Yes, time passes. It does that, I find, and nowadays fades off into the middle distance with increasing rapidity. For instance, some weeks ago I was going to talk about Fringe Arts Bath. Bit late now, so suffice to say that there were - as ever - some thought-provoking exhibitions on subjects including obsession, migration, walking the landscape, blue, as well as an open exhibition, and some excellent work everywhere I went. Here's a handful of images (hover over for information, where I've remembered to collect it) from, alas, not enough time spent at not enough of the scattered venues. And it was raining.
I was going to talk, too, about the sketchbook exhibition at Rabley Drawing Centre. No pics, alas, except of the decidedly rural location (I got myself pretty much lost, after, and had in the end to to retrace my steps or risk being stuck down some track with nowhere to turn, a truly horrendous distance to reverse, and the knowledge that I still had to drive halfway up the country preferably before nightfall). It was a fascinating show, with a million (oh alright, I think it might have been a hundred) very varied sketchbooks - and ur-sketchbooks. Very beautiful, some of them, but manifestly constructed for precisely that purpose. I recognised, though didn't always appreciate, the ones with gappy missed pages, other pages started with a few hopeful lines and then abandoned - those I knew were sketchbooks. It's partly why I don't bother much myself. I didn't have too much problem either with the ones full of stuck-in sketches - alright, so they had doubtless been curated, with scrappy scribbles not included unless they were terribly meaningful scrappy scribbles, but as someone who draws on such odd bits of paper as are hanging around I understand that the physical book form might never originally have existed. There were books crammed full of exquisite drawings, coloured in and, from my perspective, probably as good as or better than any finished work deriving from them - they mostly caused envy of the observational skills and drawing abilities. My problem was with the beautiful books, where sometimes you could see exactly how work had been cut up to make the pages. However lovely, I couldn't bring myself to think of them as sketchbooks. Still, it was good enough that I shall catch the show again - perhaps at Black Swan Arts in Frome - when it tours (tour venues and dates under sketchbook exhibition link above).
Those exhibitions were many weeks ago, now, and on my last trip exhibitions didn't play much part, except for Trowbridge's Town Hall Arts' inaugural Open Exhibition - with two recent works in it, I made the effort to get to the opening before driving north. Again, a selection of work below, mostly accompanied by artist names (I'll make sure I find the missing one on another visit and fill it in later). The top two are mine. I hope the show's a success for Town Hall Arts and grows year on year.
 Trace Memories (Land Ritual) I |  Trace Memories (Land Ritual) II |
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