Almost there...

Two more photographs of the Byzantium exhibition at MMU's Holden Gallery, delivered courtesy of Margaret Mytton. 

Meanwhile Derek Smith is at the penultimate stage of work on the film. He has found the right person for the voiceover, and is recording this, and also is editing in Edward Lucie-Smith's contributions. Margaret is working closely with him on details, and there's a dialogue going on with Loz Kaye about music, as the final film is driven very much by the wealth of interviews and narrative recorded by Derek and it may simply be that we don't need specially written music. So Derek expects to be able to show us a rough version of the all-but-complete film in a week or so. 

I'm arranging for an invited launch of the film at the Cornerhouse in September, almost certainly at some time over the first weekend. 

Images for the film

Margaret Mytton is working hard to provide high-quality images for Derek Smith's film about Dave, and sending him photoshopped images such as these, from the installation of the awe-inspiring Byzantium exhibition at the Holden Gallery at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Easter viewings - and more sales

Derek Smith continues with the editing of the film about Dave Pearson; he tells me "I want to get ahead and hope to complete the film by the end of the month to enable me to concentrate on other projects". We are still hoping that  Edward Lucie-Smith will be able to provide a critical summary at the end of the film. 

Over Easter I had the opportunity to try the rough-cut film out on a few friends, including Julian and Jackie from the See Gallery. Feedback was very positive in all cases, with useful suggestions about the order of some of the sections. Otherwise the responses picked up on the things that we know about - improving the quality of the still artwork images; less talking heads, more pictures....and so on. 

Good news on the Estate front too. The Valuation Office has finally accepted our valuation of the studio; now all we have to do is wait for the specialist from HMRC to report on the value of the artwork. Which is, of course, the big issue that confronts us. Meanwhile, despite very little effort, sales and interest in Dave Pearson's work continues....