Standing in a supermarket queue at this time of year (well, what else is there to do atm?) it occurred to me what a perfect metaphor it was to the way we worry.
Like when we stress about our issues, our supermarkets (bodies) start to fill up with worry (customers). As they accumulate, the slower they start to move through the checkouts (our brains) and start to back-up in the store.
If not dealt with, the problem can become chronic and if more and more customers are let into the store, it won’t be long before the store just cannot function efficiently any more, causing dis-ease for the customers, checkouts and the store itself.
But how best to deal with worrying? Here, I’m reminded her of the serenity prayer: if they’re your worries, you need to face them head on and try and find a resolve. Being pro-active about an issue (and only you can) then finding a way to take your mind off it (meditation, mindfulness) is key.
If the worry isn’t something you can fix, but for someone or something else, my advice is to change your worries to concern. Worrying for a situation that isn’t ours to fix is fruitless. However, the more positive emotion of concern, enables us to be there for the one who is worrying and be in a better frame of mind to help them find a resolve for themselves.
Our personal supermarkets need to be managed logically and efficiently so as not to become a house of chronic issues. We must always find ways for our day-to-day issues to flow through them smoothly and, if we can, spend a little more time in the fun aisles… life’s waaaayy too short for just the essentials!
Okay, before I get on with the upcoming winter exhibition and this month’s delights, I just want to share how grateful I am that our humble gallery has now won the Global Awards 2020, Fine Art Enterprise of the Year. Makes me all warm inside to win this, second award in one year and thanks go to Deborah, Joanna and our cracking artists for their support!
As for our winter exhibition, we can’t have a right old knees up street party as usual, so I am intending to send you a link on 27th December to your own ringside seat to our video exhibition. I’ll record it beforehand with superzoom images of all the works along with the link to the web page where you’ll have exclusive dibs on them before they go live in the gallery and online on 28th. Can’t say fairer than that, now, can I? More on that after boxing day.
As for new work, the fab Imogen Bone came in the other day with her friend, Jill Hudson. Both of them brought some incredible new work for us, so you can see those corkers on their respective pages.
Mary Allen, who’s pretty much sold out in-house, not only delivered an incredible new painting, but 6… yes SIX schamazeballs online-only exclusives. They gotta be seen to be believed, I tell ya!
If Jenny Aitken couldn’t get any more astonishing, she just did! Five absolute blinders… and I do mean blinders. Check out the play of light in these beauties, but maybe you’ll need yer sunglasses!
The Hig sent down a whole host of new work and some sold right off the bat, but there are some scrummy newbies from Stephen Higton available still on his page.
And just as I’m writing this, Andrew Allanson rocked up with a commission and two new sculptures of both Polaris (Polar bear) and Taurus (the bull). So for today, at least, we’re back in stock with these hugely popular limited edition sculptures.
And if that doesn’t finish off the month’s freshness, both Claire Henley and Lucy Davies have been beavering away for us, painting a pile of new work
grand enough to melt the heart of even the toughest toughie! Truly, though, I just don’t know how they both do it. Just sublime work!
Is that it? Well it was, and then that Sultan of Salisbury, Jamel Akib, slipped two incredible new works under me door. So I’ve squeezed them in here cos they’re absolutely not to be missed!
Right, well we’re open again from tomorrow and I hope we’ll see you if you can get here. If not, you know where to find us online and we’ll do our damnedest to get anything you order to you in time for Christmas. We’re cuddly that way ;0-)
Stay safe wherever you are and I wish you a fabulous Christmas and a bright fresh and sparkling New Year.
Mark
Mark David Hatwood FRSA
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November 2020
I was reading recently about a revolutionary natural treatment for depression and even autism by a simple eye movement that activates the Vegus nerve: also about an astonishing successful form of no-dig farming that alleviates the need for pesticides and has transformed deserts into viable land whilst holding damaging greenhouse gasses in the soil that would escape through traditional ploughing… read more