hatley castle – Summerhouse Art

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This week has been so busy, doing all sorts of things to prepare for the show this Sunday at Royal Roads and Hatley Castle. It’s the Mother’s Day Paint In. We participated last year too. And there is so much to do, like get the display panels ready, get the printing done, make sure all the sculpture is ready and the mosaics… all the little details that make a good show, a good booth.

But, in all this rush, I realized that I have these hot, hot photos of tulips to share,

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and I’ve got this lovely cool photo of lilac blossoms after the rain

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and a Tree Peony in cool cool white to share too.

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Ok back to getting ready, back to organization and lists of things to cross off. Hopefully, if you live in Victoria, you’ll be able to see the show. It really is fun and the artists are great, plus there’ll be plants for sale and music and lovely gourmet goodies. Oh, can’t wait.

This weekend we’ll be participating the Mother’s Day Paint In at Hatley Castle. I’m looking outside right now and wondering is the weather going to cooperate? Today it’s raining, which is good, free water for the garden and all that. But on Sunday, I hope it’s one of those sunny warm days. Now we’ve done this show before and it did rain but only for a little bit in the morning as we were setting up our booth. Then it became a beautiful day smelling fresh from the rain and made the gardens glisten and sparkle.

Our Tent with the first of many visitors (after the rain)

These events are always a lot of fun for the exhibitors too. I’ll have Will and Hart there to help with the booth. We’ll be showing off our new garden sculptures and it’s always good to get feedback from the people browsing, about what they like.

Every summer I give classes in mosaics and creativity. These shows are my way to get the word out. It’s really something that I really enjoy doing.

hatley-show1 — Signing up for a fun-filled class

We often get couples or friends signing up together and they have a blast buying used dishes at thrift shops during the first class and then learning to break dishes in the second class. I get some real mixed reactions about breaking dishes. Some people have a hard time overcoming that conditioning that says it’s very very bad to break things. Others are just so gung ho to take out their frustrations on a dish that you have to stop them from pounding the dish into dust! But in the end, everyone makes something that’s totally them, and from that point on never looks at a dish without wondering what it will look like broken. Now we use special cutters to break up the dish and don’t smash them with a hammer unless it’s one of those really really tough plates that just won’t succumb any other way.

The other reason I love these shows is that we all take turns sneaking off and looking at everyone else’s booth. We see people that we’ve seen at other shows and get a chance to catch up and often we see some things that really inspire us to whole other directions. At the end of the day when we’ve lugged all the booth contents back to the car and packed it all up for the day, we’re tired but happy. And ready for a pizza!

Tag: hatley castle

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