I've put our sixty eight piece Nativity scene out again, as I try to do, every Christmas. However, some of the figures are now also permanently displayed in my garden gallery as they appear in the painting from 2019 'The Wasp and the Ring' Can you spot them?
Both the models and the painting appear on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts.
Happy Christmas!
I've just been sent a list by the Norris Museum, of possible paintings they might use in my exhibition next year. My task is to send them dimensions, so they can begin to see how many can be fitted in the gallery.
One of the paintings the Curator hopes to include is 'Snow Angels and No Angels'. This comprises of fifteen small paintings, celebrating some important female members of my family. Although they should be seen in a horizontal line I have never been able to manage that as our small cottage.
They seem dotted about, but in fact follow a path around our house which mirrors the journey I made in 2008 discovering the Eleanor Crosses from Harby to London.
The first 'Snow Angel' is our second daughter Fay, who was stillborn. You can see this canvas on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts and all fifteen on the PRINTS FOR SALE page on my website.
Last week I did the final tour of my pop-up gallery foe this season. Usually, I reopen again in April but things will be different because of my exhibition at the Norris Museum. So my next tour could be September 2024!
I had a lovely couple for this booking and apparently I was part of a present. They were old friends and one had arranged to take the other to the Old Fire Engine House for lunch, then onto me.
I hope I measured up to expectations but I did get a nice Email afterwards
The 'Small But Perfect' exhibition is launching at the Babylon Gallery in Ely tonight. There are apparently 300 works of art, all hoping to be sold before Christmas.
I've just put one tiny canvas in - a preliminary study from my 'Dreamtime' series (see my latest Facebook and Instagram posts)
I'm not sure anyone will want a picture of a disintegrating Victorian puppet theatre, but you never know.
The idea came from a nightmare I had in Lockdown about being trapped inside a toy theatre and I couldn't get out.
Recently I've been making an inventory of all the fifty five family paintings I've produced over the years. Notes on the first thirty nine were covered in the tour guides I'd written (see picture on latest Facebook and Instagram posts) but after that it was all a bit spasmodic.
Some paintings had quite detailed notes written about them while others were missing.
I wanted to get everything up-to-date for two reasons. One, to give the Norris Museum information should they require it for my exhibition next year. The other was more practical. To make it easier for my children to sort out my stuff after I've died.
I still need to number each picture though, otherwise they will have great fun trying to match the canvas to the title!
I've finished (I think) my current painting 'The Counsellor'. Giles has put the eleven preliminary canvases produced during its creation, onto my website on the WORK FOR SALE page.
Prices range from £40 - £60 and who knows, someone might like one for Christmas?! They show my experiments with colour, texture, composition and trying to work out how I was going to make the final piece.
You can also see a selection on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts
Our contribution to the Window Wonderland event last weekend was to put examples of my shadow puppet collection on display.
When I took part two years ago, I used some of the smaller puppets from various parts of the world. This time I displayed three larger ones from Java, Indonesia and India respectively.
I also snook in the Laurel and Hardy puppets I had produced in 2014 in preparation for my painting 'The Rashamon Effect.' Partly to give a sense of scale (these figures are small in comparison) but also because its lovely to see them back- lit for a few hours.
You can see our window and the painting on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts.
What happened to me this week seems very unimportant when so many people have suffered from terrible flooding.
I was preparing for a booked tour of my pop-up gallery last Sunday. We had blue skies and I put out my Visitors book on the garden table in the hope that someone would sign it. Unusually for me, I left the book open at the next available page (normally I would leave the book closed)
I was too preoccupied with final arrangements to notice that it had started to pour with rain! The pages were fast turning to pulp and the lovely comments were disappearing.
I managed to gently dry the pages by an electric heater while the tour took place, in time for one of the now, crinkly pages to be inscribed.
I always have this dilemma. When is a painting finished? I think I might have completed my latest work, 'The Counsellor', but then I might not.
You can see it on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts.
I shall do what I always do, leave it for a while and keep looking back at it on the easel.
This year I need to get it to the framers before Christmas but I've still got a bit of time to make adjustments - or not..
I've just sent some notes to the Joy Laurey Archive, detailing a conversation I had with Joy some twenty five years ago. Joy revealed that she had been influenced by a Chinese mask when designing the face of her puppet, Mr Turnip for the Children's T.V. programme 'Whirligig' in the 1950s.
The mask would have very low cheekbones so the top of the face would look very different from the bottom when viewed from very different angles.
As a child watching black and white T.V. I always imagined that Mr Turnip's facial expressions were changing, when all it took was the tilt of the head to convey different emotions.
In my painting 'The Enigma of the Chinese Mask' I have tried to show the emotions on Turnip's face (who represents me!) combined with landscape, to express my impressions of family life.
You can see two details from the painting on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts.
It's finally been arranged that I'm having a three month exhibition of my work at the Norris Museum, St. Ives, starting late March 2024. As this coincides with my 80th birthday it could be an interesting year.
The curator visited again the other day and has started to choose from a long list of paintings they might display. It's quite a small gallery so its going to be interesting to see how everything fits in.
They are particularly keen to show some of the objects as well, which have inspired me. This chimes with them being displayed in a museum setting where objects tell the stories.
The next challenge is to think of a good title for the exhibition: Any ideas?
Recently, I've been using one of the gallery spaces upstairs as a drawing studio. I was making ten charcoal studies of the dolls house for my next painting 'Old Wives Tales'. (you can see some of the drawings in earlier blogs)
As I've got two tours booked in the next few weeks it's been set up as a gallery again, which can be seen on my latest Facebook and Instagram posts. Luckily, all the Installations and display cabinets are on wheels so relatively easy to move things around.
In early December they will be on the move again as I turn the space into a bedroom for family coming to stay at Christmas.
I've just been taking some photographs of my Day of the Dead models for my granddaughter's art project.
I collected the objects together when I was researching for a painting about my mother entitled 'OFFRENDA' in 1997. Although I used Sooty and friends to represent our family I was interested in the idea of building an altar of memories, Mexican style, to celebrate those that had died but would not be forgotten.
You can see the photographs of part of my collection and the painting on my latest Instagram post, which is also available on my website
When I set up Ted Coney's Family Portraits nearly fifteen years ago I went on a business course. One of the things I learnt was that a customer needs to be aware of you about five times before getting interested. It could be a poster, a newspaper or magazine article, a radio or T.V. interview, picking up a flyer , giving someone your business card or coming across your website.
Well, there is a new kid on the block. Ely now has a series of digital kiosks which visitors can access by touching the screen. I'm under 'Attractions' and there is a photo of me with one, on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts.
The last time I had a booking for my art lecture 'On The Edge' (see my website for details) was just before Covid struck.
Therefore, I was surprised to get an enquiry about the talk (painting the family) and even more surprised that the booking was for October 2024!
When I murmured that I would be eighty by then, the caller said she was eighty one and it was only a number.
If my body and brain hold out, I hope to be there.
I've recently entered one of my paintings, 'In Three Our Kingdom' into a competition to win a meal for four in a local restaurant. (you can see the picture on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts)
Called 'A Matter of Taste', it's part of an art exhibition about food and more specifically about Sunday dinners.
My painting does show a meal set for a Sunday roast which actually took place, except I've used possessions rather than food on the plates. This was because I met with my two brothers and after the meal we took it in turns to decide which of my mother's possessions we wanted.
Will my painting win the competition or even be accepted into the exhibition? Probably not.
I gave my six year old grandson a job to do last week. He built a ladder out of Lego to prop up against the dolls house for a drawing I'm making for my next painting 'Old Wives Tales'.
Each object ( the ladder being one) is a clue to what's happening in the final painting. If you ever saw the film 'The Draughtsman's Contract' you will know what I mean.
You can see my efforts on my latest Facebook and Instagram posts.
With an age range of 1-81, about twenty members of my family gathered for our annual model boat race in Sheringham last week. As usual, my brother (the 81 year old) won all three races!
I made a painting a few years ago about this ritual entitled IF THE BOATS COME IN, musing whether everyone would make it this time.
This year, only the families from America and Australia were unable to attend.
You can see my painting and this years race on my Instagram and Facebook posts
We've just got back from our annual holiday in Sheringham - this time with 25 members of the family.
I made a painting called '30 DAYS' (you can see it on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts) of our holiday in Sheringham in 1983, using a jigsaw piece image for each day we were there. The central one marks the moment when Hazel dislocated her kneecap and had to use crutches for the rest of the trip.
Happily, there were no such dramatic moments this time but I did slip on the steps going down to the beach. I must throw those old plimsolls away!
I have changed the title of my next painting from ' Travellers Tales' to 'Old Wives Tales' so as to reflect the superstition lurking in the minds of my grandmother and her sisters rather than any truth in what they imagined. (more on that another time)
I've been making more drawings for this project and the results can be seen on my latest Facebook and Instagram posts.
My nephew visited Blackpool recently and sent a photo of a plaque he had seen which he thought would interest me.
It recorded the spot on the pier where Harry Corbett bought a glove puppet in 1948 which would later be called Sooty.
I used Sooty and his friends to represent various members of my family in two paintings in the 1990s
'Duet', painted in 1991 was about my parents going to live near my eldest brother, who had recently divorced.
In 1997 I again used Sooty and friends in 'Offrenda' - a work recording my mother turning 80 (although I would later use it to remember her by, in the tradition of Mexican 'Day of the Dead')
You can see these images on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts.
Last week I had my first Skype meeting with some fellow art student friends whom I first met at Bath Academy of Art some sixty years ago.
Paul from America, Marian from Switzerland, Jayne and Jean from the UK (only Diana from France couldn't make it because of computer problems) joined me for a two and a half hour chat and the years seemed to roll away.
The college had been situated in the village of Corsham at the home of Lord Methuen and we all had happy memories of our time there.
I thought we'd all talk at once but it was surprisingly civilised but we did have a good chuckle over our youthful experiences.
My Open Studio weekends are now over with 268 visitors coming through the doors! I managed to sell seven of my preliminary canvases, two prints and various postcards, tour guides and gift cards.
I was interviewed last week on Ely Radio (it should be available on my website soon) about my Cambridge Open Studios event which is still open next weekend.
It took the form of Dessert Island Discs with my chat being interspersed with five pieces of music which were significant to my life. As the programme was pre-recorded I was able to ask for my fifteen year old grandson's group, Room 3 as one of my requests. They played music/words they had written and I felt very proud of them.
The programme was called Isle of Ely Discs and was on at 6pm on Wednesday 12th July.
I had 98 visitors to my first Cambridge Open Studios event this weekend so am feeling a bit exhausted!
One couple were intrigued by my grandmother's quizzer and how I had used it to tell the story in the painting 'The Rashomon Effect'.
A quizzer is a type of magnifying glass and she used it towards the end of her life. I portrayed it in the painting to represent my grandmother's view of a life that might have been.
I start my three Cambridge Open Studio weekends- this weekend! For more details go to the NEWS AND REVIEWS page on my website.
I loaned one of my EGGHEADS preliminary canvases to a display advertising the open studios event, in the window of Tindalls art shop. During July, thirteen artists in Ely have their studios open to the public and there are 170 studios open across Cambridgeshire.
Photos of the window display can be seen on my Facebook and Instagram posts.
You may already have seen the latest photograph on my Instagram and Facebook posts. It's of my great, great, Uncle Tom, who's fortune was squandered by his nephews after he died. He owned a large pharmaceutical company that made among other things, toothpaste.
It inspired my painting 'WHO STOLE THE TOOTHPASTE?' which you can see with other work at my Cambridge Open Studio during the 2nd, 3rd and 4th weekends in July.
I've also devised a temporary installation of the story under the same title.
Do you remember the old musical hall sketch where the man couldn't put up the deckchair?
Well, it felt a bit like that when I came to put together a table top easel I had just bought. It seemed simple enough but as there were no instructions I started to put it together the wrong way. To my horror the more I pushed the more it split!
As I needed it for my display for the up-coming open studio weekends, I rang the local art shop from where it came and arranged to take it back. Luckily, I was given a new one but I insisted it was assembled before I left and carried it home in one piece.
' Magical ' was how one kind person described my latest painting DREAMTIME when I put it on Instagram and Facebook this week.
I was showing it off again because it had just come back from the framers and I was particularly pleased with my choice of colour for the frame - dark red and old gold.
The painting is very theatrical in theme (trying to escape a collapsing Victorian puppet theatre) and I felt these colours really suited that.
Anyway, one fan obviously thought the same.
I'm currently waiting for parts to dry on my painting 'THE COUNSELLOR' so am also starting a new work which I'm calling 'TRAVELLERS TALES'.
I'm making five A2 charcoal drawings of the dolls house from different angles. I want the drawings to be out of focus except for one tiny detail in each one. The object which is clearer will give a clue as to what the painting is about. More on that, later.
My latest Facebook and Instagram posts show the start of this project
The other evening we went to the cinema to see the film ' Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition' Have you seen it?
It was made at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam where every known painting by Vermeer is on display. The exhibition is a sell-out, so the only way of viewing the paintings is on film. However, this may be an advantage, as you get to study the works close up without other people jostling for position.
I remember another Vermeer exhibition in 2001 at the National Gallery where packed crowds stopped me seeing his tiny paintings.
One interesting fact I learnt this time was that Vermeer was one of the first artists to concentrate on a detail to paint in focus while other parts of the canvas were subtly out of focus.
This had a huge influence on other painters as well as, later on, photographers and film makers.
Since coming back from Australia I've finally got started on my latest painting THE COUNSELLOR.
After making ten preliminary canvases I thought it was time I got started! I still didn't resolve everything but that 'not knowing' helps to keep the project interesting and challenging. Though at some point I may need to back back and do some more experiments. We'll see how it goes.
You can see the work in progress both on the NEWS page of my website and on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts.
I don't look inside the garden gallery very often in the winter when closed to the public , so I was horrified to discover that part of the ceiling had come down and was resting on the lights!
Luckily, the same firm who did the refit were working in the area and promptly returned to do repairs.
My little outside gallery may be small but I do want it to look beautiful. You can see it newly restored on my latest Instagram post or click on the Instagram logo on my website.
I've had a poster advertising my pop-up gallery on my 1940 bicycle ever since I opened over ten years ago.
I use the bike nearly every day and occasionally get asked about the poster by curious bystanders. It happened recently on a train going to Cambridge. I'd noticed two other cyclists staring at it as we all stood by our bikes and then they began to ask me questions.
Have they since booked a trip to the gallery? Not yet, though the encounter happened during the period I was closed.
I put a photo of my old bike and the poster on my Instagram and Facebook posts yesterday and to date I've had 500 Facebook viewings. Normally I get about 20/30.
And the moral of this tale is? Try old as well as new methods of advertising. Someone will eventually notice you.
On returning from Australia we both caught Covid and have felt tired ever since. Yesterday was the first time I ventured into the studio.
I was going to open my pop-up gallery on Sunday and had a potential booking. However, I have delayed the start until 14th May to give me more time to set up one of the rooms upstairs which had been used as a bedroom for when all the family came for my birthday weekend.
This week I'm in the local papers (you can also see the photo and story on my Facebook and Instagram posts) advertising my reopening. Luckily the start date is deliberately vague so its still useful to have the publicity.
Our recent trip to Sydney was very much about seeing family, so there was not much time to do any art work.
However, apart from two rather hurried sketches, I did also manage one little watercolour which you can view on my latest Facebook and Instagram posts.
We had one leisurely morning and I sat on the terrace of the house we were staying in and made a study of the one opposite. I was intrigued by the use of corrugated iron for the roof which had turned a rather nice rusty red.
We've just been to Sydney for three weeks (hence my lack of blogs) to visit our son , Leo . We had a wonderful time and visited the national galleries to see the exciting artwork. This is always very stimulating to me for future ideas.
However, I also enjoyed visiting the home, gallery and studio of the late Brett Whitely. This had been purchased after his death by the local council as a memorial to his work.
I know I am biased, but I always get a buzz from seeing how other artists live and what inspires them.
For my birthday (Today! so Happy Birthday to me) I requested a small easel to display one of my paintings in the garden gallery.
I'm running out of wall space again but having one nearer the floor makes a bit more room. Also, if some of the pictures are on easels this gives more flexibility as to how I arrange them.
Yve sent me the perfect size and I'll hope to get another before I reopen in late April.
Our former neighbour came over to do a few odd jobs for us. Among other things, he fixed my painting 'Katy's Gold' which we noticed had begun to come off the wall. As the painting hangs at an angle to the vertical surface, there was a chance it could tip forward onto the floor.
My five year old grandson was coming this weekend and usually sleeps directly below this picture so I thought it important to get it fixed!
Simon also hung a screw in the ceiling ready to add another object to the collection. When it arrives I'll let you know.
Well, I took part in the podcast (see last weeks blog). The first question rather took me by surprise.
' Which of your paintings are you most proud?' asked the young interviewer.
Straight away I answered 'For You -In Loving Memory'. Then I had to explain the story behind the title. It was an honest answer but if I had been given the question in advance I would probably have chosen something different.
The painting is about the stillbirth of our daughter, Fay and although it happened over forty years ago I can still get emotional if caught off guard. I think I managed to hold it together.
You can see the tiny painting on my latest Facebook and Instagram posts.
I've taken part in many radio interviews over the years but never been involved in a podcast. So I was intrigued to be asked to take part in one via our local radio station.
They are helping students at the local sixth form centre to set up their own podcast as part of a media studies project.
I'm taking part tomorrow but as there has been minimum contact with the student I've been paired with, I'm not quite sure. He said he wanted an artist to talk to. I suggested he sent me some questions to start me thinking about what he might ask, but have heard nothing back - yet.
I've just completed a series of preliminary canvases for my current painting 'The Counsellor'. If anything they have shown me what not to do, in the final painting.
You can see them on my latest Facebook and Instagram posts.
I like to get to a certain stage with these experiments and then plunge in with finished piece. I'm always trying to chase that bit of magic which usually eludes me. But you've got to keep searching.
Some readers from my 3rd January blog may remember that I put one small preliminary canvas from the EGGHEADS series into the Winter Open exhibition at the Babylon Gallery. There were 300 pictures, floor to ceiling on the walls and I never expected to sell . Well it sold and I met the buyer by chance the next day and she seemed delighted with her purchase.
I make preliminary studies to work out how to produce the final piece and solve problems with colour, texture, composition etc. However, it's good to let them go as I do seem to make quite a few - and the extra cash is always useful.
You can see some of the preliminary canvases on the WORKS FOR SALE page of my website.
I was staining some small canvases in the studio with Cadmium Orange when I dropped the lid of the paint tube on the floor. After a few frustrating minutes trying to find the damn thing, I gave up.
Next, mindful that it was a new tube which I didn't want to dry out, I started looking for another top to screw on. This involved searching through loads of old tubes (granted, they needed sorting out, anyway) to find a good fit.
Eventually I found one that would do and so returned to my now, very limited painting time.
At some point, I don't remember why, I slipped my hand into the pocket of my apron. And there it was - the missing tube top.
Life can be very frustrating, sometimes.
I had a visit from one of my first Cambridge students from over fifty years ago and I hadn't seen since. It was lovely to welcome Andy and his mum, Eileen for coffee last week.
I'd met Eileen (who's nearly ninety and very fit) at the gym but it took us over a year to work out what the connection was.
I gave them a mini tour of bits of the gallery (I don't open officially until after Easter) and hope they enjoyed it. I know Andy was disappointed not to see my Morris Minor (it was away having its annual service and MOT) as he remembered it from when I drove it to school every day.
By way of recompense, I was able to show him a short film clip of the car leading the Jubilee parade last year.
I was very sad to hear that Colin Stevens had died. He was very talented in many ways but I knew him through the films he made for my pop-up gallery.
He edited bits of super 8 cine and family videos together to produce a multi-layed film to show visitors when they arrived for their tour. ( you can see it on my YouTube channel, divided into four parts)
His film about my work, for Cambridge TV and a record of my stint as Artist in Residence at Ely Courthouse can still be seen in the Film/TV section of the NEWS AND REVIEWS page of my website.
Colin also devised my Virtual Tour and had lots of ideas of how to make it informative but not boring.
However, his crowning achievement for me was to come to the rescue on a Thunderbirds film I had been making with my six year old grandson. Technically it was a nightmare but Colin calmly took it on and saved it from failure. A true hero.
We've recently seen the documentary film 'Drawn To War' about the war artist, Eric Raviliou, at the cinema. It's well worth watching and really shows you how he developed his practise and interacted with his circle of friends.
I'd already read the book on his life by Helen Binyon, who had been asked to write it by his children as she and Eric had been friends since their student days.
Helen was one of my tutors when I was at Bath Academy of Art some sixty years ago and wrote the book after she retired.
I've just been sticking up all my Artists and Cultural references on the easel in readiness to begin my next painting THE COUNSELLOR and what a strange mixture they make.
From Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors Even' through to Hockney's beach parasol and an illustration in the Sunday Times Money section of shopping trolleys falling off a cliff, they all inspire me in different ways.
You can see a photo in my latest Facebook and Instagram posts.
One of my most interesting Christmas presents was from my brother - a 1940s metal Muffin the Mule puppet, complete with box and original packaging.
I had used Muffin to represent my brother in a painting called DAVID'S JOURNEY about thirty years ago and subsequently used the puppet again in two other paintings - LOVE THAT DARES and my latest, DREAMTIME, which I have just finished.
Photos of the metal toy and a detail of the latest painting appear on recent Facetime and Instagram posts.
I had already owned a version of the puppet (though not the box) which has been on display in my pop-up gallery for many years. This new one will be placed in an installation involving a labyrinth of mirrors.
To kick off the new year I've decided to submit one of my preliminary canvases to the Winter Open exhibition at the Babylon Gallery, Ely, which opens next week.
I've chosen one from the EGGHEADS series and you can see it on my latest Facebook and Instagram posts. I was experimenting with how to show brothers and half brothers , using different styles of clown faces to represent various strands of the family.
I don't expect to sell as its an open submission and there will be hundreds of small pictures covering the walls.
