I know I dribble on a lot about karma, but only this last month did it become so prevalent in my life. Nine years ago, I was the steward in our local club and having served visiting builders from up country that had come to work on homes here, I wondered why second homeowners didn’t use local tradesmen.
Realising it was because they are not here, so they don’t know the contact details for local workers, I decided to start the non-profit website, Roseland Online, to help link these two parties together. It has now grown into a massive community online magazine with over 3500 pages of news, classifieds, calendars and 12 feature writers.
Although unpaid, it does take up a lot of my time but with the help of my friend Peter as co-editor, we are able to keep on top of it. So, outside of massaging my own ego, why is this relevant?
Just recently we put in an offer on the beautiful house above (kindly painted by the lovely Claire Henley). As you can imagine, the amount of interest for it was intense, but not only did the generous owner, Felicity, choose us as its new custodian, she did so over higher offers because she wanted the garden to be looked after by my mega-talented wife and because she was aware of the work I did in the community, including Roseland Online.
We never really know where our philanthropy will lead, but doing something because it’s there to be done, for me is the key to fulfilment in life. Whether it becomes something that helps a single person or an entire community is irrelevant: seeing an opportunity and running with it is exceptionally rewarding for both the philanthropist and recipient.
Give first without expectation and let the universe decide how rewards are passed down, is a code I live by and I cannot tell you how moved I am by this astonishing universal gift. I shall forever cherish Felicity’s philanthropy and this extraordinary gift we’ve become custodians of. Truly a forever home and one Susanne and I know we’ll grow old in together.
OK, we’ve got a lot to get through so I’m going to have to rush through it to pack it all in here. First up I am absolutely delighted to announce our new partnership with the prestigious Proud galleries of London. We have kitted out Stanmer House, owned by Alex Proud, with 7 humungous Ilric Shetlands in their Henry Pelham room. So if you’re passing and want to see something truly awesome, like this 3 x 2 meter Scottish landscape, Stanmer House is just outside Brighton!
And talking of Partnerships, the diary is filling up with our Charity tour exhibitions, so if you’d like to organise one and have Cornwall’s Best Gallery visit you this autumn to enjoy a 15% donation of sales towards the charity of your choice, why not drop me a line so we can discuss options? Details are here.
And so onto our newest recruit: the astonishing Argentinian artist, Alejandro Debonis. Featured in British Vogue in both May and June this year, Alejandro contacted me to suggest a beautiful partnership. 
Having been a fan of his work for a long time, I was overjoyed and so as from today, we’ll have two beautiful pieces in house with another collection on the website, here. Enjoy… I think he’s incredible!
So what else is new? Both Hilary Stock and Penny German’s 
Fishermen’s Shelter exhibitions were a great success (despite the weather!) and their selections are still available through their respective links. Soooo looking forward to having the lovely Jenny Aitken’s exhibition this weekend and the cheeky Claire Henley’s the following weekend. Jenny’s are now live here and I’ll post Claire’s right after Jenny’s stint. Hope you can make them both!
We’ve had new work from the ever-popular Joe Armstrong, the mega talented Ben Taffinder, and our newest star, Imogen Bone, arrived with a mass of work just the other week, too!
That splendid Mike Hindle dropped in with some killers, as did the wonderful Mary Allen (with some of the best work we’ve ever had from her, in my humble opinion). And the gallery’s truly glowing with the Neil Carroll’s still lives I promised last month… soooo soft and delicate! Check those out online here.
Lastly and by no means least, the smashing Deborah Walker has just sent us 2 incredible new watercolours to replace her sales this month. She’s in the process of painting some of the Roseland for us, but they may be a while, so for now just check out these beauties… sublime doesn’t even come close!
So there it is, folks. Hope to see you very soon and hear from even sooner. Remember, we’re always happy to send paintings anywhere and can even extend free staged-payment options if you’d prefer to spread the load a little to get THAT artwork. Just give is a call or email if anything takes yer fancy and, like The Beatles, we can work it out!
All the best for now, cherubs, and here’s to a cracking August for us all!
Mark
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July 2017
Having had to make the excruciating decision to put our beloved dog Totty down earlier this month, one of the hardest emotions my head had to grapple my heart on was forgiveness: what gives me the right to take another’s life so swiftly and easily?
No matter how hard the head works to tell us it’s the most compassionate and respectful thing to do, our hearts were heavy with indecision… read more