Gray's Art School Degree Show

Dave being under the weather, I had an hour to speed navigate myself round the Gray's school of art degree show private viewing on Friday night, to be able to head back in daylight and enjoy some fesh air with him. First time I'd been to an art show in years, not since the heady days of the Digswell Arts Trust when we lived darn souf. I thought my biggest challenge would be getting my head round some of the exhibits and trying not to act like the uncreative primordial beast out of soup that I am, but it was actually trying to squeeze past the disingenuous bigwigs, the manicured hipsters and those that were there simply in the hope of being seen towing the party line that was the biggest hurdle, while I did enjoy seeing the faces of the genuinely proud parents, the artists' well trollied but warm hearted friends, and, of course, the artists' beaming faces themselves. And then there was folk like me and many others, the hangers on. I saw a few blasts from the past, Aberdeen is a very small world.

What toil and effort and anxiety must go into the artists' works. I naturally gravitated to liking the exhibits that were steeped in nature or landscapes, and quietly gave myself an imaginary clap on the back when I liked a real showstopper and realised it had won a prestige award. But my favourite artist was one that had used the carcasses of dead rabbits to draw, sculpt and build upon, I kid you not, I'm really not joking, they were beautiful works, inspired by Richard Adams of Watershop Down and the Plague Dogs fame....

"A wild animal that feels that it no longer has any reason to live, reaches in the end a point when it's remaining energies may actually be directed towards dying".....

The works of her collaborator were beautiful too. Paintings of birds and lovingly made tactile fabric animals.

A lot of interesting pieces, a lot of beautiful pieces, and, let's be honest here, a lot of pieces that were neither. I missed Dave not being with me, to oooh at the fantastic, cringe with me at the unfathomable, and challenge me when I was being too harsh. Them's the breaks. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So, having stupidly thought I wasn't allowed to take photos, I took none, and stumbled today upon Sam's portrait of me he did when he was just shy of three years old. As I said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The three legged boy in a storm from his Nursery days is also something to marvel about. Mwahahaha.

Grays degree show is open to the public all this week, I'd say go, you've got nothing to lose