"When one door closes, another door opens..."
I owned the Cedar House Gallery in Ripley for eight years, and when I closed the door in 2008 to move to the Welsh Marches, I never dreamt I would open a new door to a new gallery in the heart of Hay-on-Wye in the Spring of 2016.
The Table, at 43 Lion Street, sandwiched between Richard Booth's Bookshop and Chop Suey House, is a beautiful space created by myself and several local craftsmen to exhibit only those works of art that speak to me and that I would be 'happy to hang at home'.
When I hang an exhibition, or paintings in my own home, it is essential that the paintings 'talk' to each other. Different mediums, abstracted or not, framed or unframed, mean nothing if their common parlance does not resonate upon my walls.
With this gallery my intention has been to design a harmonious, creative, and holistic space which encourages people to come through the door to look at the paintings. They may sit awhile at the table enjoying the exhibition; art books nestle under a window seat, doodle pads and pens are available to all, strangers sit comfortably beside one another on benches. There is nothing that cannot be brought to The Table.
28.3.16
Three years later and I have exhibitions signed up for at least the next two years … sales to make a mockery of any mythical ‘business plan’ and a choice of career to make my heart sing for the next twenty years … I am curating an extraordinary space for artists and loving it!
Indeed an artist emailed recently “I remember peering through the window of The Table in Hay a while back. It wasn't open but there was an interesting vibe. Your shows are looking really interesting to me.”
My response …
“Indeed you are correct that I have an interesting vibe going on ... unusual I believe in this day ... in so much as I prefer to work with one or two artists together for a show, lasting a month, where once we have started a dialogue I curate for over a year with them. From initial selection of work, to encouraging additional work to complete the hang, often accompanying them to their framers or my framers ... so by the time the work arrives in the gallery it is very known and the show just hangs itself. This then presents a cohesive body of work to my clients and I have a thorough understanding of the artist and their process ... what you might call a win .. win ... win!”
10.3.19
These past few months have been interesting, exciting and enabling. Isolation has given me permission to connect with my life force more than ever before and to celebrate creativity and not to be cowed by covid. Reluctant in the past to put exhibitions online for fear of people not visiting the gallery ... I have had to revisit this resistance and man up! Since March all my exhibitions have been curated on my website as well as most of them being physically hung in the gallery for the non-existent gallery visitors. The sales and the feedback for these extra-ordinary exhibitions have been truly heartwarming.
Just a note to say I have enjoyed very much this online exhibition and have visited it repeatedly over the last week. My only disappointment is that so many of the pieces are sold.
It’s strange how online viewing - which, by and large, present circs have made me heartily sick of - can, when the presentation is done exceptionally well, bring you back more forcibly to the texture of oil paint. And the Table Gallery have indeed done things really well. A browse through of your joint show communicates a great plenitude of beauty. It looks as though it has been quite a success: well, there’s some justice in the world, after all. Julian Bell
I was looking at your website a few weeks ago and thought how beautiful your gallery looked and what a good group of artists you were showing. Peter Wakelin
18.7.20
