The big day

The show opens! In the first few minutes of my first session of "invigoration" (stewarding? policing?), three quilters arrive - Pat, Carol, and Sandy are comparing notes on rust dyeing -No sooner had they gone than Vicky arrives at the same time as Maeve -
Later Jane and Philip came along, bringing these guys along - earlier, someone had suggested that the forest was the perfect place for "as story to happen" ...
It was great to see people while it was quiet, and have a chance to chat.

At the private view, the joint was jumpin' - room 308 was not only the most crowded room (it was first as you left the bar area) but it was definitely the hottest -
(That's my son in the corner.)

The party continued along the corridors -
I got a few moments to pop into room 309, where my painter friend Nod's theme was "cuboids" -
Nod is probably the youngest person on the course and was the first person I met on arrival - we shared a bench in sculpture throughout.

I'd provided a short description of the work on show, which saved a lot of explaining, but did enjoy talking to people. Because I feel strongly that you have a different relation with art when you can hold it in your hand or at least touch it, I carried around a little box with some "handling samples" of the porcelain - people were surprised; they thought the white bits were paper. (I would have liked to give the bits away to people, but have some other ideas for things to do with them...) With a gimmick like that, it's easy to start a conversation.

Here's the obligatory pic of "the artist and her work" -
And here's a closeup of the porcelain, and the patterning the shadows make.
Quite an evening!

Here's the description of "Journey" -

“Journey” has evolved from my theme of “inside, outside, in between”, which started with thresholds and doorways and the spaces they give access to, and has come to focus on the in-between state of the physical and metaphorical journey.

The installation shows that the journey can be perilous – vertical and vertiginous, without a clearly defined end. The rickety steps are similar to those that many of us find ourselves climbing constantly in nightmares, always in danger of falling – even as we see other people moving effortlessly on a different stairway altogether. In these nightmares, where are we going, and what is lurking in the shadowy corners just out of view?

The “travel writing” [on the other wall] records my daily journeys around London. Moving in between one location and another, you are in your private world – but subject to the speed and jolting of the train or bus, the condition of the tracks or road, and unforeseen events. The aim of the “travel writing” is to draw a straight line at a constant speed, perhaps pausing at station stops – making real-time records of invisible spaces.