Bridgy Gallery is one of the venues included in the Fairy Tale exploration during half-term in Bridgwater.
Come along and see our Fairies and Dragons exhibition, displaying creatures of myth and legend.
Gallery News
Happy New Year everyone!
The festivities of the past month have come to an end and the peaceful quiet months of the new year have begun, but fear not, there is still plenty of magic left in the air! Rumour has it that there have been odd bestial noises and rare sightings of mystical fae creatures spotted within the gallery’s walls.
Fairies and Dragons from Wednesday 11th January
If you’re an adventurer type or a fan of fantasy, come visit and see if you can catch a glimpse of these creatures of myth and legend with our Fairies and Dragons display, making its debut on Wednesday 11th January and kicking off our exhibitions for the year. This display will feature artwork from all types of fairy tales, and of many mythical creatures that mostly have yet to be seen by visitors. Alongside these new pieces, we also have a handful of returning artwork from last year’s guest artists; Tony Machin, Louise Prior, Kayleigh Miller and our very own Bridget Penn-Berkeley.
That’s all for now, until next time, try not to get gobbled up by a dragon and make sure to put out a bottle of the good stuff to appease those mischievous fairies.
Merry Holimas one and all!
The Holidays are upon us and with it brings decorations galore, tonnes of new stock and the final exhibition of the year. But first, with the spooky season and the long-awaited revival of carnival behind us, we simply must announce our joy at how successful our latest exhibition was, with special thanks to Eve Male and Kayleigh Miller for their fantastic and visitor favourite contributions. In addition, with the experience gained from our first day being open during carnival, we have decided that going forward we will be providing insulated takeaway cups for whomever wants a nice hot drink to go.
Going forward we are increasing our opening hours for carnival day so that we may better suit the high footfall and provide a warm location for all those wishing to purchase refreshments, use the restrooms or to take a break from the weather, long into the night.
There’s now even more fun to be had in the gallery
Come along and count the icicles in the gallery –
The correct guesses win a chocolate!*
*Competition ends when the chocolate runs out!
Funky Portraits exhibition
Succeeding our spooky autumnal exhibition is our Funky Portraits exhibit, a collection of charismatic and interesting portraits each bursting with their own unique personality and style, whether it’s something lively that reminds of warmer weather and holidays abroad, a furry companion to warm the soul or an abstract piece to stimulate the mind, there is something for just about everyone. Along with the gallery’s fine collection of portraits, we also have a special guest appearance of works from previous exhibition artists; Tony Machin and Louise Prior, truly making this a special send off for the year! This exhibit will be on full display until halfway through January, where we will officially start off the exhibitions for the new year with our Fairies & Dragons display.
Upcoming exhibition Fairies & Dragons
This display will contain paintings never seen here at the gallery, as well as numerous artworks from familiar faces, Tony Machin, Louise Prior, Kayleigh Miller and resident artist Bridget.
Holiday Gifts
But enough about the New Year, let’s talk more about the holidays! If you’re looking for some new holiday decorations, a small cute gift for that special or hard to buy for person or even a unique ornament for your tree, then look no further! We here at the gallery have gathered numerous new items from local artists, especially for this holiday season, these include stained-glass angel mobiles, handmade Christmas baubles, fused glass Christmas trees and Santa hats, stained-glass tea light holders in the shapes of both angels and candles, handmade glass wreaths and so much more.
With that, we are almost done with the final blog post of the year, but first we have a small notice for our opening times. The gallery will be open all the way up to 7pm on Christmas Eve for all of you last-minute buyers, and we will be open again on the 28th and 29th from 10.30am to 3pm. The gallery will resume normal hours from 4th January 2023. Lastly, we would like to extend our deepest appreciation and thanks towards every single visitor, customer, artist, and everyone else who has supported the gallery throughout its first year of operating. It has been a long year with many hardships and lessons to be learned, but it has been a heart-warming experience seeing so much passion and love for the arts, making the year all that more worth it, and we shall endeavour to continue trying to help the arts to flourish long into the future. Until next time, from all of us at Bridgy Gallery to you, Happy Holidays and have a very happy New Year.
Chilling times!
Good morning, afternoon and/or evening to all of you lovely folk out there. There’s a chill in the air, more colour in the trees and plenty to catch you all up on what’s coming soon with the gallery, but first, let’s chat about the events of recent weeks! Somerset Art Weeks have come and gone, bringing us a fantastic amount of new visitors to show around and converse with, it has been a true pleasure to see just how many passionate art lovers are out there in the local area and an equal pleasure to share with them our little slice of Bridgwater.
First Artist in Action Day
During the Art Weeks we were able to host artist Tony Machin for our first Artist in Action Day, this is when the invited guest artist or exhibiting artist produces some art here at the gallery for all to watch their process and ask questions. With this being such a nice experience, we have decided to have more Artist in Action Days in the future for the Garage Gallery, so do keep an eye out for when the next one is announced!
Speaking of the exhibits in the Garage Gallery, we have now said farewell to Tony’s exhibition, but fear not, we still have several of his pieces on display in reception for your viewing pleasure.
Contact Tony Machin if you’d like your own painting
Tony is very welcome to commissions, if you are interested in having a special piece painted, please contact Tony Machin at t.machin@hotmail.com or call him 07921806310 and tell him that we sent you.
Things to come
Now, onward to matters of the present and what to expect from the gallery in the coming weeks. Bright colours fill the Garage Gallery for the Carnival season. Resident artist Bridget Penn-Berkeley brings her exhibit of unique canvases on the subject of Bridgwater’s world-famous Guy Faulks carnival parade and a trio of Rune lady paintings. Bridget is not alone in the exhibition, joining her, we welcome friends of the gallery, artists Kayleigh Miller and Eve Male, each bringing a nice Autumnal and creepy aspect to this very seasonally styled spooky display. Kayleigh brings her linocut excellence, with pieces titled Ghoul friends and Witch library, while Eve has contributed a scary mask called Possessed and Halloween paintings – tricks, treats and little pumpkin.
Find the bat!
Speaking of seasonal, the paintings and displays in reception have once again been changed to better fit the Halloween theme, including some new decorations featuring a cauldron of bats. Individual bats are hiding throughout the gallery, a little treat will be forthcoming in the gallery reception for any keen eyes that manage to find the whole colony! Lastly, there’s Bridgwater’s main event to look forward to, waiting for more than a year for its triumphal return, Bridgwater’s famous illuminated carnival! As usual, the gallery will be open long before the evening’s festivities, giving all of you early arrivals plenty of time to come grab yourselves a hot drink and join in on all the excited chatter, while you look at our collection of paintings on the carnival over the years. That’s all for now, so until our next update or until we meet next, keep warm and enjoy the season!
Look out for Meet the Artist Day and Somerset Art Weeks
Meet the Artist Day
Hello to all you lovely readers; time has come once again for one of our periodic updates on events here at the gallery. To start things off, our Meet the Artist Day with Tony Machin was a roaring success with plenty of enthralled visitors gushing over the fantastic paintings, some of whom had no hesitation in buying their favourites, as though it were love at first sight! Thankfully for us, these customers are waiting until the end of the exhibition to pick up their newly purchased paintings, so there’s still time to come and see them for yourselves if you haven’t had the time to yet!
Given the positive reaction on the day, as well as all the cheerful comments for the art we’ve since received, we are privileged to have another day that we are calling Artist in Action Day, where you can visit the gallery and not only meet Tony but witness his creative process in action as he paints one of his lovely pieces right here in the gallery for all to see! This shall take place on Saturday 1st of October and, like the previous meet the artist event, will be on all day with complimentary wine or soft drink on arrival and other refreshments available for purchase throughout.
As it happens, this Artist in Action Day takes place during the Somerset Art Weeks, an event taking place from the 24th September to the 9th October. As the name might suggest, it’s a celebration of all kinds of art and artists throughout the whole of Somerset, whom we are very happy to be counted amongst. Whilst we hope you will come visit the gallery and join us for a guided tour or a joyful conversation on art, we also highly recommend that you check out the other locations that are taking part in this yearly creative endeavour. You might be surprised as to just how many people and places have come together again in an explosion of creativity and colour, with a great variety of art to see and experience. For us at the gallery, it is truly inspiring to be a part of such a large collection of enthusiastic artists.
A collection of new items arriving shortly
Please be aware we will not be available on Saturday the 24th September, the first day of the Somerset Art Weeks, as the gallery will be closed whilst staff attend a wedding. The silver lining to this however is that upon our return we will have a collection of new products coming to the gallery in the form of goblets, decorative shields, shoes, axes, tankards and possibly more. In fact, if you visit the gallery on the approach to this date, you might just get a sneak peek of these items as they’re being made.
Well, that’s it for now folks, as always stay safe, and we hope to see you all very soon!
Summer
Hello all of you lovely art lovers and a very happy Summer to you all!
It has been some time since our last update with good reason, much has been happening in these recent times, both exciting and sadly tragic. Firstly, let’s catch you up on the more pleasant events of late, that being our rather popular exhibit by ‘Louise Prior. This was our first guest artist to fill out our exhibition room (the garage gallery) and her first exhibition, we here at the Gallery couldn’t have asked for a better artist to kick off this shared adventure of ours with the local artistic community. If you sadly missed this lovely exhibit then fret not! A good number of the paintings will soon be available for viewing on our website and whilst they won’t be available for purchase through us, we highly recommend that you contact the artist to enquire if a print or the original painting can be purchased directly loupriorart@gmail.com. We are excited to see the new paintings Louise makes in the future and if you are too, you can follow her works at Lou Prior Art Facebook. Following Louise’s exhibition is our new exhibit by Gina Marshall and Jeneta Bird, two seasoned artists from the Southwest, showing a mixture of fine detailed and enthusiastically cheerful landscapes featuring the Dorset coast and surrounding landscape. This exhibit is one that you simply can not miss if you are a fan of seascapes or find tranquility and nostalgia for those lovely Summer trips to the beach. All paintings, prints and some limited edition cards will be available at the gallery until the 17th August and on our website for the foreseeable future.
Now it’s time for the update I’ve been dreading. It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you all that core member of the Gallery family, sculptor and website manager Mark Ricketts has passed away at the age of 59 on the Summer Solstice after a sudden battle with cancer. He was a kind and passionately creative man who strived to make the Gallery the best it could possibly be. Going forward we will be dedicating the planned sculpture garden in his memory, filling it with some of his personal projects that never quite had the chance to be completed and officially naming the garden the Mark Ricketts Sculpture Garden. He will be sorely missed. In addition, our resident artist Bridget Penn-Berkeley has recently suffered serious illness and whilst she is keeping in high spirits given the situation she is on the path to recovery, we must inform you that for this reason we have had to pull out of our planned Art Experience Sessions during the Quayside Festival and must postpone our Art Experience Sessions for the season. We ask and thank you for your patience and understanding during these difficult times. If you wish to make a donation to the Sculpture fund, the gallery has set up an account to help fund the costs for constructing Mark’s virtual projects into sculptures for the garden we are planning a go fund me page – please look out for the details – which will be posted on the website soon.
If you would like to make a donation, the account sort code is 09 00 00, account no. 00050005, role/ref X15048198PEN, which must be quoted. Many thanks.
Onward
Another month has just rushed by here at the gallery as we celebrated Valentine’s, toasted to the Chinese New Year and weathered the recent triptych of storms! Whilst we haven’t come out of it unscathed, our trusty builders helped patch us up in no time! The weather most certainly isn’t the only excitement we’ve had this month, quite the contrary! We have had a great number of events and firsts happen this month from our new signs and heart felt Valentine’s display (so lovingly added to by local artist Nicky Farrell’s adorable glass hearts (look forward to seeing more of her work in the future!)), to our terrific tiger display for Chinese New Year and the excitement of being welcomed into the Bridgwater Cultural Partnership!
Fresh stock is always arriving at the gallery, ready and waiting for their new home. Among these are some new creations by our terrific wood turner Gerry, a duo of miniature solar powered lighthouses and a pair of bird feeders ready to hold a feast for your avian friends. This lovely gent is welcoming to commissions, so do check his other work out at The Wood Twiller on Facebook and let him know we sent you! Accompanying Gerry’s work is some newly arrived fused glass pieces from our local glass artist and good friend to the gallery Sheila, if you’re looking for some pretty and unique coasters or something eye-catching that glistens in the Sun, then look no further! Can’t find exactly quite what you’re searching for? Then let us know and we’ll place an order just for you! Now of course what kind of a gallery would we be without some paintings or sculptures? A boring one – that’s what! Now I won’t spoil the surprise of getting to see these new arrivals first hand for yourselves but a teaser never hurts, amongst our arrivals are; a plethora of works from local artists, beautiful landscapes of both rural and urban locales, numerous mushrooms for all of you who find them to be real fun guys and a metallic maiden who just can’t wait to be shown off to fellow bikers. As an extra treat we have a few creations by the talented painter Tony Machin recently arrived here on the levels, to whet your appetite for his upcoming exhibition in the garage gallery this August!
That’s all from us here at the gallery, you folks take care and we eagerly await your next visit!