Bath Society of Artists

There seems to be a little flurry of Art posts right now, so here's another in the same vein.  The Bath Society of Artists annual exhibition has just closed, and this is one of the 3D entrants - a portrait of our beloved Queen by one of H.I.'s devoted friends and students, an 80-something year old man called Bill.

It is about 2 X life-sized and mixed media, including dozens of faux diamonds which Bill has lovingly applied - along with paint - to commemorate the Jubilee.

You might think from this piece that Bill is of a naturally naive disposition exacerbated by age, but you would be wrong.  He is a highly humorous and bright bloke who loves to paint (he is always the first to arrive at H.I.'s Summer Schools, sitting in his car and listening to the radio for about an hour before anyone else), and keeps everyone entertained with his anecdotes and observations during lunch times.  And what anecdotes he has.

He used to be in the film industry - many classic T.V. adverts from the 1960s were made by him - and has worked with most of the greats, including Sophia Loren.

Stupidly, we missed the deadline for the 'People's Vote' on the exhibits, but both independently agreed that this would be our choice for the 3D category, and a lovely little etching of a dead oak tree for the 2D. Predictably, the people's choices for the 2D were hopelessly photographic - in fact they might as well have just put up the photos which they had slavishly copied to produce the paintings.

A few years ago, the Bath Society of Artists asked H.I. to sit on the panel of judges, and spend the best part of a day selecting from hundreds of entrants, alongside better known artists like Peter Blake, etc.

Then last year, they asked her to actually submit a painting of her own for the show and she declined, saying that it wasn't really her type of thing.  So they virtually begged her to put in a picture, sending a delegate around to persuade her, so she did.  The panel rejected it, so the painting was never shown.

Needless to say, she will not be entering anything else to that show in the coming years...