This Week's Visual Journal

Hello! I hope this finds you well.

How’s your week been?

If you missed it, the Summer Gazette was published on the 1st July with lots of fun links, club news, as well as special treats: a gift word search and summer bingo sheet to print at home.

This week I went to Edinburgh to wrap up my solo exhibition at the Gleneagles Townhouse and while I was there, we had a Time Foragers’ Club meet-up!

I sometimes add tape like this before putting a layer of paint down so that the edges are very crisp - this gives the whole spread a clean look, more reminiscent of a newspaper article or gazette. This week I also wrote in sentences in a much smaller handwriting because I had so much to get down.

It’s hard to believe that it’s over! I worked on this collection throughout the winter months and its colours and theme provided so much joy! The goal was to have this body of work ready for a 3-months solo show, which started beginning of April. I wrote about this collection here. It’s been such an incredible experience! I can’t thank Gleneagles Townhouse enough for this wonderful opportunity.

On Tuesday, we wrapped every single piece up and brought them carefully back to Yorkshire. The next step will be to package and ship them off to their new owners. I’m so thrilled to be sending these to Ireland, Cyprus, various places in the USA and in the UK. I’m so very grateful for the love this collection has received from staff at Gleneagles, friends and family who came to see the show, the Gleneagles guests who messaged me and so many of you who went especially to see it in the Lobby 37.

I took a walk to Dean Village to sketch - this was after going to Modern 2 for a Joan Eardley exhibition: The Nature of Painting. I’ve selected a few of her paintings to share with you! Seeing her dynamic marks and the variation in her brush strokes was so inspiring. I also loved that she sometimes used sand and grit and even boat paint to create thick and viscous effects.

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1. sitting at Leo’s Beanery and sketching the architecture

2. roses in Stockbridge

3. Dean Village

4. Just outside Modern 2 after seeing the Joan Eardley exhibition

5. view of Edinburgh from Waverley

6. the floors of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral

7. outside Soderburg on Middle Meadow Walk

8. ice cream from Alandas Gelato

9. cute flowers I spotted by an old street in New Town

This meet-up was so lovely and fun. I talk about it a little in the gazette (here) and Vicky Wren also wrote about it in her notes:

I had such a great time last weekend meeting the lovely Helen C Stark and other members of The Time Foragers’ Club - my first ever in person Substack meet up!

We saw her gorgeous paintings in Gleneagles Townhouse, did some sketching, had lunch and browsed the excellent second-hand market at Out of the Blue Drill Hall. On the way back into town, one of my favourite parts of the day happened - I helped save a bee on Leith Walk! I saw it upside down on the pavement and picked it up with a leaflet given to me by Vivien Minto whose beautiful dachshunds are in the photo ❤️

It ended up crawling onto my fingers and staying there until we reached a pretty little vintage shop where a very kind lady working there gave it some flowers to sit on and some sugar water which revived it. Thank you Helen for sending this photo of me putting the flowers in a vase so the bee can keep resting until they’re ready to fly away 💛

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Wishing you a happy weekend! I'm off to pick strawberries at our local fruit farm and hopefully sit down to watch Coco Gauff play at Wimbledon (on TV, someday I’ll go in person).

Talk soon xx

The Time Foragers’ Club is an opportunity to meet, grow, celebrate the seasons and create together!

🍋 Carve out time to be creative with us in the club

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🍊 Catch more behind-the-scenes peeks over @helen.c.stark