It seems like a long time since I have written one of these blog posts, how time flies! We have both been extremely busy over the last few weeks getting prints ordered, frames made and prints mounted. The house has, much to Tracy's dismay, been transformed into a warehouse complete with it's own production line. It was all part of the preparations for our exhibition at Zest Cafe on December 12th.
The weather had not been kind; with 4 days of snow and ice prior; quite a few people contacted us to say that they couldn't make it. We were both starting to worry a bit that not many of our guests would be able to come. Stuart George from BBC Radio Stoke invited onto his show just before we set the exhibition up, a pleasure as always. After we spoke to Stuart we walked to Zest and started setting up the prints, leaflets, information cards and of course Grace.
Zest did a tremendous job with the catering, the whole cafe looked fantastic once it was all set up, we were very happy with how it all looked:
I'm pleased to say that we needn't have worried, once it hit 6pm guests started to show up and by 6:30 the venue was bustling with people. It was fantastic to be surrounded by those that had followed us and helped us over the last few months. By 7pm the venue was completely full with some people even queuing outside to get in!
A number of people came to pickup prints that they had already ordered which was great. A few of our friends were on hand to help with people wishing to place new orders (thank you!) and a lot of mounted prints were sold from the display. It was busy all the way until 9pm, we barely got chance to say hello to everyone that came. Lindsay Bainbridge and Sadie Haynea were also at the exhibition, without them the exhibition wouldn't have even been possible, with them was local artist Ian R. Pearsall. They ran an event at the Congress Inn in Longton a month or so ago and raised £500 for 73in73. Ian donated one of his fantastic pieces of art which was auctioned as part of the event.
There is still opportunity to win Ian R. Pearsall's artwork - 'The Potter IV'. A raffle is being held at Zest Cafe Bistro in Hanley, you have until March 3rd 2018 to buy your raffle tickets. They are only £1 each or 5 for £4, it's an original piece by a great local artist. Thank you Ian, you really are amazing! The exhibition was a phenomenal success, we sold over £2500 of prints (including some pre-orders)! We still had a surprise up our sleeves though and our exhibition was the perfect time and place to announce it:
Tracy is 15 weeks pregnant, we found out towards the end of the challenge, that's the real reason she wasn't able to complete the big location at Kinder Scout. The hospital and medical staff are taking great care of us and everything looks to be going well :) Emily should be getting a little brother or sister at the beginning of June 2018. We couldn't have asked for a better end to 73in73.