Thank you so much to all the wonderful people who I saw and chatted to during the four days of the Garden and Art Festival, it was such a positive experience, spending time in the lovely garden of Juliann and Alister Hawkey, 'Leanai' at Te Matai Road, Te Puke. Four gloriously sunny days in a row wedged between a couple of windy rainy fronts who would have believed we would be so lucky with the weather.
The Garden and Art Festival is such a great opportunity for gardeners to relax from the upkeep of their own plots and get out to enjoy the hard work and creative endeavours of other gardeners, and in the process enjoy the art that artists bring to the Festival as just another layer of pleasure. I felt that the organizers could not have placed me in a better spot. The large garden rooms of Juliann and Alister's country garden were ideal to be able to view my larger works from a distance with space around them, and in turn they did not compete with beautiful garden that Juliann has created over the last 25 years for the same reason, both setting each other off to perfection.
As artists we often don't get to speak to the people who buy our art, it is often sold through exhibitions or galleries, so to be able to meet the buyers and get that positive feedback directly certainly fills me with a strong conviction that my paintings are valued and going to hang before an appreciative audience to be enjoyed for a long time to come, and this in turn motivates me to get back into the studio and continue with this lovely process.
A hearty thanks to the four couples who bought my original works over the week of Garden and Art, and to the many who took home prints and cards as a memory of the Festival. Your investment in my creative work is much appreciated and I hope sincerely that you receive much pleasure from your purchases, and to those who were looking forward to their homes being complete before purchasing I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Thanks again
Christie