The Warrington Contemporary

Ok, so, exciting news!! You know the Warrington Contemporary Open that I mentioned in the last post? Well, as I said, me and my textile artist friend Claire, plus her husband and a friend of theirs went to the opening night. First we went to have a look at Claire's work, which was in the main show, in the second venue. There we bumped into some people from the Islington Mill Art Academy, which is something that both Claire and I have been active members of for a few months now (This is what I mean when I say I'm behind with news! Islington Mill has become a huge part of my arty life over the last few months, but I haven't blogged about it yet! That's coming soon, I promise). Then we went over and had a look at the photography exhibition, which is where my work was. Here's a picture of me standing proudly next to my picture.

A nice couple who saw this picture being taken asked if I was the photographer, and when I said I was they were so complimentary about my work! And it turned out that they were fellow photographers and also had a piece each in the show (which were both really good!) so that felt awesome!

Next we had to hurry over to the main venue at Warrington Museum to have a brief look at the main part of the show before the prize giving. There we saw "In A Flux", which is a kind of mini exhibition  by the "Manchester Salon" which is a group of artists including Maurice Carlin, known to us as Morry, as he's one of the founding members of the Islington Mill art academy. He's a really nice guy and a very interesting artist, and it was very cool to see work by someone I know in a real art show! We also had time to have a quick look around the rest of the Open Exhibition before it was time for the prize giving. First up was the photography, and you could have knocked me down with a feather when they announced the runner up and my name was called out!! Wow! That was a shock!

Here's a picture of me receiving my prize:

More pictures of the event can be found here if you are interested.

So, that was very exciting. And just when I thought the evening couldn't get any better, a lovely couple that bought a picture from me at the Summer Arts market in Liverpool (otherwise a bit of a flop for me - I didn't make the table price back!) were there, and came up and said congratulations, and how much they were loving owning my picture! She's an artist and he's a graphic designer - there seems to be a theme developing of other artists liking my work, which I take as the biggest compliment going!  The lady is called Jenny, and you can check out her artwork here. She had a piece in the show as well, right next to the guy that won the whole thing (my verdict on his piece - good, but not my favourite).
And then, to top it all off, Morry introduced me to a lady called Laura who had helped to curate the whole show and asked for my details as she may be putting together another exhibition soon! Wow! I would call that a pretty successful night! From this I've learned a couple things. One: never give up. It's a cliche but it's true! I was getting pretty fed up with entering these kind of open competitions, paying money to be entered only to not get accepted, and to not even get any feedback so to be left wondering if I was even close. But you have to keep putting yourself out there, and exposing yourself to the risk of failure, or else you can never have any successes like this! (The prize, by the way, was £100, so that should help make up for some of those entries that led nowhere!).
Secondly: people love a winner! I mean it in the sense that winning one thing like this can suddenly open lots of doors and get you noticed, and make all that slogging away worth it. I hope that's the case for me, and that this one event could lead on to more and more opportunities. I'll be sure to let you know if it does!

The Meaning of Success

Hi! See, still in September and I'm doing a new blog post. I'm cooking up a virtual blogging storm!

Well, not really, still could do better, but I'm trying. Part of the problem is, I'm so far behind with news that it feels a bit overwhelming. Let's see how much I can catch up with in this post: So, first I'll talk about what progress I'm making in getting my work OUT THERE, one of the biggest challenges artists seem to face, especially shy and retiring ones like me that aren't good at approaching scary people like gallery curators. I've had work in an exhibition called "No Place Like Home"  in a gallery in Huyton, a smallish town near Liverpool. The exhibition began in July and will run until October 11th. This was something I applied for months and months ago, and had kind of forgotten about when I got an email saying "We'd like to put 3 of your pieces into our exhibition". So, I had to rush and get the pieces printed and framed, and then put up. The gallery is an exhibition space attached to the local library, and is a really nice light and airy space. I haven't actually been back to see the exhibition since it was all hung, but I'm hoping to get there before the exhibition comes down, and combine it was a visit to Liverpool Biennial which is also coming to a close in October.
I also entered a piece into the Warrington Contemporary Open Exhibition, and to my great pleasure, got accepted into the photographic side. It's a competition/art exhibition, but I don't really care about the competitive bit, it's just really satisfying to get into the exhibition, especially as the main judge was also the judge for a previous art exhibition that I applied for but didn't get into. I think what did it was that I choose a piece that very clearly shows what my work is about - it looks like a piece of abstract painting, but at the same time it is clearly a piece of the urban environment. Here it is:

 It's just nice to get my work into a few exhibitions, especially ones that has a competitive element like this. I've applied for several during this last year when I've been seriously pursuing an art career, and I'd all but lost hope of getting anywhere. I only really entered this one because my friend who's a textile artist has got stuff in it before, and urged me to apply. She got her work in this year too, so we'll be off together to the opening night next Friday to sip wine and hob knob with the artist community. I'll post pictures and a write up in my next post!
Of course, exhibitions are all very well, but it's also nice to sell some work, and the good news is, I've been doing that too! I sold the two pieces that were in the Mill Bridge Gallery that I mentioned in a previous post, and as we speak, the gallery has a stand at the Manchester Buy Art Fair, which is on this weekend. In fact, when I finish this blog I'm going over there to man the stall for a few hours. There's a few of my pictures over there on the stand, but as of this moment, none of them have sold. Watch this space though! Here's a picture of the corner of the stand that has my work in it - they are the two pieces immediately behind the wooden sculpture.

 Also, I have sold 2 pieces fairly recently on my Artfinder page, bringing my grand total to 4. So, overall I've been making really good progress! Of course, I'm not really making much money from it - that may come in time, but experience of other artists suggests maybe not. It's hard to make being an artists into a paying career, I'm realistic about that. It's more important to me that people like my work enough to part with money for it, or to put it into the exhibition. That just confirms my belief that it IS good and worthwhile work, and that's the most important thing for me at the moment.

Ok, more soon. As usual, there so much more to say, but I have to go and try and sell a few more of my pictures!