Flower Power

Not all pictures are created equal. Work by local artists is often better quality and better value than the mass produced stuff.

A year or so ago, we picked up some square framed floral pictures (left hand picture) in a local department store. They were neutral and inoffensive, like much mass produced wall art but we hoped that three of them on a tall, narrow wall above the stairs would create an interesting display. At the time, we didn't consider whether £15 each was either good or bad value.

After a couple of weeks in place, we grew tired of them. They looked dull and boring and did nothing to lift our spirits as we passed them each morning on the way downstairs. They are now buried deep in our "pile of shame" along with most of our other mistakes. Now we are a little older and wiser, we are more careful and look for reasonably priced, better quality art, often from local artists.

For example, we recently discovered some exquisite floral pictures while attending an exhibition and demonstration at the Castle Gallery in Witham Hall, Barnard Castle. Janet Orme, from Darlington, is a Botanical Artist, producing precise, highly detailed paintings of orchids and other plants in watercolour. We chatted with Janet for some time about her work. She had a wide range of originals, prints and note cards for sale and Vicky chose a wonderful cyclamen print (right hand picture) as a gift for a friend.

Looking round the shops in Barnard Castle we were amazed to find an unusual cream and gold frame that went perfectly with the picture and it was a simple task to assemble them once we got home. Together the print and frame cost less than £20. An excellent purchase compared to the other, dull pictures described above.

You can visit Janet's own site at www.janetorme.co.uk.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Temenos, Middlesbrough

The North East of England continues to be an inspiration for artists and an important location for big works of art. Temenos, by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, is the latest of such works, following in the footsteps of Gateshead's Angel of the North, Darlington's Brick Train and North Shields' Lightning Clock. It is part of a major arts project to install five huge sculptures across the Tees Valley; others will be in Stockton, Hartlepool, Darlington and in the Redcar and Cleveland area.

So armed with an information leaflet, we headed for the Middlehaven Docks area of Middlesbrough to see what all the fuss was about.

Vicky: It looks quite graceful. The netting looks like it's floating across the sky.
Vince: It looks like a trawling net to me but you won't catch much with it; it's just an open ended tube.
Vicky: It says it's 50m high but it doesn't look that tall. That crane behind it is higher and the Transporter Bridge looks much bigger in the distance.
Vince: They should have put it higher up to stand out from its surroundings. That would have made it more visible from the A66 as well.
Vicky: The leaflet says it cost £2.7 million. It doesn't seem much for that amount of money.
Vince: There's a lot of engineering gone into it. It will attract tourists to the area and could become a focus for the re-development work being planned.
Vicky: I wonder if it will do for Middlesbrough what the Angel has done for Gateshead?
Vince: What's that?
Vicky: Create an icon for the town, an image that's easily recognisable and represents Middlesbrough.

This is still a new work of art and opinions will need time to consolidate. Perhaps Temenos will grow in stature, if not in size, when the other four works that will be produced as part of the project are complete and installed.

See a larger picture of Temenos in Middlesbrough.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

The Purple Picture

We've had one of those serendipity moments! A happy accident that in our case gave us a piece of interesting art as well as solving a problem and saving us money.

Last month in one of the charity shops we visit regularly, we spotted a watercolour of Hartlepool Harbour entrance: Vince learnt to sail there so was keen on buying it. But its mahogany style frame was a bit too smart for the soft, blue-grey colours of the picture and it had no mount to show it off to best effect. Then Vince realised that the frame was ideal for a print we had bought some months earlier.

What we call "the purple picture" is a small African landscape print of unusual proportions and in shades of purple. When we bought it it was in a very large chunky brown wood frame that was way out of scale for the picture and it had a ubiquitous cream mount that was entirely the wrong colour. Temporarily, we put it into a cheap A4 certificate frame and planned to get a new frame made for it later.

On checking the frame from the Hartlepool picture we found that it was perfectly proportioned for the purple picture, matching the style well too. All it needed was an appropriate mount. So off went Vince to our local framer, and selected a purple pearlescent mount to match the picture. It now hangs on the living room wall and looks like it was bought from a gallery.

So, that one picture has solved the problem of framing the purple picture and saved us having to buy a custom-made frame that would have cost us many times more. All we need now is a decent frame for the Hartlepool Harbour picture.


Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince


ps. The charity shop where we got the Hartlepool picture now sells only books, with no bric-a-brac or interesting stuff - shame! One less source of great value art.

Greetings To You All

Greetings cards come in all shapes, sizes and subjects. And looking in any card shop, you now find more and more often that some of these cards are based on paintings and other art.

Combining these cards with a cheap photo frame can give you a simple and quick way to decorate your walls with art for probably not much more than a fiver each. And if you pick up the frames for a pound or two in your friendly, local charity shop, you get even better value.

So we're always on the lookout for interesting greetings card on our travels. We already have a triple frame in our living room displaying a set of three cards from Sam Toft's Mustard family collection. And a couple of framed sheep scenes we found in a charity shop turned out, on closer investigation, to be the fronts of Christmas cards.

We have also recently discovered a series of cards with humorous pen and ink sketches by Glockwork. Drawn by Graham “Glock” Ashbridge, these cards include motorcycling, steam trains, life in the Yorkshire Dales and, to our delight, sheep (see picture).

So far, we only have one Glockwork card but we suspect it will form the basis of a mini-collection of these charming sketches. The cards are available in shops across the North of England (plus some South of the Humber) or on the Glockwork website.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

Unbelievable! One of my life ambitions is about to come true thanks to Light Artist, Bruce Monro.

I happended to come across this BBC news item about Bruce's CD Sea . Using hundreds of thousands of old CDs, Bruce and a team of volunteers have turned an ordinary field of grass into an amazing sea of shimmering light. CDs are a great medium for this project, creating an ever-changing effect of light and colour on a huge scale. Plus, it's a great way to recycle old discs.

For the past fifteen years or so, I have been hanging on to old CDs, collecting unwanted music, computer and Internet discs. I imagined I could produce interesting, unusual and colourful sculptures or framed arrangements. But I was never brave enough to actually do anything with them as I wasn't sure if it would really be a valid way of producing art. Now Bruce has led the way, I have artistic validation for my plans.

I don't have enough CDs to create a sea, not even a pond, but now I have the justification to start working on this art. The next step is to dig out all the sketches and notes I have made over the years and start putting these into practice.

Love Your Art,
Vince