The exquisite torso is largely done, apart from possible embellishments to come. Main excitement in August was the opening of SeeIt, the first open show at The Hub, Sleaford, for local artists. It has a strong craft bias so the work was varied – and the wine plentiful. Two of my pieces are in it, To the Woods

and the little Medieval Builder’s Dream-book (though displayed back-to-front!)

My piece in the open exhibition at the Ropewalk gallery, Leogria (see the Dragon post) has been sold. It’s one of those pieces that came and went so quickly I didn’t have time to get to know it. But I’m not complaining….

Or threatens, more like! My next headache, could be nightmare, is to make a torso on a 20″ square piece of MDF.
Why? Well, two other Lincolnshire artists and I are doing a show in the autumn using assembled materials (bits and pieces) rather than just paint. In a mad moment we agreed to do a collaborative centrepiece, an exquisite corpse.
We’re talking about a pictorial game of consequences, or the one where each person draws part of a body, covers it up and passes it on… and you end up with a freak. Each of us picked a body section out of a hat, plus three words intended to ‘inform’ the piece – ‘sabotage’ might be a better term. And the words were:
transform…uncouth…omasum (don’t even ask).
I can’t say anything about how I mean to go about it as my fellow-artists are supposed to be in the dark (which makes three of us). The exquisite corpse was a favourite game of the surrealists, who gave it the name. So, instead of a clue, here is a picture of… my peas.