As a non drinker who occasionally has a tipple, I woke up the other day with a nasty hangover from just 2 pints. In my past, that wouldn’t have even touched the sides but it got me thinking about the ‘treats’ we allow ourselves when we’ve achieved something or had a bad day.
It occurred to me that many of the things we ‘treat’ ourselves with are far from that for either ourselves or our worlds. Alcohol, junk food, sweets or fast fashion are many of the things we feel we’ve earned after a particularly difficult day or to celebrate a good one.
I can only imagine that it’s the power of advertising that’s led us to believe that ‘treating’ ourselves or our loved ones is a trip to McDonald’s, the pub, the sweet shop or into a fast fashion emporium to help celebrate or compensate for our days. They even manage to show us people in dreary jobs having their day ‘enlightened’ by a snack or junk food. So dull are our lives, apparently.
I don’t have any solutions to this bombardment and am often a victim of it myself (see first paragraph) but I do know that what really is a treat to our’selves’ is abstinence from exactly these things. As dull as it sounds, what we should be celebrating our hard or good days with is a walk in nature, freshly cooked organic food, meditation (or subscription to a calming App) or a freshly prepared fruit juice. Maybe even saving for a more expensive, environmentally friendly piece of clothing.
Maybe we should be retraining our brains and, more importantly, our offspring that treating our bodies is something that should be beneficial to those bodies and or/ the world we live in, not an escape from the things that stress our bodies with more stressful ‘treats’? Empowering ourselves to be healthy and aware shouldn’t be seen as ‘dull’ but as a celebration after a great or taxing day. Maybe next time we’re about to treat ourselves, we can stop and reframe the conditioning we’ve been fed? After all: “You’re worth it.” ;0-)
Okey cokey, I promised you in last month’s newsletter that the daily emails will start again from October. As such, tomorrow, you’ll start to receive a daily artwork right into your inbox. But don’t worry, as this is being sent from a separate email provider, you can just ‘unsubscribe’ from the link at the bottom of any email if it gets too much and that won’t change your monthly email subscription.
Each daily will either have a slight discount on the artwork, or an offer of an extra bonus (a print, sketch, book or suchlike) along with the work of art you’re buying. So I hope you’ll enjoy the daily 8am wake-up email and thanks so much for writing to say how much you enjoyed them during lockdown… it means a lot!
Today is a red letter day as we also launch our third sister website CornishContemporary.art. Like AmericanContemporary.art and BritishContemporary.art, it will feature some incredible artists that, for whatever reason, I cannot represent on THG. Joanna has been working hard getting this set up over the last months so I hope you’ll take a moment to see the incredible work there and maybe sign up to their monthly emails as well.
As for THG central, check out these incredible new works, starting with the über talented Jamel Akib who is, as I write, painting a new collection for us. Three have already been uploaded, and absolute stokers they are, too, and more’re on their way!
Angela Uren painted a whole host of online-exclusives for us, including two gorgeous still lifes, all of which are live now and our newest recruit, Clare Bowen added to her page to replace her sales with this corker of Portscatho porth.
Ben Taffinder never fails to please, but this incredible painting of Sett Bridge down in Ruan Lannihorne is a superb piece of painting. He’s got a couple more on his page too, so best be sharpish. And Howard Moody‘s sales of his woodcraft have gone ballistic this last week. You can see why with affordable quality like this!
Tom Shepherd took time out of his incredibly busy schedule to paint a replacement watercolour for the ones we sold last month and on the subject of sales, I doubt this mindbogglingly good Robin Mason of Portscatho will last the weekend, either. This and more from him here.
Penny German stocked up her ever dwindling stock with for mouthwatering still lifes like this of some red Cornishware pottery. She can paint, that lady, but they do sell fast, so be warned! And talk about selling fast, Lucy Davies sent down two brand new pieces and one sold before even hitting the walls. This beauty is (whilst writing this) still available tho.
So that’s it. Both Claire Henley and The Hig have work on the easel for us right now, but they didn’t make it in time for the newsletter, but Stephen Higton‘s should start hitting the site over the weekend and Claire‘s shortly after, so make sure you get in quick by keeping your eyes peeled on their pages or our Instagram, Facebook or Twitter feeds.
For now, here’s to a fabulous autumn and I do hope you’ll enjoy the dailies that’ll start tomorrow morning at 8am sharp… Set yer alarms!
Ciao bellezza
_______________________________________
September 2021
We were recently buying a house and, as often happens, the seller started to get concerned by the contract on the eve of signing. As we’d invested so much time and effort by then, it was annoying it was left until the 11 hour for her to raise the issue and belied the standards her day job would have us believe she’d live up to (being a spiritual well-being practitioner)…read more