July 2020

I was on an RSA fellow’s webinar the other day, explaining what I was up to with regards my philanthropic activities and was later berated for ‘offending’ another by an analogy I’d used. This had me considering how easy it is these days to offend another and how should we react when confronted with it?

It doesn’t matter what we do in life, there’ll always be someone who could feel offended by what we do or say. Do they have a right to be offended? Sure, in my opinion they do. But as much as I believe they have that right; I believe we also have a right to ignore it.

A wise person will reflect on both what they said to offend someone and also why they themselves might be offended by what another has said. It’s a great way of finding some inner balance.

Regardless of why someone might be offended, though, we cannot, nor, I believe, should we homogenise everything we say so as to cause the least offense. It could well water down the impact of what we’re trying to express.

In this instance I admit I may have used a less-than-adequate analogy, but rather than consider the overall merit of my point, this person chose only to only focus on this analogy and be offended by it, dismissing the rest in its wake.

For a while, I was somewhat sad that they chose to judge me for my small mistake than my philanthropy, but it did make me reflect on what I could be missing by focusing on small errors others use when talking off-the-cuff.

In the world we live in, it’s so very easy to judge someone through the bits and bytes of information we are fed with. In truth, it’s what most political pundits and even advertisers use to influence our choices. We can choose to either be led by these powerful snippets, or use them to inspire a search for the whole picture.

For me, the beauty of a book’s synopsis should entice one to read the entire tome, not put it back, convinced we’ve read its contents based entirely on the dust cover, so I always try to do a little fact digging before digging my heels in!

OK, before I get on to some brilliant exhibitions and new work this month, I want to wallow a little in our success. This month we were awarded Most Innovative Fine Art Enterprise’ in the UK by the SME News awards 2020.

It’s truly Deborah and our incredible artists that should take the biggest bow here. They’ve all helped make us now a multi award-winning gallery and I am indebted to their magnificence.

On the exhibition front, we have the astonishingly popular Penny German in the Fisherman’s Shelter from Friday 17th at 6pm. How we’re going to do the drinks evening is a quandary (maybe just outdoors with one or two popping in to see the work at a time) but we’ll work it out.

If it’s raining for any of the exhibition open evenings, we may choose to just open from the afternoon instead of the drinks evening, and all weekend for single customer visits. I hope you’ll bear with us on this one to keep everyone safe.

Then on the weekend of 24th July the energetic Jamel Akib will be holding his annual exhibition with us. Lastly, the delightful Hilary Stock’s exhibition will be at the end of the month on Thursday 30th! It’s worth checking on the website the day before their opening dates as their collections will go live there first and will no doubt sell fast!

As for new works this month we’ve had blinders from the irrepressible Ben Taffinder. He’s sold a ton, too, so best be quick of you’re a fan! And the lovely Claire Henley (who’ll be in the Shelter in August) has added some killers to her page as well.

The painter’s painter, Neil Bolton sent over a fab online-only exclusive of Breakneck Beach last week and the wild and windy Philip Tyler added 4 mindboggling cloudscapes to his page. Blustery and magical!

Our resident watercolourist, John Hopkins sent in a beauty of a St Ives trawler which sold in minutes, but there’re more from him on his page and more coming. And Jill Hudson did the same with a beauty of Portscatho. She can paint, that lady!

After her sell-out virtual exhibition, Jenny Aitken’s been painting for us and has added at some newbies to her page. And the sparkling Imogen Bone came in with a brand-new collection, some of which have already sold, so best shivvy over there sharpish if you like her deelish work!

And lastly, Lucy Davies can hardly keep up with her sales having sold almost everything as they come in, but we do have one or two new ones if you’re schnell as hell and more’re on their way!

So, there it is. I hope you’ll come by and see us in the gallery this summer. We’re open from 4th July 10.30 – 1 & 2 – 5pm each day apart from Mondays (unless bank holiday).

And before I go, I want to introduce you to THG’s newest team member, Joanna. An artist herself, Joanna will be looking after the gallery, primarily on Sundays for now and we’re really excited for you to meet her… a truly lovely person who we’re privileged to have on team THG… Yippeeeee!

Here’s to a cracking summer, folks!

Mark

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June 2020

I was chatting with a learned friend the other day who has decided to rethink her business model and I suggested sharing her knowledge in some online webinars. She said that the more she learns, the more one realises how little she knows, and I think that’s true for most intelligent people.
My rebuttal, though was that everyone’s trying to climb a ladder and even if you don’t feel you ‘know it all’, you may know more than the next person. So, sharing one’s knowledge helps another to step up that ladder faster, which in turn helps us all… read more
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