Before January

January seems to have become the quiet month in my calendar. Well, quiet in that all gallery work generally slows down, allowing me time to think about last year and the coming year in a vaguely more strategic way. It's hard to be self employed and strategic but somehow making lists and talking a lot about hopes and dreams seems to sort of work. I also try to get down to the sea, usually on my own. I have become good friends with my sat nav. And taking hundreds of photographs, exploring and walking and watching, collects a little pool of inspiration... Something to draw on in the weeks and months ahead when I am back in urban surroundings.

And being alone is important. Without the interruptions of home life, the superficial things sink under the surface and the deeper stuff rises. It's important. So yes, January is quieter in some senses, but actually it's the springboard for the year ahead. I think it's one of my favourite times of the year. There's an expectation.

But before January arrives... I thought I'd give myself the task of distilling the past year into images. Kind of tidy it all up, label and store it away. So much has happened that it would take too many words and too much time to write it down... Supposedly a picture paints a thousand words so it makes more sense to use images. The images carry lot of meaning, whether or not you know or understand what they are. So here goes...

Beautiful blue skies in Greenway, near Kingswear, Devon.

Whiteout! The tree opposite my house heavy with snow.

A poor photo snapped from my car of my perfect little gallery, somewhere near Port Isaac!

Utterly stunning.... A sea mist over Trebarwith Strand.

Celebrating our wedding anniversary with my sister and her husband. Double wedding 23 years ago...

I loved painting these Widemouth Bay pebbles.

River Dart painting. This was such a beautiful place.

I was so excited and proud about this. What a privilege.

Summer in my front garden park!

A surprising sight one gorgeous evening in Lucca.

Seed head watercolours....painting in the French Alps.

And finally... One of the most enjoyable events of the year when I get to meet

Bristol friends in my open studio. And have a good tidy.

I love my job.

Unravelling the Art Trail process

I am in the middle of a mammoth studio sort out and clean up. All in preparation for the North Bristol Arts Trail this weekend. It's been marked on the year planner (my security blanket) since this time last year, so there's no surprise that its upon me. And I've been working for it for the last two months.

And it has got me pondering... The process of getting ready for an exhibition in your own home is very different from preparing for a gallery led event. The most obvious difference being that its all down to you, the work, the space and the curation of the exhibition, and of course the manning of the event itself. You do it all, with the help of whoever you draw in to be involved.

I actually really enjoy the whole process, in particular the more reflective side of it all, considering the work, what I want to say or how I want I visitors to feel as they come into my home. It is a very vulnerable place to put yourself. But I think that's a good place. It encourages a quite brutal assessment of your work, what path you have been following and if there is any value to others in presenting them with your 'journey'...

And you have the opportunity to share with them the background to the work, the inspiration, what made you arrive at this point in time with this work on display. I hugely enjoy curating the space to reflect these things. It helps me unravel the days and weeks and months of work, distill ing the process down to a studio that's tidy for once and filled with current work, the important work, hung on the walls.

Mixed up in it all is the sometimes confusing question of whether or not visitors will want to pay for this expression of 'your' journey, does it ring true with them? Can they connect in any way with what you are making? And what value does it have to them? When a living needs to be made, it's not always a simple thing. In the end it's often advice from friends that helps to clarify this part of the job.

Coming at the end of the year, this weekend is a great way to process the last 12 months. What is the important work, how did I get here? What has poured inspiration in? What has sapped me of energy? What do I need to invest in next year? And over the next few days I need to listen to my visitors, hear them out and respect what they say, as they reflect back to me what they see and feel as they come right into my space!

What a very real privilege, one I don't take lightly.

I'll let you know how it all goes after the event! Here's a picture of my nearly ready studio...

 

Home and holidays

During one of those long insomniac nights recently I got thinking about home and holidays, as you do... I was born here in Bristol, grew up here, and now live here. My children have been born here too. And we love living here, for all sorts of reasons. One of them being that the lovely counties of Devon and Cornwall are easy peasy to access for holidays.

When I was growing up we had a caravan on a hillside site in Romansleigh near South Molton. My memories of that place are a bit other worldly... Country lanes packed with wild flowers, woods and streams to explore and incredible night skies. Pretty perfect in retrospect. And nearly always sunny!

Then I went to St Ives when I was about 19, a student at art college. It took me and my friends hours to get there on the coach. I still have a photo of me on Porthminster Beach, taking pictures of waves! Something about the place got under my skin. Since then on we have been many many times. Nowadays, after 24 years of family holidays, the prospect of needing slightly smaller accommodation again is around the corner. A new season. I like change, so that's ok.

More recently we have got to know and love the area around Padstow. Partly because of a brilliant gallery relationship but also because the coast is utterly beautiful around that little town. Especially in the winter time. I spend time there in January, a kind of retreat, on my own. It's time to explore the bays and beaches, also the inland winding lanes that may or may not lead to a cove or quiet view. For me it's a great time to breath deeply and have time to plan, imagine, and draw and paint. My camera comes too, and usually captures 100s of moments that will hopefully inspire in the coming months...back in Bristol.

Bristol. A safe place, a known place. Where family and friends are. Different to those holiday places. Its where the stuff of life and all it's ups and downs play out. Real.

If you breathe in deeply when away, on holiday... Then home is where you breathe out, where you live life and get ready for the next deep breath. Both make sense because they are both real. I can't imagine living anywhere else. I can't imagine holidaying anywhere else.

Well, apart from Italy. France. And those, as yet, undiscovered places.

“All of us, I believe, carry about in our heads places and landscapes we shall never forget because we have experienced such intensity of life there : places where, like the child that 'feels its life in every limb' in Wordsworth's poem 'we are seven', our eyes have opened wider, and all our senses have somehow heightened. By way of returning the compliment, we accord these places that have given us such joy a special place in our memories and imaginations. They live on in us, wherever we may be, however far from them.”

Roger Deakin

 

Bright Edges

I wanted to record in a few words how the Bright Edges exhibition went a week or so ago in Clifton, Bristol.

 

I've realised over the last year that I enjoy an 'event' orientated schedule... Planning, devising themes, working out how to display, presenting a finished, whole collection that represents a few months of work. I think it's the way I am wired. I like a year planner! And it's a way of recording, as in a journal, what's going on in life.

 

This year I will have been part of nine different events, as well as the important work of supplying galleries. Maybe that has been too many, but I have enjoyed each one, and each one has been really important, pushing me to work, sometimes when I have just wanted watch the television or go shopping! When you have to make a living from your work you also have to push through those feelings! It's been good.

 

I feel that each event has proved something to me... That there's always more to learn and discover. And that stirs up excitement about the next exhibition or event. I have lots of sleepless nights, trying to work out how much work I need, will I have time, how shall I display those little miniatures?! But it usually works out and all is well.

 

But it's only worthwhile because of the connection that builds up with the lovely folks who buy the work. Once it's in their hands the work is off on a new journey. It's no longer mine, it's part of another persons story... I love that. Or maybe it's just the reaction from a viewer, how it prompts a memory or feeling. If there were no feedback, I would have run out of inspiration and energy long ago.

 

Anyway, Bright Edges was a short week, in my home city, an opportunity to meet new friends and old, play shop, see my work well lit! Loved it but was glad to pack up and get back to the studio, where I can leave it messy at the end of the day!

 

The next big event in the year planner is the North Bristol Arts Trail, 23/24 November. My studio will be open, tidy and warm. And you are very welcome.

 

 

 

Long hot summer...

Miscanthus sinensis 'Zebrinus'.... Or Zebra Grass to you and me. I have some just outside my studio window. It caught my eye today because of its pink tinged flowers. Apparently they only turn pink if we have had a long hot summer...

It's been a very sunny day. But there's no doubt that autumn is here. It's an in between time. There's lots of reminders in the garden that summer is not long gone. It's a shame that we seem to rush through Autumn very speedily to get to Christmas... In past times we slowed up enough to appreciate harvest and to celebrate it.

'In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year, bringing us the fruition of months of care and toil...'

Today it's been easy to linger in the moment...despite being confronted with Christmas decorations at the shops! I'm going to try and stay in this lovely season for as long as its here.

'Everyone must take time to sit

And watch the leaves turn.'

Elizabeth Lawrence

 

Supporting 'Cycling to Sofia'

Here's an opportunity you can't miss! A chance to give a little and support a great cause, plus possibly win a glass painting worth £300.
Two good friends of mine, Richard and Mark, are about to embark on a great adventure, cycling 1700 miles from Bristol to Sofia in Bulgaria, to raise money to equip a newly built medical centre on behalf of the Bulgarian Partners Trust. They are planning to take 23 days and their route will take them via London, Strasbourg, Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade. Their friend Geoff is driving the support camper van, scouting ahead and preparing meals to keep their energy up! The van will then be donated to the centre after the trip.
Bulgaria is one of the poorest countries in the EU with one in four households living under the poverty line, with no access to basic health care. The Centre will provide warm meals on a daily basis to help fight hunger and improve the health of the local community.
By donating, you can help make a change. It's that simple. And of course you may win my glass painting too!
Some details... The painting, called The Wave, is 27 x 27 cm and is mounted on a white board.
How to donate, follow the link to
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/janereevesglass
For every £5 you donate I will put your name in the hat to win the picture. (Donate £10 and I will enter your name twice etc...)
Please make sure you leave your name when you donate and check Facebook (Jane Reeves Fused Glass) on the 18 October when I will pick a winner!

For more information and to keep up to date with how they are getting on, you can follow their blog
www.cyclingtosofia.wordpress.com
Thank you so much! I'm excited!

Lucca

'When a man leaves home, he leaves behind some scrap of his heart…it’s the same with a place a man is going to. Only then he sends a scrap of his heart ahead.'

Frederick Beuchner

Well, I'm not entirely sure if that's true... But it does sometimes feel that way. I'm not particularly sentimental, but Italy, well, kind of tugs on the heart.

The warm colours. The sounds, the tastes.

The beauty at every turn, beauty meant, beauty by accident.

I think I was 16 when I went first with my parents. We visited Florence. That was that really. I'm with Frederick.

Here's a taster of four days sunny September days.