The blog of photographer Kim Ayres

The Exhibition is Open



“Beautiful, colourful work with superb textures”

“Exciting and beautiful! The two don’t always go together”

“Unique, inspiring & thought provoking”

“Very emotional, beautiful”

“Wonderful – such feeling. ‘Remembrance’ made me cry!”

“I like my mum’s artwork”


These are just some of the comments left in the visitor’s book yesterday after the first day of Maggie’s exhibition. Admittedly the last one was written by our daughter, Meg, and I had to help her spell ‘artwork’, but it was from the heart.

It’s wonderful to see Maggie’s work hanging up in a decent space with room to move and view it properly, rather than crammed into our house, sitting on top of boxes and taking up room in the hallway.

Maggie pours a great deal of emotion into every piece and uses the variety of texture and colour to express these feelings, but there’s no way of knowing whether it will affect anyone else’s aesthetic sense. But yesterday several people took the time to say they felt genuinely moved by Maggie’s art.

Maggie was also moved to tears when she came home to discover our 11 year old son, Rogan, had made her a chocolate cake to celebrate her first solo exhibition – partly by the fact that this was the first time he had ever attempted a full cake on his own, and partly because the kitchen looked like a bomb consisting of flour, icing sugar and cocoa powder had exploded in it.

Damn fine cake though. He has his mother’s touch.

32 comments

Unknown said...

Glad to hear Maggie's artwork was well received!

"Rogan, had made her a chocolate cake to celebrate her first solo exhibition... "

Aaw, bless him.

My oldest two made spag bol for us all once - afterwards the kitchen looked like a scene from a horror film, tomato sauce everywhere LOL

Kanani said...

Sound like a wonderful day, a fine culmination of years of hard work! Congrats on the show and good job on the cake!

Gyrobo said...

I was just in an art museum. They all look the same, what with their panelling and light fixtures.

Just once I'd like to see 400-yea-old paintings laying outside on some hay.

Mine is a Gin said...

Congratulations to Maggie on her exhibition opening. Her work looks beautiful. I hope it's a big suceess!

Pat said...

Well done and congrats to Maggie. Those are brilliant reponses but my favourites are the childrens.

fatmammycat said...

What a lovely thing for him to do, and congrats to Maggie on her show.

Kim Ayres said...

Kate - it's when they've been making chocolate cake and there's tomato sauce everywhere that you begin to get worried...

Kanani - thank you :)

Gyrobo - my father says that if you want to know whether a painting ws truly painted outside, you should look for the bits of insect legs and wings embedded in the paint.

Mine is a Gin - thank you :)

Pat - they always steal the show :)

Kim Ayres said...

FMC - missed you in the ether there - thanks for your warm words

Attila the Mom said...

Oh this is so exciting!! Congrats to Maggie!

Kim Ayres said...

Thanks Attila :)

Unknown said...

CONGRATULATIONS with the exhibition, Maggie! It looks like wonderful work you have produced. I hope some day to be able to see it.

Best wishes,

Branden

Pendullum said...

Congratulations to Maggie...
Truly a great space with great pieces....
And great on Rogan making his mother a cake...
Oddly enough, Kim, I could see you licking your chocolate covered fingers as you wrote this post!

Kim Ayres said...

Branden - ah, well, now then, I was going to suggest to you the idea of setting up an exhibition in Japan...

Pendullum - there's still a bit of icing on the side of the laptop... scrape... lick... slurp... smack... mmmMMMmmmm.

Nope, laptop's clean.

Anonymous said...

that is waaay awesome. it's great to have all that hard work come to fruition.

Eryl Shields said...

Your house just sounds like chocolate heaven!

Anonymous said...

It's amazing that no matter what things we mom's do to bring us fulfillment and pleasure the best moments always come to us from our children. Sounds like the best ending to an amazing day.

avocadoinparadise said...

Sorry to be off topic, but where did you get those stats that you wrote on mary witzl's blog comments, about how most men don't talk to their fathers. Like, "30% of men never speak to them, 30% never speak to them about anything substantive, and only 10% speak to them as friends."? That's exactly how my family is and I'm amazed it's common!!!!!

BTW, tell your wife I love her artwork too! :)

Anonymous said...

Cheers to Maggie. How fantastic.

The Gal

Unknown said...

Meg's an art critic, Rogan, a chef, Maggie an artist, you, a pirate writer...Is there anything you don't do? And more to the point...does Rogan hire out?

Unknown said...

Hi Kim!

The idea has crossed my mind. In fact, I have been invited to a dinner party at the Myanmar Embassy in July, so I may suggest exhibiting my latest Myanmar shots there.

Good luck to you and your family, Kim! I wish I could have visited the exhibition myself.

Best wishes,

Branden

Kim Ayres said...

Sarah - there's been an almost unreal quality after all the preparation, to finally be exhibiting

Eryl - it was 10 times worse before we started our healthy eating drive

Quinn - it was indeed :)

Avocado - It's from a book called "Manhood" by Steve Biddulph

RG - thank you :)

Carole - we're all multi talented and sickeningly smug in this house. However, if you want to put in an offer on Rogan I'm all ears...

Branden - that would be fantastic - I hope it goes really well.

Do you think they'd be interested in Maggie's artwork too? They could sponsor an exhibition, fly us all out 1st class to Japan for a fortnight, put us up in a fancy hotel... I can see it all really clearly!

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear about Maggie's successful show - her work is really beautiful.

I see you have also firmly established your new pirate look online - a hit then I take it? Excellent stuff ;)

Kim Ayres said...

Eva - I could be stuck with this gap for some time. I figured I may as well embrace it. I daresay when I have a shiny new crown in place I'll replace the avatar with a big grin

Brave Astronaut said...

Glad to hear that Maggie's show is a big success. I wish that I was "over there" so I might have the chance to see her work in a non-virtual way. Is there a catalog of works available (hoping that shipping across the pond would not be too prohibitive)? I make no promises to buy, but would be interested to see nonetheless.

Kim Ayres said...

Brave Astronaut - her website is http://www.maggieayres.co.uk/, although it's not up to date with the latest pieces...

*Embarrassed cough*

We've been that busy...

jennifergg said...

Congratulations. I think it's beautiful, too, and I can only see pictures. I imagine its much more powerful in three dimensions...!

ADW said...

Congratulations on the Show!!!

Thanks for the links.

I love pirates...
and armadillos and pickles and sand wedges.

Kim Ayres said...

Jennifer - they are 10 times better in the flesh, so to speak. I haven't figured out a way to really represent that though

ADW - thanks :)

Sam, Problem-Child-Bride said...

What a lovely boy you have, to do that for his mam. I'm glad Maggie's exhibition is getting such great reviews. I bet you're really proud of her.

Freakazojd said...

I'm so thrilled to hear that Maggie's got a proper show for her beautiful work. You can tell from her pieces how much of her, her time and emotion go into what she does. Absolutely fabulous. And I love that she got such a lovely note from your daughter and a chocolate (!) cake from your son - great kids!
Cheers!

Jupiter's Girl said...

I love her work. I also love her words. The non-conformist in me, buried beneath all this conformity, relates to them - and finds them and the work that springs forth very inspiring.

Kim Ayres said...

Sam - I'm incredibly proud of Maggie, and pretty smug about my son too :)

Freakazojd - thank you - we really appreciate your warm comments :)

Jupiter's Girl - that's lovely to hear, thank you :)

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