The most exciting news…ever
So, the start of 2021 is looking pretty damn good for me, as I can now reveal the very exciting news that I will start the new year with a new show of work.
I am currently madly in production of around 20 paintings that I will be shipping from the UK to Santa Cruz, California (I know, right?!) for a January exhibition in the amazing, wonderful Stripe Santa Cruz, a shop that is owned and curated by one of my favourite people in the whole wide world, Suna Lock.
Suna launched Stripe in 2009, and since then has been bringing her creative genius to play in a shop that is full of beautiful, hand picked products.
In their own words, “At the heart of it, both stores were founded with the intention to nurture the creativity in all of us, and to this day, we continue to reimagine what retail can be.
We believe in carrying the best of everything.
The best clothes, the best jewelry, the best home goods. If you must buy something, it should be beautiful and it should be well made.
Nothing is more important to us than the feeling you get when you walk into our stores.
We welcome everyone, and hope you find a moment of inspiration — whether you smile as you see our window displays,
or pick up a vintage radio your grandfather once had, or buy a piece of clothing you’ll wear everyday.”
(Head over to the Stripe Santa Cruz website, or Instagram feed for a little insight into their gorgeous stock…)
Historically, Stripe have run a ‘First Friday’ event each month where work from a local artist is hung on the walls of the incredible double height space, selected to complement the stores offering, and
serving to help concrete Stripe’s reputation for a constantly evolving and welcoming shop, always offering something new and something different.
I have known Suna for well over 20 years, she is an exceptionally close friend, a colleague and the entrepreneur behind my own company, which she started before her
move to the US in the noughties. She has always been a fierce advocate for my paintings, even gifting one to to her brother and his wife for their wedding.
I want to thank her from the bottom of my heart for this opportunity, and for extending her reach beyond local artists, and using the quite unprecedented situation of 2020,
and the new online connectivity and possibility that ironically has been brought about by Covid, as a way of inviting me into her amazing shop with some of my paintings.
I will, quite literally, be carried around the shop on an iPhone to see the show open…
The show will launch on Friday 8th January 2021, at which point visitors to Stripe Santa Cruz can see my paintings in situ, amongst all the other lovely treasures, clothes, jewelry and homewares in the shop. I am looking forward to working with Anne Martinete, who will be curating January’s show, and (in my online-remote-absence) hanging the work.
I am also offering a bit of a sneak peak preview to anyone who is signed up to my newsletter, a copy of which will hit inboxes on Thursday 7th January for any
pre-show reservations, UK or US (won’t it be fun to ship any UK purchases back from the States!!)
And closer to the date I will be chatting with Suna on a Zoom event, talking about painting, life and all kinds of shite probably.
We are very good at going off on random coversational tangents, especially when wine is involved. More of that to follow…
Sign up below for the sneak preview and invite to the Zoom interview!
So, for now I will bask in the excitement that this event is bringing me…oh, and I better go get painting….