Accidental inspiration.

 I had a day out with a friend yesterday. Amongst coffee, lunch and lots of gossip, we visited the Gwen John exhibition at the museum in Cardiff. I didn't know a lot about her, and having seen the exhibition I can't say that she is going into my top five of favourite painters, bur the exhibition was worth visiting. As  a writer I'm a great believer in taking opportunities - art, theatre, lectures - you never know what might feed the beast called inspiration, for want of a better description. 

Gwen John's works were small, mostly domestic scenes and portraits, many in series and with a muted colour palettte. There were a lot of people at the exhibition and it was clear that a great deal of work and organisation had gone into assembling it, from many sources - private and public collections from around the world. 

Apart from the art, what did I get? She studied at the Slade, so there was information about her studies there.  The artist in my partially completed but currently stalled WIP studied there, so now I have information that will be useful when I finally go back to it. There were books, diaries and letters, always interesting and a bit of inspiration for the current WIP, although my 'artist' is a writer. I fell in love with a small published volume - I think it might have been poetry  - that had drawings and annotations in the margins - that will certainly be inspiring for future books. And as I mentioned, the paintings were in series. That gave me a half formed idea of some sort of hidden message in an artist's work. It's nebulous at the moment, but it will develop if and when needed, I am sure.

So, that's what I got from my day out. Very well worth it.

And vey enjoyable.