All right on the night

By yesterday afternoon, H.I.'s exhibition was set up - framed, screwed or hung on the walls, wrapped in acetate and racked, itemised and titled on printed lists and numbered on the walls (all 89 pictures!), given a final polish with a yellow duster, then the floor given a final sweep...

... then the white wine was placed on the steps to the garden to keep cool as the red was hidden underneath the table to warm up (all 24 cases of it), 100 of the three hundred glasses were laid out, and the others put in a place downstairs for retrieval (we used about 200)...

... the lights turned on and the 'open' sign placed in the window... then they began to arrive, the first coming at 5.30 p.m. I started to take pictures of the event, but more and more people came, all requiring some sort of attention, so being the official photographer at the same time as selling, making a triplicate record of what had sold - running around with red dots and trying to remember who had bought what - and attempting to meet and greet old friends was a bit too much for one person, so I hope that some of the guests did not think I was ignoring them. The above picture was taken about half an hour before the rest arrived and the gallery became twice as full as shown. It features Patrick Rentiens, the stained glass artist who has made glass for dozens of well-known places - including Coventry Cathedral, with John Piper - during his 80 or so years on earth. H.I. has known Patrick for years. To the left is the lovely 'Weesh'.

17 small pictures sold last night, which means that H.I. has now covered basic costs, and anything else to sell will be a bonus, and that would be nice. The place was packed, which was also a good thing, as so many people love and admire H.I. I do too. We laid out the 'Visitor's Book' on a table, with a new section for this exhibition, starting after the comments for another solo exhibition she had some years ago. I remembered that the film director Michael Winner had come to that one, and left the comment below, in which he describes her paintings as 'Athena' prints, and utter failures. Well he can fuck off, which was pretty much what everyone else to comment afterwards said, and one person said: "I would rather look at one of her paintings than one of your crappy films". Mr Winner is responsible for all the Charles Bronson 'revenge' films, the titles of which I have completely forgotten.

So I slept until 10.30 this morning, and I am still utterly knackered, but - all in all - it was a very successful evening. I am going in to do a bit of clearing up in a minute, then begin again in earnest tomorrow. If you're in the Bath area, pop in and have a look. You might like it, and I might be behind the desk if you come on the right day. You might like me too...