Newsletter 12th October ’08

Hello!
Well it seems it's been another five months since I've done a 'proper' newsletter (as opposed to occasional emails about exhibitions, which is all I seem to send out lately!) so it's about time I got round to another one. It's not been for want of trying - although I'm back home now, I started writing this newsletter first in Suffolk, then on the Isle of Skye with driving rain and a force nine hammering away outside. Here was me three days ago:

On Skye, specifically on the top of the Black Cullin. It was fun. For those who know Tony, that's not him in the photo, Tony thought it was a lot less fun, and declined to accompany us all the way to the top. However, the next day dawned howling and very wet, conspiring to give me at least a few hours to get most of this written (before and after an appropriate visit to the nearby Talisker Distillery), and now, back home on flat land in Somerset, I've finally managed to get this finished before beginning the somewhat daunting task of clearing up the post-Somerset-Art-Weeks-chaos.

Somerset Art Weeks

Many thanks to everyone who visited me during Somerset Art Weeks. Not including the private view the number of visitors over the 2+ weeks was well over 500. The house got its usual overturning before hand, the front room becoming the main 'gallery' with the rest of my stuff continuing upstairs in the (dismantled) spare room and upstairs corridor. I had something like 90 paintings and drawings on display, plus, of course, the ever-popular dolls photographs from the Fetishdollies website.

New Painting: Medusa's Gimps

I have another Medusa painting. If it seems like there have been an awful lot of medusa paintings lately then you'd be right, but there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it, and besides she seems to be a popular lady (unless one has a phobia over snakes). Having finally found a man for Medusa in Medusa and Oedipus last year, I wondered if it was time she had a proper job, too, rather than hanging around Ancient Greece scaring people and providing incitement to all the strapping lads to go off and seek a bit of adventure trying to remove her head... Well now it occurred to me that Medusa would make a rather fine Dominatrix. I mean, she's a pretty formidable lady after all, and it kind of fits in with the whole not being allowed to look at her directly thing - so if all of her 'visitors' go around with little gimp masks on they would not look out of place.

Well, to be honest the painting of 'Medusa's Gimps' doesn't really make her look like a working girl - it looks to me rather like this is the way Medusa actually relaxes at home, but I think there is probably scope for something of a career in this sort of behaviour. Incidentally, I don't know why Medusa has suddenly become a bit of a Chav. She seems to have picked up her current tastes in lurid colouring and flamboyant decor since the Medusa in Venus' Bedroom painting. Venus clearly had someting of an effect on her.

'Medusas Gimps' - click here to see painting in more detail

New Paintings: Origami Mermaids

The 303 Gallery in Martock (Somerset, UK) had a re-hanging of artwork for the summer, and the theme this year was 'Fish and Ships'. Unfortunately last year they had already had all of my available mermaids (and maidmers) on display, and besides there were no ships in any of them, so, having nothing that seemed particularly suitable I came up with a little group of paintings of mermaids and paper boats. This involved first googling paper boats as, to my shame, I had forgotten how to make them (though I can still do a nice water lily out of a paper napkin).

'Origami Mermaids' - click the thumbnails below to see the paintings in more detail on my website:

303 Gallery Christmas Exhibition Party:

The Origami Mermaids are still at the 303 Gallery for the moment, however the gallery are re-hanging for their Christmas display in the first week of November, so they may not be there for much longer. What work I will have there then I haven't had time to consider, but there will be an afternoon Preview Party at the Gallery from 12noon to 4pm on Sunday 9th November. No doubt I will have something there, and with so many arts and crafts on display I can recommend it as a place to buy Christmas presents...

For more details of the 303 Gallery, have a look at the 'permanent Galleries' list at the bottom of my Future Exhibitions page.

Platinum Fairies (after all...)

Yes, I said I wouldn't do them, but I say a lot of stuff, not all of which is true...
I had several sheets of platinum leaf left over from the Marriage of Heaven and Hell picture last year, so, having completed 50 of the Gold Fairies drawings I thought number 51 should be a bit special, and I did that one in platinum. Of course then I had the problem that this couldn't really be Gold Fairy number 51, unless I re-defined gold.... and so there was Platinum Fairy number 1. There are only 4 of this rarer kind of fairy at present (of which 3 I've already sold), but I imagine more may be along, until I run out of platinum (or take a deep breath, avert my eyes from the price, and buy some more...). I'm still amazed at how many of the Gold Fairies I've actually completed over the last 3 years, but they seem popular as ever... Of course you can still see all of them on the Gold Fairy page (platinum included).

Above: the first 4 Platinum Fairies - click the thumbnails to see each one.

Illustration

On a totally different note, and something kind of new for me, I was asked some months back if I might be interested in doing some illustrations. Well, as it's something I've always vaguely had in mind (there are even those who accuse me of illustration already), and they asked very nicely, I thought I would give it a go. The publication is Murky Depths, a quarterly anthology containing short stories with artwork, and also comic strip stories. The stories are "speculative fiction with sprinklings of horror and fantasy that push the boundaries of science fiction" - an interesting mixture that comes from the gaps between the obvious.

The first picture below is from Murky Depths issue number 5 (summer / autumn 2008), the second from issue 6, due to come out about the beginning of November. Expect to see more - I have a third story waiting to be illustrated soon, which I'm kind of excited about doing as I was particularly taken with this story. Of course you will have to buy the publications to read all these stories - go to murkydepths.com for more info. As you can tell from the issue numbers it's a very new magazine, but going well, and I'm really pleased to be involved with it as I get to paint things I wouldn't otherwise tackle, and like I say it's a bit of a new experience and quite exciting!

'So this is Mi' - illustration for Murky Depths

Above: illustration for 'So this is Mi' - Murky Depths # 5. To see this in more detail go to the gallery. (Printed in black and white in the magazine, but I have colour prints available as well.)
Below: illustration for # 6 - this one will be appearing in the gallery when the publication comes out.

'Pa and Daughter' - illustration for Murky Depths

Calendars for 2009

I've wanted to do calendars of the Fetishdollies photographs ever since I started taking the pictures. The trouble is that at the time I would have needed to order about a thousand of them to get them for any sensible kind of price... so anyway, this year I had an idea, and the result is these:

(click here to see more pictures)

These calendars are hand-made - sort of my own invention. The images are postcards, the month bits are cards I print and trim myself, and they are all held together with a couple of hinged rings which can be re-opened and lock closed again. They are also signed on the back.

The unusual thing about my calendars though, is that they come with extra images - each has 14, not 12 postcards (the extra two being at the back of the calendar), and the rings can easily be undone if you wish to swap the images around. Because I had a greater variety of postcards than I needed there is some variation in the images from calendar to calendar, and they have different pictures on the front, but I think that in each one you'll find a good selection of pictures.

I have three types - a large and a small calendar with images of my paintings in them, and a small one of the dolls photographs. If you would like any calendars the large ones are £14.50 and the small ones £9.50, and you can either email me directly or go to the calendar page on my website, where you can see lots of pictures of these things. Please note since Somerset Art Weeks, I'm running a bit short of the large calendars, so if you want one (or several) of those it would be best to get back to me sooner rather than later.

Christmas Cards

Yes, I know it's not even half way through October yet, but people have been asking me for Christmas cards already, not to mention the fact that I got mine off to the printers two months ago... I have a page of Christmas cards showing all those I have available for sale, in fact, unlike previous years I don’t think I actually took the page down at all since last Christmas. It now has shiny paypal shopping cart buttons on it, if you want to buy 1, 2, 5, or 10 cards, however I'm happy to sell larger quantities of cards, at a bit more of a discount - just email me - paypal's basic shopping cart cannot cope with the complexity of the ordering system I'd like to offer, and my brain cannot cope with the complexity of any fancy shopping cart, so there you are - feel free to just plain email me...

Of course, I have a new Christmas card to offer for sale this year - the slightly eye-brow-raising 'Rudolph's Revenge' that was on my own personal cards last year - see below. And of course I also have a brand new image that I'm going to use myself this year that nobody is allowed to see until Christmas, or otherwise I'd have been able to stick it in under 'new work'.

Above: 'Rudolph's Revenge' - to see all the Christmas cards I have for sale go to the Christmas Cards page on my site.

Auction sites and the like...

The last few of my ebay listings are dwindling as I type, and I'm not sure how long I'll continue to list there. The trouble is it has got an awful lot more expensive to put stuff on ebay, and there are fewer and fewer people looking and buying things. On top of that Ebay is currently running a very irritating strap line that declares 'big news for sellers - 1p auctions' ...hmmm... upon closer inspection this turns out to be the case only if one is paying a monthly fee of around £350 a month... so not such big news, then!

So last month or so, I opened up an account with Ebid - an alternative and much friendlier auction site (though it takes a bit if getting used to). For anyone interested in rifling through my auctions over there I have things at something of a discount for the moment, if you chose to bid rather than pick the 'buy-now' option. Especially there are reductions on greetings and Christmas cards in an attempt to raise my feeble feedback count on this site. Anyway, without further ado here are the 'stores' I have on Ebid:

Art by Nancy Farmer (prints and cards of most of my painted stuff)
FetishDollies by Nancy Farmer (cards of some of the dolls pictures)
The Naughty Bits (half the dolls and some of the painted images which I thought a little too risqué for the 'non-adult' listings)

Alternatively, click here to see my profile, which has links to all the stores

Also, I'm still listing on Etsy, a site specifically for handmade items. It's not an auction site, and is based in the US, so everything is in dollars, but it's a lovely site and well worth a visit:
My Etsy Shop

Next Exhibition: back to Wells

I have another exhibition coming up in Wells at Frameus - the second time this year. For full details have a look at my Future Exhibitions page.

Right, it's about time I stopped writing and started packing up the chaos left in the wake of Somerset Art Weeks, so that's all for now. Anything else you want to know, please email me...
take care
Nancy
x

Nancy Farmer
Visit my Gallery of Paintings at www.nancyfarmer.net
Visit the Dolls website at www.fetishdollies.co.uk