Winter
A big thank you to those who visited us over the weekend. Apologies to those who came on Sunday expecting to meet Christina and catch up on art and other topics of mutual passion. Christina was away giving support to our daughter Catharine, who gave birth on Sunday to a baby girl. No name yet, but baby, mother and father, as well as grandparents, are doing well. We are opening our home for more Christmas Arts and Crafts on the 17th/18th December 11.00 am to 5.00 pm for anyone who would like to see Christina, with more original paintings, prints, greetings cards of her work and feltwork from Catharine (Cat) Moore. We have Fair Trade gifts for Christmas as well as the artwork. If you cannot make the weekend, please come on a weekday; just ring and let us know before you get here. Come if you can and enjoy a glass of fruit punch and a chance to catch up. Hawthorn Cottage, Bardon Mill, NE47 7HZ. For further details, please call or email.
In the summer and autumn, Christina spent a lot of time painting at Geltsdale, an RSPB wildlife reserve, near Brampton in Cumbria. We visited several times and the views from various parts of the site are tremendous. The reserve is still developing as they plant a forest on the slopes of the valley and re-establish wetlands above Tindale Tarn where lots of birds have set up home, or fly in to feed.
Christina has an exhibition there with paintings from Geltsdale and elsewhere, from October 25th to December 9th, (which is another reason for not opening for Christmas before then). Please visit if you have the chance. It is a good venue, with the mixture of art and wildlife. You can find out more from RSPB Geltsdale. The exhibition is in the Information Point open 9-5 daily. We have added a Geltsdale blog to this page to show Christina's progress, the views, some of the inhabitants and those working there.
Looking forward
Christina writes: 'Geltsdale has taken up a lot of my summer. However, in the bad rainy weather I managed to do some work from the windows of the house and out in the garden. The birds keep visiting the flowers at both front and back of the house. I decided to try and capture both birds and flowers. These may end up in exhibitions, or perhaps I'll keep one or two until Christmas Art Tour.'
With our home for sale, we are hoping to move to a smaller house with space for a studio and office, but still close to a village with a shop. We will miss the views from here. They are so much a part of both our lives and we know every inch from walking the fields, painting the trees and sharing our lives with the people who work and live here.
However, we are not waiting for the housing market to recover before getting on with our work. So we are both trying to expand our business by looking for new outlets for our prints and cards. If you have a shop or gallery or know of one in your area that might stock our things, please let us know. You can send us an email from our contacts page.