SUMMER GLOOM AND ROLLING STONES

A strong south-westerly is blowing rain against my studio window as I write this long-overdue blog post.  I hope that the weather will have improved by the time I commit these lines to my Blogger dashboard.  Our Shetland summer has been chilly and gloomy so far, but we haven't (until now!) had the volume of rain which has been saturating many other parts of Britain recently.  I take it the hosepipe ban has been lifted now!

I've now held my first five Saturday stalls of the summer at the Toll Clock Centre, and the takings have been varied, but I find that my presence there is an important and useful link with the public.  As well as meeting old friends, making new ones, and selling a few prints and greeting cards, I pick up a few painting commissions.  I've almost finished the first of these now - a portrait of Rolling Stone Keith Richards!  Sadly I won't be able to display it online, as I'll be infringing someone's copyright if I do, and that could be costly.  At the moment, you'll have to take my word for the fact that canvas Keith is much too pretty, and I'm going to have to rough him up a bit!

There are no plans for any more exhibitions in the near future.  I entered the Lower Voe painting (which I displayed here a couple of months ago) into the OBA art competition, run by the Oldie magazine. I should know by mid-August if I've made the short-list of ten for the big prize of £5000!  And here's the bit I don't like - the ten finalists have to come to London (complete with a saleable portfolio of works) for a presentation do (I forget where exactly), and the logistics of this is causing me loss of sleep.  I don't have my own transport, so I don't know how I'm going to get myself and all my baggage to a venue in a city I've never been to before.  So I'm half-hoping that my work is NOT chosen for the short-list!

A feeling of general unease is pervading my whole being at the moment.  I need to move on (onwards, upwards, sideways or backwards, but ON!) from the disaster of Catterline at the turn of the year.  The fact that I no longer have duties to perform for my mother at Whiteness (since she became a permanent resident at the Levenwick care centre) means that another element of my weekly routine is no longer there.  The times are a-changing, and things will never be quite the same as before.  My sisters, brother and I have been keeping in closer contact of late, and I'm looking forward to the visit of my youngest sister Angela, who is coming to Shetland for a few days from next Thursday.  We've planned a little party for our mother's 96th birthday in the Overtonlea Care Centre on Monday 30th July, and I'm looking forward to that little soiree very much.  All we need is for my brother to make a surprise trip up from Aberdeen, and we'll all be together again for the first time in a good few years.  Strange - we were all so very different, and yet so close.

I promise to have some more artwork to show you soon!