Ridgeway Relics I wins Prize at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery
This is the second year that SMAG (Swindon Museum and Art Gallery) have mounted an Open Exhibition. Work was submitted from across the the county and the number of entries far exceeded last year’s submissions.
Imagine how incredibly excited I was to hear that I had been awarded the prize by the Friends of Swindon Museum.
The standard and variety of work is incredible and I would urge people to go and see this truly inspiring and cleverly curated selling exhibition which runs until 21st December 2019.
The Ridgeway Relics series was inspired by working as a volunteer in the Museum within the Archeology Collection, helping to catalogue the abundant treasures of flints, axeheads, jewellery and other finds from years of donations and accumulation from local excavations and random finds.
Having said I would never want to have anything to do with dusty old flints and memories of childhood being dragged around old ruins at far too young an age, I had been conditioned to think I cared nothing for these old relics. But I was wrong! I became fascinated by their beauty and functionality, their age and mystery. What paths? what people? what stories did they have to tell? Strangely compelling and also linking so clearly with the landscape that I have been painting for so many years now. I was hooked.
This is very much the beginning of my exploration of this connection; Swindon, its surrounding landscape, the shamans, travellers, seekers and working people who lived and travelled these ancient paths.
The journey begins for me and so incredibly pleased to have my course set by the winning of this prize.
