After the usual flurry of activity to restart the calendar year at Marion Art Group, it is now time to plan this year’s program.

6 small pieces have been completed throughout February/March to exhibit at the Pasadena Shopping Centre Exhibition, 16th to the 29th March. Unsold work from Maxwell’s exhibition last year will also be included so meaning I will have a full screen to myself.

Further exhibitions that I have entered this year are:

Flagstaff Hill Rotary Art show  (3 pieces),  16th to 25th April

Lions Club of Glenside Art sow (3 pieces),  21st to 26th May.

and then another MAG exhibition at Colonnades Shopping Centre, Noarlunga 18th to 31st May if I have enough pieces for a screen (or half screen).

Sharon and I are then off on a caravan holiday June, July, August up the middle of Australia and then east to Queensland and up to Port Douglas. We are greatly looking forward to this trip as we haven’t   travelled at any length since the West Australia trip 2013.

When we return there will only be a short time to prepare for the Marion Shopping Centre  Exhibition,  12th to 18th October. I am keen to exhibit at this one, as last year I missed out on it due to the Maxwell exhibition. Hopefully an inspiring holiday interstate will provide some different ideas for this exhibition.

An issue for me to deal with this year is copyright as it applies to visual artists. It has become my job as Vice President of MAG this year, to lead the group in understanding our rules for exhibitions. To clearly define what is “original” and  “copied” art work is problematic. There are some grey areas. We will be conducting a session on this topic in a few weeks time which will involve looking closely at various pieces of work done by the group and identifying what is acceptable and unacceptable.

To help this I am about to produce a piece which is inspired from several different photos of Galahs from the internet. From these I am hoping to create a quirky, humorous watercolour of a group of galah characters feeding in a paddock of my own composition.

Hopefully the point will be seen by our group that you can source visual help without direct copying of images to produce art for sale at exhibition. Hopefully all will appreciate the need to be  squeaky clean, both legally and ethically, when producing ‘original’ art.

Taking the Kids for a Walk
Acrylic on canvas, 450 x 300 mm

This piece was completed a few years ago from a photo of an emu that I took and various references of babies from  books and the internet. The background and foreground images were  from my own Flinders Ranges photos