Have calendar, will swim.

At the end of last year I was selling calendars for 2016, illustrated with my swimming drawings, and posting them off in the hope, of course, that people would enjoy them, but I hadn’t actually expected to see any of them again. But look what I saw yesterday – three pages of January filled in as diaries of people’s swims. I thought this was so fabulous I wanted to share the photos. Swimming calendars, full of swimming! There are other exercises in there, too, and the pink squares on one of them denotes the only days on which the calendar…

Merry Fishmas!

Just dropped in to say…

What makes you think I hoard things?

Once upon a time mobile phones couldn’t access the internet; once upon a time there were no mobile phones and no internet to be accessed; once upon a time things were harder to get hold of, and we kept useful things, and didn’t throw them out and buy new ones. Apologies, I don’t mean to sound as old as your grandmother, but there was a time when, say, an oversized and all-cardboard envelope was a thing I would put aside for when I might have need of it. There was no eBay; I was not a professional artist, and I…

Filth, depravity and a light lunch with coffee

I spent an enjoyable few hours at Ilminster Arts Centre (where I currently have a solo exhibition), in my ‘artist-in-lurking’ capacity. The exhibition is stewarded and I don’t have to be there at all, but I feel it does no harm to spend some time there on hand to talk to people should they wish to. On occasion the mere being there and talking to people has led to sales which I am sure would not have happened without the human connection. People often like to how how it’s done, sometimes even why it’s done (a more difficult question). Which…

Wendy Marani: The Love Rat of Plagiarism

“I thought I was special, but now I’ve found she’s been plagiarizing around!” Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but what’s a girl to do when she finds she’s not the only one being flattered? This is what happened to UK artist Nancy Farmer, extensively ‘flattered’ by Florida ‘artist’ Wendy Marani. Nancy’s friends found Wendy so interesting they took to the internet, to find out what else she had been up to. They uncovered a sorry tale of broken hearts and empty promises. let’s remember the original fling Wendy had with Nancy’s Medusa: There were more, but this is…

Don Hall’s Secret Shame!

Marital Discord or Secret Collusion? we peer at the locked door of 671 Washington Ave, South Beach, to find out! Editor’s note: there are several artists called Don Hall, so please do not mistake them! The Don Hall in question is the one married to plagiarist Wendy Marani. So far as we can tell the others are more talented and may even have talented wives. The following story is TRUE, the quotes are all real, though the style may have been picked for comedic effect. We give you the low down on the low brow art world, with none of that…

The Artist, the Plagiarist, and the Medusa Paintings: part 3

Letters, Lies, and the Noble Game of Guestbook-Baiting Being the continuation of a tale of woe and wrongness as detailed in parts one and two… Dear friends, news was promised… and so here is news, though of a scant quantity: The Artist was greatly wroth not only that the Evil Plagiarist had copied (with most lamentable skill) three of her best Medusa Paintings and claimed them as her own ideas, but that the same person also proposed on YeFacebooke to paint a fourth. And so the Artist bethought her of a plan most Cunning and most Simple. To this end…

The Artist, the Plagiarist, and the Medusa Paintings: part 2

Upping the Ante …continued from https://nancyfarmer.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/the-artist-the-plagiarist-and-the-medusa-paintings/ Now the Artist, pausing before revealing to the Evil Plagiarist what she had done, did browse once more the Evil Plagiarist’s utterances upon YeFacebooke. (The Artist and her friends were, I did mention, right Sneaky, and had some time past tracked down the Evil Plagiarist upon YeFacebooke and had verily been keeping a Beady Eye upon her). And it should be said that the three paintings that the Evil Plagiarist had painted, were done in the year of 2011 AD (and some more mice added upon a time perhaps in 2012 AD). And since…

The Artist , the Plagiarist, and the Medusa Paintings

A cautionary tale. This is a true story. Once upon a time there was an Artist. She was not a rich artist or a famous Artist, and only a few people had heard of her, but she didn’t mind that because some people had heard of her, and some people loved very much the paintings that she painted, which were very unusual. And she painted a lot of fairies, but even though she lived very, very near to Glastonbury, the home of all the fairies, even the people there said her paintings were unusual, even the fairy paintings. And she…

Merry Christmas!

My apologies for the (almost) lateness of this post! It has been a more-than-usually-full few weeks: several Christmas arts events, the wall of our house falling off (see the posts about the wall for photos, it was quite spectacular!), and Lurgy (early Christmas present from the nieces and nephews) has meant that everything had been rather last minute… even more than usual So… huge sigh of relief! Tree up; guests in; presents wrapped; crackers made; wall back up; house generally liveable-in…. All that remains are a brief few seconds in which to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and the…