My Paintings Were Featured in Elle Decoration!

Morgan’s Gallery Elle Decoration Feature and my spring time painting collection

Elle decoration featured Morgan’s Gallery in their art special issue this month. In Fifteen Ways to get your art fix, Morgan’s was named the destination gallery. With there being so many galleries in Falmouth, this was a really exciting moment for the gallery. And, selfishly for me, exciting because they featured some of my work. I thought I’d take you back to the period of time I made my paintings for Morgan’s Gallery, how I made the collection of paintings, and what inspired my work during the spring time.

Making the work & Moving House

I suddenly realised that after Elle decoration had featured Morgan’s Gallery, I hadn’t actually shared my paintings on my blog, which is normally the first thing I do. You can see my other painting collections here. Whilst making the the series of work for the gallery, we had been in the middle of moving house.

Whilst the house was wasn’t ideal, it was home, and being told to leave by a landlord is never ideal. We began the search six months ahead of when we were due to leave, as finding rentals in Orkney is next to impossible.

After finding our new place just around the corner (a benefit of living in such an amazing community) things settled for a while whilst we gathered our thoughts and our stuff, and popped our life for the last three years into boxes.

Amidst the move, I had been working away on a collection of ten paintings for Morgan’s opening exhibition. On the day before we were due to leave, I sent off the paintings. Everything was cut fine, as it normally is.

Paints, palettes and sketches were still strewn around the studio, so it was a late night clearing away the final room of our old house. In hindsight, I hadn’t realised how close all of my deadlines had come, and the couriers had picked the paintings up a day before.

Making the Work

I tend to work with the seasons. Just like the garden, I love to know what’s in season and what’s flowering when. And similarly with painting, I love to paint what’s in season and what’s happening in the garden. For me in April it was the hyacinths. I had been shopping in Lidl with Jack, and spotted the annual hyacinth sale. Rows of naked bulbs packed tightly into lurid coloured pots. I grabbed a couple in the Hope that in the next few weeks they might grant me their spring time magic.

Over the next few weeks, they began to flower. And with their ever growing stems, I began to paint them. Day by day they would change, and the growing speed meant that each painting had to be started as soon as new one had begun.