Friday 29 May 2009

Fi-Fie-Fo-Fum


Ivy sections (A4 sketchbook)

I had a really enjoyable afternoon out yesterday. Mo and I went up to the Fi-Fie-Fo-Fum gallery at Newton; the weather was glorious and the views round the gallery are spectacular. The views inside the gallery are pretty good too.

Tom Moore had invited us to see the big new paintings he's working on for his upcoming show at the Northumbria Gallery, partly for reassurance that they were on the right track (they definitely were!) and partly just for a chat, I think. I know only too well how isolated life can become working in the studio day after day.

During a very wide-ranging conversation, we touched on the way the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle had taken down the lovely paintings on the staircase when they repainted the walls and disappointingly never put them back.

Tom has discovered the reason. It's that old demon, Health & Safety!

Apparently, should there be a fire, the public would be in severe danger of being caught by burning shreds of masterpieces raining down from the walls of the staircase. In an art gallery! Who'd have thought such dangers existed? I've been risking my life all these years and never knew.

I wonder if the owners of stately homes know what perils they live with as long as they have their ancestral portraits lining those grand - but potentially lethal - stairs.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suppose the safest place for us all is in a padded room! :-)

harry bell said...

Kimber - welcome to Boogie Street. I sometimes think I deserve the padded room for spending my time in the art world.

ian said...

Does that mean that huge John Martin painting has gone - where else could you get such a good view of it?

harry bell said...

No, they have several - at least three - and often show them in one of the galleries (when they're not out on loan, that is).