Letting Everyone know
After the hard graft of the artistic bit is done, there needs to be a fair effort on the ‘combobulation’ front - I admit, I had to check I’d got the meaning right…
But it’s rather like missing a really cool Blues gig because you didn’t get the head’s up.
So, Press Releases, Catalogues, Post-Catalogues, let alone stuff online, is all essential, and it really helps if your’e lucky to have on tap, a pro, who through love and devotion can deal with the machinations of “In Design”, and has a brain.
For Pro = read my darling husband Andy (bribery combined with regular pleading is also applicable!).
STOP PRESS: Andy states he has no responsibility for maintaining any editorial or design input on Sarah’s website as she is now in charge, however he may be persuaded to do the “In Design” proper bits, when not engaged in his own creative endeavours - Art-novel-poetry-Music.
Bribery.
Pleading.
Very Important…Blues.
Next point in the catalogue there’s the Biog 3 pages, so instead of repeating ‘more about me - yawn’, we Zip to this…
These are natural colours of Cornwall: in this instance they’ve just been given a little bit of digital “Va Va Voom”.
“Dosh, Wonga, Brass, Moolah, Spondulicks” - or post Apocalyptic EMP - 3 Camels + 1 Goat = probably the entire Catalogue.
Setting prices can be tricky and it shouldn’t just be size related (although often is, and you have to go on something).
2026 the range is £450 - £3000.
Like the FTSE these can fluctuate, preferably up.
For those unaware, most established galleries take 50%, but then they have: V.A.T.,/promoting work/lighting/staff/shipping/nervous tension, to cope with).
This is the Post-Show Catalogue, minus the 10 pages of paintings 1-40 dialogue, and the Biography blurb on me.
When you, and your Gallery wonder if anything is going to please, and then curtain’s up on opening night 15 pictures get snaffled - It’s time for bouncing Terrier moments.
Half way through the month’s show David did a re-hang and brought some other characters out. These were not understudies but had yet to grace the stage in person - after all, this wasn’t the Summer Show at The RA, and ‘One had to breathe, Darling’.
By the end of play, nearly all the 40 had found homes and time for much needed R&R.
From auction houses, event marquees, galleries, golfing venues, hotels, private homes to pubs - Sarah’s paintings have been packed, driven, flown, lugged, pondered over, hung and re-hung.
Most Northern: St Andrews, Scotland.
Most Southern: Marbella, Spain.
In-between: Cornwall-Kent-London-Surrey.
Shows:
Here are some highlights:
Special Access:
When in 2019 I moved to Kent and Andy’s home in the Medieval seaside town of Sandwich, I would jump on my bike and mooch about, camera in hand over Royal St Georges golf course - having formerly presented my Idea to, and granted special permission by god, aka the then club secretary Colonel Tim Checketts OBE.
to a very special place:
I’m not sure what most people think about the place but it’s not stuffy and crammed full of, what used to be called ‘Ra-Ra’ or ‘OK-Yah’ accents trying to convince the local wildlife that they’re the superior brand of Humanoid - RSG would have died out by now.
What the course does have in spades is an atmosphere that It potentially holds the equivalent of Davy Jones’s Locker of golf catastrophes - if your navigation system hurls you into the rough. It will devour you!
and very special….Lunch:
If you survive, and many actually thrive, then there’s the belly patting, lion just eaten an Impala offering. Washed down by House claret whilst staring at The Claret Jug in the trophy cabinet (it’s a life-size replica and you can have your photo taken holding it if you know who to bribe!).
The Open Golf Championship hosted at Royal St George’s:
Number of years = 15.
First one in 1894.
First course outside the land of ‘kilted clan’, Scotland to host it.
Cajoling a Major London Auction House for ‘One Night Only’ to throw a Launch Party.
I have to come clean here as I was known to Christies.
Offered a job in the Old Master Picture Department, it was the Fine Wine Department that beckoned for several years.
We combined the golf book launch with a one-man show of my sports paintings, why do one thing when you can do two.
What they didn’t expect was a massive blow up golf driving range, buggies and a Jungle Theme with golf clubs sticking up out of Palm trees.
Throwing these shindigs costs, so:
Find a great sponsor = Grahame Harding of the then First City Care (sneaky beaky stuff for big banks and other stuff we can’t know about), who likes his golf and played snooker for England.
Go on bended knee to the Boss = Hugh Edmeades of Christies, who likes his golf and can auction anything under the sun.
Get really lucky with a top Champagne House = Rupert Lendrum, then of Möet et Chandon, who likes his golf, loves Cornwall and was ex-army.
Obey a brilliant and long suffering Party Planner and then leave her to it = Sophie Lillingston, who hates golf but loves horses.
Then try and help a Charity = SPARKS, (now GOSH) who seemed to think I was a pro (golfer) as I was regularly told (they held 30+ golf days a year), to ‘stand on a Par 3’ and as the groups come round you get them to pay to ‘challenge the Pro’ to get nearer to the pin than you.
I hadn’t got the heart to enlighten them that I’m really an oddball who paints for a living - I just wrote a golf instruction book…
Sidling up to the Big Boys in London’s Cork Street, W1.
Setting a Funky Stage:
Question: How do you stand out in an ermin lined street with elegant, exquisite, sooper-polite art emporiums? (shush!, please do NOT breathe).
Solution: Go full on rebel and raid your home prop department.
And yes I did get creative with old golf bags, splattering them with paint, tennis racquets, cricket bats. Basically any inanimate vaguely sporting object was fair game.
Penalty: End of show and the final whistle blows leaving a football stadium’s worth of clearing and cleaning up to do.
But, buoy (groan, sorry) was it worth it!!! Oh, and the paintings did sell too.
Back to Wentworth for some Va-Va Vroom!
For all those Petrol Heads.
These were appropriately placed, in Pole position at Wentworth during the BMW PGA Golf Championship. In the mix were three Rock and Roll images of The Rolling Stones.
Just for a touch of calming sanity, I included this thoughtful ‘face-off’ from a Ryder Cup with Tiger in red and Paul McGinley.
A Football fundraiser at Christies: for the ‘Beautiful game’- look after your insides…
Bobby Moore married Stephanie in 1991 and then he died two years later, at 51 from Bowel Cancer. With Cancer Research UK, she has raised over £31 million.
Asked for a cricket picture….as there was so much football stuff up for grabs and they wanted to broaden the appeal.
Pride of place in Frank’s kitchen - more fish pie please chef!
Press:
People love labels and are always attempting to put a creative person’s output ‘into a box’. A bit tricky with Sarah as she varies in subject matter and style. You can’t imagine the same strokes and palette being applied to a tranquil evening sunset as the final of Football’s World Cup tension.
She insists that life experiences will continue to feed into what is chosen to work on and how it is approached and there will be times that wildly different styles are validated when several disparate painting projects run at the same time.
That’s one reason she is an enigma.
