Where I’m At This Open House Season…’Art at Zerbs’
5ftinf
This year I decided not to open my own Fiveways Artist’s Open House in May because my son basically has to get through his A-Levels during the next few weeks. Actually I haven’t opened in May for the previous 2 years: First it was my son’s GCSE’s and then my book deadline last April. To attempt an Open House and all that goes with it, ie: organising guest artists in January/February, designing flyers in March, massive house cleaning/gardening/general life upheaval during April, the open weekends throughout May, not to mention finding time to actually create new work and of course publicise everything on social media, would probably have left me insane. I opened for 1 weekend only in April along with fellow Brighton artist and neighbour Jo Sweeting, but it was pretty laid back as I only showed my own work and the way I live with it at home, hence calling it ‘A Studio Life’. I’ve always opened the house in November for an early Christmas thing, but May has managed to elude me for the past couple of years.
There are hundreds of Open Houses in Brighton so this year I’ve been able to show some of my new work from a collaboration with upholsterer Emily Beaumont at the ‘Art at Zerbs’ Open House on Dyke Rd. I’ve been producing upholstery textiles and Emily has been using them on vintage chairs. I’m going to write a more detailed piece about our project next week, but you can see from some of the images below what we’ve created for this open house.
‘Art at Zerbs’ is a big open house with a really beautiful garden so it’s able to accommodate 15 different guest artists inside and outside. It’s the final weekend coming up and they are open on Bank Holiday Monday too, so if you fancy a trip to Brighton, visiting this house and lots of others is a really special Festival treat.
