The first Christmas market was held yesterday (Sunday) and it was great fun...very successful and well attended. A very hard working team of volunteers raised €300, to give to families who don't have enough to live on...a great effort!
Here's my table...
Inside...
...and outside!
Off to another market in the morning...at Trabiche. Wish me, and my limited Spanish, good luck!
The night continues...
Looking over to the big wheel...from the hotel roof bar
The rooftop pool...no I wasn't tempted!
Looking down to someone else's pool!
One coffee, one bottle of Prosecco and an amazing view...€12!!
Great company...thanks all!
Huge gins...mmmm!
The street looks wet but it's just the lights shining on the tiled streets!
Homage to the new Pomadou?
Woah! The Marengo has had a facelift!
A great trip to see the Christmas lights was organised by our good friend Angela...in fact it was so popular that there were 2 buses! From Periana to Malaga and back for 6 Euros...what a bargain!
The lights are really spectacular so here are a few pics from an evening of promenading, viewing, gin drinking, tapas eating and gazing over Malaga, with Prosecco in hand, from the rooftop bar (along with pool!) of AC Hotel Malaga Palacio.
Canopy of lights, moons and stars stretching the full length of Marques De Larios
Christmas tree in Pza Constitution
There have been a few changes to the house including a new wood burner...a warm welcome and perfect for chilly nights!
It's been cloudier than this time last year but having left a completely rain drenched and flooded central Scotland it's a joy to wake up to calm and dry, if rather cloudy days!
Early evening and looking towards Lake Vinuela....
.....and early morning with the 'haunted' house in the sun!
It's so lovely to be back at Casa Rosina and waking up to the lovely views over Lake Vinuela....aaaah!
It's at The Old Brewery, Cromarty on the lovely Black Isle
opening Friday 13th Nov 6-8pm with mulled wine and mince pies
open Sat 14 & Sun 15 Nov 10am - 6pm
If you're in the area do come along!
Parallel Lines - Stephanie Spence
The Old School Gallery, Garth, St Margaret's Hope
11 July – 6 Aug 2015
The Old School Gallery just outside St Margaret's Hope in South Ronaldsay is a little gem of a gallery – it is housed, not surprisingly, in a beautiful old traditional Orkney building with stone, wood, hearth and views of the sea from the small sash window. Knowing this, and knowing Stephanie Spence's work from her degree show last year as part of the first cohort of Fine Art Textiles graduates from Orkney College UHI, I was intrigued. How would Stephanie's pieces work in such a traditional but domestic setting? My recollection of her work was large, clean, crisp, architectural paintings, black lines, sharp angles and bright colours. I was concerned – assuming this set of work was going to be similar, or a development on from her degree work – that it would look uncomfortable in such a homely setting.
Well, it didn't. In fact the domesticity of the surroundings enabled the twelve paintings and drawings to show more warmth, more humanity and more joy than I remember in her work previously.
Stephanie is showing work from Orkney and Belfast, the parallel lines being not just physical within the paintings but also the parallels of Stephanie's relationship with both places.
I do not know the buildings despicted from Belfast, but I do know the Orkney sites – the new Kirkwall Grammar School and Orkney College. And these buildings would clearly sit well next to the Belfast flats, alleys and office blocks. There is a natural fit which makes the viewer – at least this one – think about my preconceived ideas of Orkney, or what I think of architecturally, when I think of Orkney. I think of the kind of building the exhibition is housed in rather than our modern, sharp shaped and clean lined non-domestic buildings.
What I love about this exhibition is that the intimacy of the space and the ability you have as a viewer to get up close and personal means you do see the more domestic, the more human elements of the work. They look crisp and quite impersonal from a wee distance but up close you see the pencil lines, the slightly ragged edges as bright colour hits bright white, you see the slight wobbles in the linear features. And I really like that – these are personal portraits of beloved buildings. The warmth of the gallery supports and enhances this aspect of the work and I for one think it makes all the difference. In a white cube gallery I think you might miss the intimacy, the warmth that Stephanie has for her subject.
I particularly like the warm humour shown by the architectural lego pieces sat on a warm and worn wood shelf, and the anomoly of installing a painting of a contemporary school on an old school's stone wall. Being an old hand at building lego buildings I enjoyed seeing the bright colours of the lego reflecting the bright shapes and colours that cut through the paintings, and the simplicity of the lego making you see just how complex, despite being pretty minimal, the paintings are.
The shapes explored in the paintings were not all that different from the shapes made by the juxtaposition of ceiling, walls and windows in the gallery. So my leaving thought was that rural or urban, Orkney or Belfast, there are indeed an awful lot of parallel lines between the two, and Stephanie has confidently and carefully made those connections. It's great to see her work a year on and I look forward to more opportunities in the future.
The exhibition continues until 6 August.
....great results, too! A lovely venue for workshops...thank you to the Cromarty Arts Trust!
Sent from my iPad
