Exhibition Updates

I have been struggling tremendously with the two exhibitions that I am due to open next week. Both for the Derbyshire Open Arts - one at my home and the other a guest appearance at the Level Arts Centre in Rowsley. The pieces for the house are mostly complete- save the 'big story' portrait of tory chief whip Patrick McLoughlin and one other of a prominent local business man. I still have to hang them all, which is an arse-ache, but have enjoyed clearing out the cellar space to form the coalhole gallery, or as kelly amusingly called it island6-feet under :). Thats not been the stress causer though, it has been the bespoke pieces that I have decided to create for the Rowsley space. Based on Wordsworth's 'On Oker Hill' it tracks my path around the globe over the last eight years, and contrasts it with the contended world of Oker hill to which I have moved in coming to Derbyshire. Wordsworths tale exaggerates the prospects of two brothers in a similar way- one brother stays at home in the countryside and prospers, the other travels and ends up in penury and perishes. heavy stuff. My grief has arisen not from understanding the romaticistic sentiments that would lambast the mind-opening activities of travel, but more to do with spray mount not fastening my prints sufficiently to the steel sheets i'd like to use. Then I have to sort a hanging system for the bloody things, which in itself is engineering that wordsworth himself would be 'afeared of'. As it is, I may have to cut the contribution slightly and use small scale prints from my photos, and scrap the steel. I guess WIlliam would have approved of that :)