It’s been a beautiful day.

See what I mean?

We had already planned to go to Highcliffe today, and struck lucky with the weather.

We went to see the exhibition by Quattro: Linda Gleave, Dawn Thorne, Liz Heywood and Linda Robinson – for whom I cannot find a link, apart from the one from my blog entry about their previous exhibition – which no longer works.

I found it much more inspirational than most of the textile exhibitions I have been to recently – Robinson’s use of sun printing [?] and tiny areas of stitch, Heywood's combination of knitted wire, paper pulp and machine stitch [how does one come up with something so original?], Thorne's wonderful 3d works, which I have admired several times before [W. coveted her coach bolts!] and Gleave’s mystical combinations of stitch and watercolour or transfer prints [not sure what they are but I’d like to find out].

Gleave’s work was our favourite, however – so much so that we bought one – this watercolour called ‘Evening Calm’. In contrast to the stormy watercolour of hers we bought last time, which I can’t photograph because it’s under glass.

 

 

 

While at Highcliffe we also saw Collection’s [sic], a contemporary art exhibition. The art was better than the punctuation.

In no particular order, we liked Elly Scrivener’s 3D pieces using knitted wire and other bits of hardware [W. wondered how she’d got galvanised metal to rust], Amanda Thorp-West’s landscape triptychs, Isabel Devall’s amazing geometrical pieces, especially the ones which seemed to be printed on iridescent plastic, Janet Bullas’s seascapes [seems to be a developing theme in our tastes], Demeter Dykes’ origami-like constructions, including one which seemed to be made out of cigarette packets, and the atmospheric video stills of Sharon Pearce.

After all that art, we strolled down to the beach, climbed back up again, rewarded ourselves with a cream tea [up to Compton Verney standard] and came home. [To more tea, but without the cream.]