps and suddenly you pop out into a little wooded clearing with a funny little shack and a balcony area looking down over the house and entrance road. 

There's a wooded walk with the trees mostly on one side, and the other side there is this view! 

As part of the Easter trail there were lots more little activities in the woods and a big marquee with some games in to play. It changes up here every now and then; sometimes there's a planted maze, or a stack of rocks to climb on but it's just a fun place to be free. 

I would really recommend that if you have smalls and live near to National Trust properties that you sign up. We aren't affiliated with them at all but sometimes being able to go out (and obviously the more you visit the more viable it is to expense the membership fee) to these places, park for free and wander round these fantastic gardens is such a godsend - especially as we don't have a garden ourselves. Having a rambunctious toddler in the house can be quite overwhelming sometimes but, release them into a wide open garden or field and let them explore and dig and play in a wide open space doesn't feel quite so much like you are trapped. And they are beautiful to boot. 

Wakehurst Place

For Mother’s Day this year I was treated to beautiful blue sky and sunshine (obviously organised by Toddler F), and a trip out to Wakehurst Place - part of Kew Botanical Gardens and also National Trust. It seems to be more Kew than NT these days as the shop doesn’t resemble a usual National Trust shop (no badges for my camp blanket) and, to be quite honest, the food from the restaurant was expensive and not all that nice. 

We used to come here fairly often as a family when I was a kid but rarely come here now so seeing the gardens again was a bit of a treat. Especially with the time of year matching up with their Magnolias being in bloom. That was always my favourite part. 

We actually had four mothers on the trip out, myself and my sister, our mum and Reece’s mum, plus the various men and boys in our lives. 

It’s nice just to get out somewhere where the kids can run and be free, dance under falling petals, watch giant fish in still ponds and slide down weather (and other bottoms) worn grooves in giant rocks. 

The house itself isn’t open, when it is open there isn’t anything in it really, it’s not furnished with items from the period or anything like that and I think it’s mostly used for functions or educational visits. 

It is a huge place, with wide and manicured lawns, ornamental ponds, rock gardens, woodland areas, a valley walk with amazing Rhododendron trees and a stream at the bottom leading to more ponds and lakes. It is quite a steep walk to follow if you do go into the valley toward the bottom lakes, we had a buggy with us which was an effort to push back up so that bit isn’t entirely accessible for things on wheels but we managed it so it was ok. 

Around the side of the house there’s also a garden full of grasses and those fiery red stemmed plants interspersed with Silver Birch trees for contrast, a walled garden, a vegetable plot and a mud kitchen which we hadn’t noticed before and the small boys absolutely loved. Clearly some people had come prepared for the mud kitchen and their children were dressed in waders and wellies. 

I can recommend the ice cream truck that was sitting outside next to the restaurant though. We had absolutely delicious salted caramel and triple chocolate ice cream cones which had big chunks of yummy goodness inside. 

There is also the seed bank which you can visit but the boys don’t find that particularly interesting so we didn’t go down that way. We were all a bit worn out after our trek into the abyss so trundled our way back to the car - passing the most enormous queue of people waiting to come in! Timed our visit well I think.

Toddler F fell asleep on the way home (which we had anticipated) so I even had some quiet time to myself, sat in the sunshine in the car - with coffee! - working on my pond life ATCs. I don’t think I could ask for a better Mother’s Day.