Raffle Prizes

We've got some fabulous prizes in our Christmas raffle being drawn tomorrow. Tickets are 50p each or £2 a strip, and we're raising money for our continuing support of the museum in helping purchase artworks, restoration of paintings and collections, sponsoring exhibitions, like the forthcoming Janet Boulton one and so on.
The prizes are fabulous, tickets will be on sale at tomorrow night's talk by Sarah Simmonds on the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site. The talk starts at 7.30pm, it's being held at Swindon Dance in the former Town Hall, SN1 1QF, and doors open at 7pm.
I have photographs of 3 of the prizes:

 Above a mosaic by Lynette Thomas with a Stonehenge and Avebury theme, and below one of Tim Carroll's One Hundred Views of Swindon books

 And another gorgeous prize, an Italian food hamper

 

Other prizes include: 

• a writing set
• a print by Sir William Russell Flint- Conversation Piece
• another print by the same artist Venetian Festival
• The book A History of the World in 100 Objects 
• Rose wine
• Red Spanish wine
• Linocut by Cheryl Holland
• Pen drawing by Gill Robinson
• Swindon Highlights calendar by Dona Bradley

Here's a poster advertising the exhibition with more details:

AGM Part Two

For the second half of the AGM, we handed over to Curator Sophie Cummings to give us her news:

 Sophie mentioned some of the exhibitions earlier this year, including the very popular Paint Me this Way! a fantastically moving portrait therapy exhibition by Susan Carr
and how often  Vanessa Bell's painting has been requested by other galleries

 Great news is that the Friends have helped purchase this Eileen Cooper painting which will on show soon.

 The next exhibition will include works on paper from the Swindon Collection

 Above other acquisitions include the Sarah Purvey ceramic from the From Where I'm Standing Exhibition bought by the Friends, a photo of Deacons at the end of the 19th Century, Aerobots by David Bent and the donation by Fenella Elms of her intricate piece from the From Where I'm Standing Exhibition

 Future plans include revamping the archaeology displays, restoration of the Todd herbarium Collection, and an exhibition of musical instruments in our collection.

 Then Rod Hebden, Director of the Trust talked about latest photos of the proposed new museum and art gallery, and answered questions.

There was a short time afterwards for drinks and I managed to take a couple of photos, having been reunited with my phone:

Great evening, thank you to all of those who came and made it so special.

24th Friends AGM 9.11.17

We had a very well attended, successful AGM last night at Swindon Dance, the business was conducted quite quickly, and I'll summarise changes - two of our committee moved on to other things this year. We were sorry to lose John Walsh who had been on the committee for many years, and compiled and edited the Journal until a couple of years ago. The Journal was taken over by Vice Chair Ray Ward, and has now been taken over by Ian Wilkins who will produce the Christmas Journal. On becoming a Councillor, and then also a Parish Councillor, it was fairly obvious that Jane Milner-Barry would have to leave the committee, Jane was a wonderful secretary of the Friends, she is replaced by Rosemary Savage who is a wonderful replacement for Jane. Rosemary and Martin also run the bar at talks which is fabulous.
We have two new members on the committee: Rachel Voyce who is going to be helping us with fundraising, and Simon Gale, our new membership secretary.
From the voting, we moved fairly swiftly onto Power Point presentations summing up the year's activities. I sent Mike Bradley photographs and he converted them into stories about what we'd been doing. For better photos, or more information about the events, please look back at blog posts.
 I have photographed the Power Point presentation and then sent them at low resolution, so many are quite hard to read, they give you an idea of what went on. I've put the photo of the committee first, and got a higher resolution copy of that:

 There's an error here, opening hours increased this year from 16 to 35 hours

 Onto Paul Gregory for financial news:

 Information about talks, these were organised by Katie Ackrill who was unable to be with us last night, so introduced by Ray Ward. The year started well with Christopher Le Brun and then David Ferry

 Onto Jennie Anderson, Prof Gill Clarke and Stef Vincent

 Cathy Lomax in September and Peter Waldron last month

 We had four wonderful days out, to Madresfield Court

 Hauser and Wirth

 Watts Gallery

 and Chavenage House

 We also were involved with the trip to Rabley to help spread the word about the new museum and art gallery to Rabley Friends.

 We've still got 2 talks to come in 2017

 and next year:

 Flyers for next year will be available as soon as we can get all dates finalised

 Out with the model..

 There was more, please see next blog post for even more slides, and to join the Friends, please visit our website

AGM Thursday 9.11.17 a Preview

This Thursday we're holding our Annual General Meeting at Swindon Dance, Town Hall, Regent Circus, SN1 1QF starting at 7.30pm, doors open at 7pm.It's a great opportunity to look back at what's been achieved this year, and to look forward to next year.
This year, we're doing the usual approving the minutes of last year's AGM, voting in the committee along with any new members, then we move onto a PowerPoint presentation put together by Mike Bradley which gives an amusing and speedy run through some photos of talks and trips. I've taken photos of some of the pdfs he sent the committee yesterday to give you an idea of how well he's put them together:

 I hope I'm not giving too much away, but they're lovely aren't they? Above the introductory slide

 Highlights above, and below the Hauser and Wirth trip photos

 Ending our bit with ideas for helping the work of the Friends of SM&AG

Following our presentation, Sophie Cummings, Curator at the museum will be talking about some of the highlights this year, including some recent acquisitions and donations.
Then Rod Hebden, Director of the Trust, will talk about the frantic life he's led since being appointed in April this year to put the bid for a new museum and art gallery to the Heritage Lottery Fund to build an iconic new building in the centre of town.
After that we will be holding a social and a raffle to raise funds. You don't need tickets to come to the AGM, entry is free, and there's a bar where you can buy a drink.

Peter Waldron's Talk about his exhibition

Peter's exhibition entitled 'Odyssey' runs until 18 November in the sectioned off part of the main gallery upstairs. The museum's website, says 'his bold, abstract paintings are inspired by the rhythm, colour and energy of natural forms. This exhibition explores the artist’s life and career to date and brings together a selection of his paintings and drawings'.
 I'll show you a selection of the work on display, although if you haven't visited the museum to see, it's well worth a trip.

It's also good to see that the Friends supported this exhibition, and are also supporting the next exhibition, the first for 40 years of Janet Boulton's paintings

 Peter gave us a lovely biography, the cacti with additions are a theme running through his work form the beginning. He brought with him a great abstract painting of Avebury, and several others which Ray Ward and myself held up for the audience to see.

 Below are some of Peter's paintings of flowers

 and here are a series of abstract shapes in red, black and white.

I'll add some photos taken during the talk before adding notes about Peter's talk:

 The above photo is courtesy of Marion James, and shows Peter talking in the front

 Below Peter talking about the paintings he brought with him:

 Ray holding up a picture

 Peter going round his exhibition:

Peter was born in 1941 in Swindon, on reaching school leaving age, he was given 3 choices of career because there were 3 major employers in the town at that time, they were GWR, Garrards and Plesseys. Peter was apprenticed to work at Plesseys from 15-21, because his father worked there. He was working with metal and wasn't happy until he discovered life drawing evening classes, he ended up going to 3 classes a week.At 21, Peter was able to take a foundation course in Swindon and had the most wonderful teachers, including ceramicist Peter Burgess whose work is currently displayed in the museum. From there he applied to Chelsea where he met and worked with Patrick Caulfield, John Hoyland and Bridget Riley at Space
Peter became interested in the idea of going to Crete, and visited many times before buying a house in Myritos in 1989, he spends form February until October out there.
He also praised Keith Murray at Wedgewood who encouraged him to do linear paintings. He's currently enjoying using gilding in his painting.
I very much liked this, he said: 'Good art has energy, vigour and mystery'
A bit like Peter really.