The Gods were kind to us and we had a wonderful afternoon for the Private View.  The first punters arrived on the dot of three and we finally started to turn out the lights at nine pm as I thought my feet were going to give way.  The day whizzed by as we had so many people through the door  (over 400) who were genuinely interested in what we were doing and the work on show, I know I am the proprietor but our visitors were so complimentary about the work and the setting that all the hard work was worth it.

I think Woodruffs is at its best in the early autumn, the borders are still just in flower but the berries and seed heads are also appearing, the low autumn light seems to bounce of the fields and hit the sculpture at exactly the right angle and the pieces look wonderful against the different colours and textures of the fields at this time of year.  Sculptor Richard Bray did comment that he had installed his Utile Upright pieces against a golden field of stubble and we had ‘repainted’ the back drop as the field had been ploughed in the interim- but that is the hazard of a gallery like ours.

Lots of the artists and sculptors were able to come for the opening. Dominic Welch driving  all the way up from his remote Exmore studio,  Richard Bray  from Cambridge and Nicolas Moreton from Northamptonshire.  Lucy Unwin made quite a stir by arriving by helicopter.  A helicopter in the paddock was a real bonus for our cred ratings.

Considering the economic climate, sales have been fantastic we have sold over 30 works of art spread over many different artists, with prices ranging from £40 to £8,000.  I think any London gallery would have been over joyed to have had the sort of response we have had and I am so encouraged that my daft idea of opening a gallery in the middle of a farm miles from anywhere seems to be working.  I think people love the whole experience of coming here, the garden, the quality of the sculpture and the thought that has gone into siting it.  The barn with it’s 30 foot ceilings and floor to ceiling windows onto the landscape is a remarkable venue for the paintings and a superb way to show them at their best.

A big thank you to all the artists and sculptors for showing with us and for everyone who came and made is such a wonderful day.  If you haven’t yet made it to the show  - waste no time in getting here and if the opening hours don’t suit you please ring to make an appointment.  And by the way the swallows left three days before we opened.  I do miss them soaring round the garden but not the mess they made.   However, we now have a squirrel nesting in the roof of the gallery making a dreadful racket and doing untold damage.  We have set a trap bated with peanuts, the peanuts are gone every morning but  no  sign of the squirrel – I will keep you posted.

Just over a week to go every one working flat out!

With just over a week to go to the opening, the last ten days have been frantically busy. We now have nearly all the sculpture installed and were lucky to have most of it in before the gale of last Monday night made conditions very difficult. Handling tons of slippery stone and marble in a torrential down pour with mud under foot is no joke. Dick Budden’s giant bronze  fruit is now lying in the orchard among the windfalls looking as autumnal as the weather, Paul Vanstone’s marble torso’s look stunning against the sky line. I think our farmer Brian Dallyn must have been very surprised to be greeted by an eight foot female marble figure on the edge of his field as he did his rounds on Monday morning.

Paintings have been arriving from Scotland, France, Berlin and  Devon  as well as our local artists Lucy Powell and John Hitchens. We are really lucky that John has given us some more landscapes and flower paintings carefully stored since the 80s all are based on the landscape around here the South Downs and Grafham woodland. Tim Kent’s  figure studies painted in his Brooklyn Studio, are finally on their way but not yet arrived. They can now be seen on the web site they are richly painted,  playful works juxtaposing the models against the large portrait commissions he is currently working on in the studio. Fingers crossed there are no more  hurricanes in New York  and they make it in time for the opening,

The swallows which have been nesting in the  open barn since the spring are now having flying lessons and getting very good at it. I am tender hooks as to whether they will have left in time for the opening as there are obvious complications to placing sculpture and painting out there at present!