Activity

All around Dave's old studio drawings, prints, gouaches and other works on paper are appearing in small piles. This is the result of Julian ongoing selection of pieces for the September exhibition 'Dave Pearson: Works on Paper' which the See Gallery will be holding during the Open Studio weekend and the surrounding month or so. 

Works are also being set aside for a possible London exhibition, of which more as the story unfolds. Finally house-keeping is taking place - security shutters have been installed at the rear of the building, and dripping taps have been fixed. Suddenly, the studio is beginning to see a lot of activity again after the quiet summer. 

Mail-out

Last week we mailed out to our list of friends, followers and other contacts at the Dave Pearson Trust. Sorry, the version below is probably too small to read, but double-click on it and you should be able to see a larger, clearer version:

Today we're approaching being a month away from the opening of the 'Byzantium and Beyond' show in Bermondsey. Suddenly London seems an awful long way away to us, and our concern is that because we're based in the North-West of England attendance at the gallery Preview will be low. Of course we've been aware of this issue for a long time and have been making plans. The first piece of the jig-saw has been to create databases of friends, contacts, galleries, press, and other potentially interested parties. The mail-out above was the first part of putting this in place, and at the same time we also sent out a more informative mail-out to the press.

Next we've hired a small local company to handle the mail-outs, including adding a form on the front page of the Dave Pearson website for new people to subscribe. I've also looked at advertising. This is a problem area for us, as advertising rates are very high, way out of our league, so we've tried to create interesting editorial copy, hoping that the press will find Dave's story and the story of us setting up the Trust of interest and run an article. Finally we're hoping that friends and other contacts based in London, including of course the Crisis charity, who run the Bermondsey Project gallery, will help us send out word of the exhibition.

If anyone reading this blog is interested and wishes to receive an invitation to the exhibition, simply go to the Dave Pearson website at www.dspearson.org and complete the very simple form at the top right of the front page. You'll then receive our mail-outs. Many thanks.

Reveal

We had over 120 visitors at the weekend; most of them staying about an hour exploring Dave's old studio. So most of the time it was busy and buzzing with chat and enthusiasm. This was a good number as it meant Margaret or I were able to speak individually with just about everyone who came through our door to explain a little about who Dave was; why the studio in Haslingden was there; and what our plans were. Several people had even made the journey from London to Haslingden specially in order to visit us. 

I got out for short period and visited two of the other studios in the Valley, but run out of time to see more. I think this was typical of most of the artists involved - so busy with their own studios that they didn't have the time to see what us others were up to. The feedback was that the weekend was a great success, although the See gallery had far fewer visitors than the studios, possibly as a result of people deciding that they would focus on visiting those venues that weren't normally open to the public. 

At 54 Manchester Road we also managed to sell 6 pieces of work, and there several people who took my details so they could arrange another visit in order to buy at a later date. There was a really enthusiastic response from almost everyone - a good weekend, and many thanks to Susan, Barbara, Dave, Steve, Kay and Anne who helped us out.