Saltaire Arts Trail fun

(photo by Sarah Mason Photography)

Last weekend I had such a lovely time participating in the Saltaire Arts Trail. What a wonderfully friendly and really well organised event it was. I exhibited in an open house on George Street which is one of the larger houses on the trail and was home to eight of us artists.  The house looked amazing adorned in paintings and ceramics, sculpture and lights and SO any people came. On the Sunday 850 passed through the house!

It's always a pleasure to meet with other artists and makers and with every show you do you widen your circle a little more. This was a lovely bunch. Let me introduce you to them. The painting above called Valley Deep is by a lovely artist called Helen Hallows who was exhibiting in the living room with me. It was lovely getting to know her and hearing about her growing business (she's a fellow blogger and wrote a sweet post the other day) I had my eye on this print. If I wasn't going to Japan I might have bought it. Still, it's a limited edition print run and there are some left so you never know!

Me and Janet Browne talked about birds a lot as her beautiful textile pieces feature a lot of them and I had taken my bird lamps for their first outing. There are so many gorgeous ones to choose from on her website. I love her Jays with the oak leaves and acorns.

(photo by Sarah Mason Photography)

My lamps sat happily next to Paul Smiths sculptures and went rather well with the wallpaper.

 Paul Smith was a jovial chap. He knew the Summer Isles and had recently been walking in the mountains nearby. Ahhh nice. Just found this lovely fox on his website. He would look lovely on my mantelpiece!

Cath Brooke with her lovely pink hair was exhibiting her prints in the hall. Monoprints, collographs and dry point prints. They made me want to make prints too. Such rich colours and beautiful marks.

David Ashby's lovely ceramics were getting a lot of attention in the kitchen. He has a shop/workshop in Grassington in the Lakes. It's always interesting to hear how other artists make this work.

Catryn Henderson was the smiley one in the kitchen with the lovely oil paintings. We had a nice chat about Laugharne where I used to live in Wales as she knew it well.

And it was nice to chat to Nicola Winters who is my kind of next door neighbour as she works in Mooch cafe. I'd never really spoken to her before even though she's a familiar face. Now I'll be looking out for her when I go out walking as she is often out and about with her watercolours.. This tree was painted at Jumble Hole, one of my favourite spots.

All in all it was a very sociable and lucrative weekend. Big thanks to Sarah and her daughter Emily who were brave enough to open their house. It was a pleasure!