September 2011

Dear Readers,

Greetings. Our website is up-to-date once more, thanks to Anna Mullett who has trained herself in its ways. With luck she will soon have found a way of putting our new logo up. We would welcome new examples of your work, if you have art already on show, and new members letting us show their work. To explore our website just type in www.somersetartgallerytrust.org

In this number we have contributions from Eric Clarke and John Foden and two drawings by Ron Cann,* our first ever illustrations, based on our visit to Compton Verney on 30 June. Our warm thanks to all three.

Our day at Compton Verney went very well, thanks to Julia Cann’s meticulous preparation and forethought in ringing round the day before, and to all who supported it. The exhibition is still on until early October, if you are going to be in the Stratford-upon-Avon/Warwick area.
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 We are a community of art lovers and artists and we want Somerset and our region to have a major art gallery & we believe it should be in Taunton. After a busy year, including work behind the scenes, we are entering on a new phase. From our AGM (31 March) onwards we have arranged some part-time use of a prestigious exhibition space – Crescent Contemporary – 19, The Crescent in the centre of Taunton. This is thanks to the vision of Elizabeth Earley and her belief in our cause.

In the past year we have averaged a membership of about 60, sent out five newsletters (nos. 18 – 22) in which different people have contributed reviews or articles; run and sponsored exhibitions in Taunton Library and one in the Conference Centre, Somerset College (SC). We have also offered our members three lectures at SC, arranged a visit to the John Leach gallery to look at some Picasso prints, and visited Sue Luxton during SAW and been given a talk by her. We learned too from Rachel Hartland and Nigel Done about their work and approach to it.
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 Dear Readers,

Greetings to you. You’ll find in this edition an article about the pull of films and one about James Stirling’s architecture, new topics for us but very welcome. Also a light-hearted poem about spell checkers: my spell checker, as I copied this poem out, let everything pass – clearly not interested in the sense – except for one (split) word! There is also a short tribute to the Large family’s recent exhibition in Watchet.

 Our thanks to Eric Clarke, John Foden, and Andy Davey for their pieces. Incidentally we do try to reach a wider audience of art lovers but it is currently hard to have reviews or announcements about exhibitions included in the County Gazette. Were we to pay them, things would be different! Necessity is encouraging us to ‘publish’ our own articles of interest about art matters.
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Our long-term aim is to help secure a suitable Art Gallery/Centre for the Arts, preferably in Taunton. To achieve that we have to lobby and gain the support of more and more people, including the artistic community and art lovers, together with Taunton Deane and Somerset County Council, and then seek HLF funding. Meanwhile each year we  provide opportunities, events and exhibitions for our members and their friends, and anyone else interested in what we offer. On our committee we have artists and art-lovers. We are volunteers and have no paid staff and do as much as we can within the limitations of our other calls and interests.
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