A day in Dave's studio

Today is the first time I've been able to work properly alongside Ella at Dave's studio in Haslingden. This because I'm slightly reducing my days at Horse + Bamboo and allowing myself a day each week catching up on the enormous number of jobs that have built up in the studio over the past couple of years. Ella focuses very effectively on the cataloguing process but there's a heap of jobs that have been allowed to pile up - everything from deciding on whether certain sketches/scribbles should be catalogued to fixing the cistern!

This is also the last week of the Dave Pearson: Colourist exhibition at the According to McGee gallery in York. There have been a decent number of sales and excellent feedback from the show but on Monday next week I'll be collecting the unsold work and bringing it back to the studio.

Ella tells me that she is cataloguing number 5976 as I write; so very close to the six thousand mark. Yesterday she uncovered some beautiful gouaches and water colours (pic above), but she's now cataloging a large series of works about the Haslingden war memorial, in the park just across the road from here. These series - and Dave worked on scores of them, on diverse subjects - are usually variations on a theme, sometimes drawing and painting over a photocopied image. Because there are literally hundreds of these works, perhaps thousands, we're discussing placing them in groups by series in their own special boxes and giving each box a catalogue number, rather than cataloguing each individual sheet.

The Opening

Yesterday the show in York opened at the According to McGee Gallery, opposite Clifford's Tower. It was a good day - or rather afternoon - with a steady stream of visitors, a good number of sales of Dave's work, much appreciation, old and new friends, and a lovely and informal atmosphere.  

The gallery is small, but with work of this quality, well displayed (though I say it myself), and with a variety of vibrant paintings, it looked fabulous. After spending a few days here, hanging the work and walking to and from the car park, it has become one of my favourite areas of the city too. Very close to the riverside, the wonderful Tower on its mound overlooking the gallery, the museum and the little park almost next door, it's a very pleasant district of York, removed from the busier centre even though it's only a couple of minutes walk away. So it's well worth making the trip to see our little show and making a day of it by exploring the neighbourhood and eating in one of the small and reasonably priced eateries that are in the same row of old shops as the gallery. 

To finish, details of three of Dave's paintings that can be found in 'Dave Pearson: Colourist':

York!

The past couple of days I've been in York hanging the 'Dave Pearson: Colourist' exhibition at the According to McGee Gallery. Above is the eponymous Mr McGee, Greg, in his front gallery with the three large oil paintings that dominate the room. I have to say that I'm very pleased with the hanging - it's a small gallery but we were able to include 25 pieces, including a handful that are large oils. It looks very good, and I'm especially grateful to Graham Breakwell who helped me on Monday, travelling up to York from Shrewsbury by train, and who made such an enormous difference to the hang.  

'Dave Pearson: Colourist'  opens this coming Saturday at 1pm. Everyone, of course, will be welcomed. The gallery is at 8 Tower St, York, North Yorkshire YO1 9SA.

Visitors and...fame

This week I've spent a fair few hours at Dave's old studio in Haslingden - some of them to do with preparing work to take to York for the exhibition, but also giving the studio a much needed airing and clean-up, plus meeting visitors and showing people around. It's seems appropriate, given that Spring is now unequivocally in the air, that things are clearly stirring at 54 Manchester Road and that there's still great interest in Dave and his work. 

Florian and Robin visited yesterday. They both live in Berlin, but Florian was a student on the Foundation Course at Manchester Poly (now MMU) and knew Dave as a teacher. He has bought a number of Dave's pieces in the past and visits the studio whenever he is back in the UK. Yesterday he and Robin bought several more small examples of Dave's work - the photo was taken in the room Ella uses for cataloguing. 

Today in our local newspaper - the Rossendale Free Press - there's a full-page feature on 'Who is Rossendale's most famous person?'. with a list of people including the actress Jane Horrocks, model Agyness Deyn and comedian/actor Ted Robbins. It also includes Dave Pearson which, even if representing nothing else, is surely a marker of the success we have had in keeping Dave's name and work in the public eye.

Preparations for York

In between work at Horse + Bamboo Theatre I'm undertaking various jobs that need to be done in order to prepare for the upcoming exhibition of Dave's work in York. Today, for example, I went over to the theatre workshop and created simple frames for two of the relief paintings Dave made in 1981 for the 'In the Seven Woods' series which grew from the earlier 'Calendar Customs' work of the 1970s. Both of these sets of work were derived from imagery relating to  English folk events. 

This past week I've also written and designed a simple leaflet for the exhibition, which went to the printers on Friday, and I now have a selection of between 24 and 28 paintings to take along to York in early March for hanging the exhibition and about a dozen of these are currently at the framer.

So preparations are well advanced. The show is 'Dave Pearson: Colourist' at the 'According to McGee' gallery on Tower Street, York. It opens 1pm Saturday 15th March and runs until 5th April. 

More of that extraordinary find...

Four more examples of the set of large pastel drawings of British Calendar Customs made by Dave and uncovered by Ella last week. I went to see them - they really are huge, most measuring close to two metres on the longest side. How would we frame them - being unfixed pastel they really are quite delicate?

According to McGee

The next exhibition of Dave Pearson's work, which I've mentioned in several posts as happening in April is, in fact, due to open at 'According to McGee' on Saturday 15th March. 

I happened across this fact as I was searching my diary for something unrelated. In shock, I immediately rang Greg McGee and arranged to travel over to York and visit the gallery. This I duly did on Saturday, meeting Greg and his wife, Ails. 

The gallery is in a fine position facing Clifford's Tower, and is an intimate i.e. small, space; just two galleries but friendly and welcoming. The theme of the exhibition will be 'Dave Pearson, the Colourist', and I've spent the rest of the weekend considering how to do this in the two galleries available. 

One thing I feel sure about is to include a selection of pieces from the 1960s, when Dave was working, in his usual totally focused and all-consuming way, on work inspired by Vincent Van Gogh. I was very close to him at this time and I feel it was Vincent's example that drew him into a new relationship with colour. The early pieces, that Dave said were influenced by Pop Art, and often used colour in a schematic way, slowly gave way to a richer and more complex palette inspired by Van Gogh's own paintings from nature.