A day of visitors

Reading haiku from John Holmes’s booklets

I enjoyed a very sociable afternoon at the Gallery today. I met an interesting guy from Yorkshire, a couple of feathered friends, two of our artists  – Emma and Lyn, children from two classes at Macandrew Bay School, an old workmate, a current workmate, Beth’s mum, and two sets of friends. I’d planned to fill in my time by enveloping the summer poetry cards but that didn’t eventuate – not that I minded!

Sharing their haiku

The Macandrew Bay School children were delightful. Four children from the first class read their seasonal haikus, they’d captured the essence of haiku brilliantly. We then talked about haiku, read aloud some of the haiku accompanying the artworks and discussed how some of the artists selected a few words from the haiku developing their work from them while other artists followed the entire haiku faithfully.

taking shelter
from this rain, too
grey heron

The children from the second class were younger but no less enthusiastic. Their ability to admire an exhibit and express why it appealed to them was terrific.  The shoe proved quite an attraction as did the jewellery and Tash Shackleton’s heron painting – a response to Kirsten Cliff’s haiku.

Many thanks to Bernadette, Macandrew Bay School’s Principal, for taking up my invitation to view our exhibition. It was a pleasure to have your students and staff at the Gallery