Central Hall Starts...

After a pretty enjoyable day yesterday setting up the exhibition, we officially opened the final 53 degrees exhibition this evening!! It was great to see students and tutors from uni who came along to support what we are doing. It was, however, a shame that only 5 of the 9 artist of 53 degrees came along to the opening, especially as we all, (with the exception of 1) are based around Grimsby. I had contacted the Grimsby Telegraph about a week before and arranged for a reporter and photographer to come down to the official opening by Mr Bradley, one of the (chairmen?) of the Central Hall at 6:30. After the opening speech we were interviewed and then we chatted with those that came to the show over wine and "nibbles". It was a really nice atmosphere and Mr Bradley was genuinely happy to see us there and our work and invited us to keep the exhibition on for longer or even come back and show more! This is exciting! We seem to have made a bit of an impact on this, our home town. It really does feel nice to have my work appreciated and that of those "core" members of the group.
p.s. after the exhibition I was invited along to take part in a gospel church that was being held in Central Hall. I decided to stay and see what it was about and ended up having a wonderful, spiritual communal time!!! Afterwards the members of the congregation had to go past our exhibition and I spent a further three quarters of an hour talking to people about our exhibition!!!
What I must say is that , I think we all know that we are never going to sell anything at this exhibition, it is more of a showing of our work. That I am happy with, especially with the fact that we are going to be publicized in the local papers with photographs of ourselves with our work. This exhibition is more of an advertisement for the group to say, "We're here" and that's all it needs to be. It would have been interesting if we had done the exhibitions the other way around...Grimsby...Lincoln...Brigg, because the Steel Rooms was the perfect place to sell our work, ( in my case, I lacked the confidence to put a proper price on my work to sell it.)
hmmm this is a good thought...an advertising show followed by a "proper"exhibition at a place where art is hung to be sold!
So tired now, got to slee..................