... ‘To find the Oxmarket Centre of Arts, tucked away in Little London behind East Street, is in itself a great pleasure, but to recognise its place as a community centre for the exhibition of work from the best of professional artists to those taking their first steps on the great adventure which is creativity, tells the real story of this special place’ ...

Gallery and Exhibition News

November 2007

Dear Associates
With the continuing success of the Centre, the succession of excellent exhibitions are proving ever more interesting to the public. We are welcoming many more visitors to the Centre each week and, combined with a steady increase in people joining up as Associates, it reflects the fact that the Oxmarket is becoming an important attraction in the City.

Our Galleries are almost fully booked for 2008 with some unusual and challenging work included. We shall be repeating the outstanding Printmakers Exhibition in the Spring as well as a three week ‘Invited Artists’ as our major exhibition in July. Since the August newsletter a new administrative team has been put in place. We now have Darrell, who many of you will have met in recent months, sharing the job with a charming, bright young lady called Sofia. We now have to cover seven days a week and so both work for four days a week, overlapping on Mondays to ensure that they are both fully aware of all outstanding matters. They are very efficient, and have a very helpful, courteous and friendly manner when dealing with visitors. It is already clear that the Centre will benefit from their presence.

Whilst on the subject, it should be mentioned that Darrell stepped in and very ably held the fort on his own after the previous Administrator left, working seven days a week for two months. The Board’s thanks, on your behalf, to him and also to Pauline Heatherington, our personnel director, for selecting from a large field of outstanding candidates a new Administrator to complete the team. It was a time consuming and demanding task, well accomplished.

Now you see it — now you don’t
Do you remember the good old, sentimental Scottish song The Rowan Tree?
It starts: “Oh! Rowan Tree Oh! Rowan Tree!
Thou’ll aye be dear to me
Entwined thou art wi mony ties
0' home and infancy.”
Well, Oxmarket’s Rowan Tree, trapped between us and the rear entries of the East Street shops, was entwined with our neighbour’s gutters and looked about to damage their Grade1 listed roof. Furthermore, it was rotten at its base, hollow and in imminent danger of blowing down. Oh! Rowan Tree, thou hast just cost us a pretty packet to remove: £400 to be precise. Any donations, large or small, to defray this unexpected expense would be much appreciated.
Oh! Rowan Tree, what a pain thou art!
Or rather, wert!
Hidden Artists.  We have a new supply of Hidden Artists Paintings which are available in the Foyer. These are presented in smart cream mounts and would make an excellent Christmas Gift at the affordable price of £10.

The Stride Open

It was a huge pleasure to present the excellent Stride Open this year and to realise that many artists living within thirty miles of the Oxmarket felt that the event was worthy of their support. On a Saturday evening the three selectors viewed just under 400 submissions, choosing around 120 for hanging. They were extremely thorough in their appraisal and went back to look at non-selected paintings again to be sure of their judgement. With all the Galleries being available to the Stride, the hanging teams were ready to go at 9.00 am (having benefited from an extra hour in bed due to the Autumn clock ‘fall-back’) — indeed two members of the team decided to stay on ‘old time’ and consequently started work at 7.30 am!

Hanging was a big task and a huge thanks to all the volunteers who helped on Sunday and in particular to Carlene and Ben whose attention to detail in the Wilson Studio was a major bonus. We encountered an added hazard in that at noon we had to suspend most of the operations and set up the John Rank Gallery with 100 chairs etc., for ‘Music on Sunday’. Fortunately we were able to complete hanging on Monday morning with the careful checking of labels to be put beside pictures falling to Sofia and the Monday volunteers. We were just ready by 2.00 pm when the Judge for the final prizes arrived from Brighton and we vacated the Galleries to allow him complete privacy. Two hours later, with judging completed, the prize labels had to be placed and checked, wine glasses put out in preparation for a 6.30 pm Private View at which we welcomed many of you to the Exhibition.

The Perfect Gift
We have received an number of requests from people who wish to give an Associate Subscription to a friend as a Christmas Gift. If this is something you would like to do we will send details of your gift with a 2008 Associate card contained within special Peter Iden Christmas Card. Just fill in the enclosed form and we will do the rest!