Dear Members,
This will be the last blog/newsletter I write as Chair of your Committee. Joy and I have set an official handover date of 7 July, from then on she will assume the chairmanship and I know she will do a great job for you. I may or may not take a role in the new Committee; that is a decision for Joy.
​
I took over chairmanship of the LAG Committee from Paul Fisher in March 2020, when the first wave of COVID was reaching a critical phase. Shortly after, COVID infection mitigations were imposed. These included restrictions on gatherings of people, which meant our Thursday evening meetings were suspended. During the lockdowns, the heartbeat of LAG was kept going by Zoom meetings. It was not easy to keep the impetus up, but I do feel that having that weekly video call gave those who wanted it a chance to talk to other members, not always about art, often everything except art! I really enjoyed some of those calls! So if you did participate regularly …. THANK YOU.

Where we are today
​After several false starts due to ever-changing COVID rules, we are now back at our regular meetings. Natural and healthy attrition has allowed the intake of new members. Our Thursday evenings are now well attended and a real sense of dynamism pervades the hall. I really appreciate the enthusiasm. So here’s a special nod to new members!
​
Moving forward, as confidence grows, I am sure we can get back to life drawing, more socialising and generally getting back to the ‘new normal’ – not sure I ever fit into that place!

Setting priorities
​When I took over from Paul, who did a fantastic job, it was very unclear in my mind what our membership really wanted, with several events not being very well attended. Therefore, we sent out a questionnaire to all members to seek their views. The response was clear; members valued Thursday meetings, demonstrations and exhibitions. 

We therefore took the decision to focus on those priorities and spend less time on peripheral items. Your responses to the questionnaire naturally led to where your Committee should focus their time and resources. Several Committee changes were implemented in the interim, strengthening certain functions. In summary, your Committee has:

• Updated banking mandates
• Set up online banking
• Implemented quarterly financial updates
• Implemented an annual forecast (work in progress)
• Repainted the exhibition boards
• Represented LAG on the Lacock Village Hall Committee to resolve issues with Hall standards, notably: the ladies toilets, and Hall lighting.
• Replaced our website platform
• Set up a summer social event (work in progress, may be too late for this year)
• Created a LAG news subscription database

Website
A specific comment on our website. I am very pleased to say that following its launch in November last year the LAG website looks fresh, modern and is fit for purpose. I am very grateful to Elspeth for what was practically a full time job for a lot of 2021! However, as with any website it is a continual work in progress and requires members to submit paintings for their gallery pages on a regular basis. Remember, this is YOUR website for you, so please do use it to its full advantage.

I am certain with the arrival of our new members and the ‘new normal’ that the priorities will evolve and change. That’s completely normal. I look forward to remaining a member of the LAG family under its new chair, whom I have committed to offering my support throughout the handover period.
I firmly believe that for the Chair Thursday evening attendance is very important, leading from the front, so to speak. By stepping down I am looking forward to allowing myself more freedom to spend time with loved ones and with family, who seem to be producing offspring at an alarming rate!
​
Many thanks to you all for your support throughout my time as Chair of LAG – it has been a pleasure.
Mark

On Sunday 12th June Biddestone was the location of LAGs first plein air event of 2022. The duck pond was particularly busy early in the morning as young children and their parents fed the ducks. Good for practicing the painting of water and reflections, it's an idyllic spot to take in some warm summer rays and lose oneself in painting. I was joined by Elspeth, who chose to paint a group of nearby buildings, honing her understanding of single point perspective, all good practice!
Some people are hesitant about plein air, for various reasons; lack of confidence, prying eyes, don't have the kit etc etc . My experience has always been positive and even if people do come over to look and chat, any comments are usually positive, and the fact is very little kit is needed. Getting out in the good weather is very enjoyable and can teach you a lot about your painting. Due to limited time, it forces you to paint more loosely, choose your materials carefully (no one wants to be transporting more than is necessary) and actually makes you realise how little is needed to get out and paint. I use these sessions to complete a sketch in my sketchbook, rarely do I use them as material for a larger painting, and of course sharing a couple of hours with fellow members makes it even more enjoyable. If you are interested in joining or suggesting plein air events, just broadcast it on the LAG WhatsApp group. If you are not a member of that group, contact Chris Crosby, who will add you.
​

Dear Members,
Natural attrition of our membership has meant a number of new members have joined LAG in the first half of 2022; I believe this small turnover is healthy and keeps our group dynamic. A warm welcome to those of you who have joined us recently and I hope you enjoy being part of the group! If you haven’t already done so do make sure you familiarise yourself with our website, which was completely re-vamped last autumn and re-launched in November 2021.

As a member you have your own gallery space to use on our website so please take advantage of this facility if you haven’t already. Please send up to six photos initially (remember to give each one a title) of the paintings you want to display in your personal online gallery to Elspeth Wales at lacockartgroup21@gmail.com

You will have noticed the absence of a newsletter recently, which is because your committee decided that a monthly newsletter was too frequent. We agreed to publish a newsletter on roughly a quarterly basis, after a demo and/or an exhibition. A less frequent newsletter will allow for more and improved content, and we’re mindful that people can quickly suffer email overload with content dropping into their inboxes on a daily basis. 
​
Additionally, Elspeth has been configuring the email marketing tool, Mailchimp, to distribute news items automatically (including newsletters) that we post on our website blog page. We can also use Mailchimp to email out other content relevant to LAG. The overall goal is to communicate to members from the Lacock Art Group email address, creating a consistent approach, rather than sending emails from various personal email addresses. Using Mailchimp also allows us to create GDPR compliant mailing lists easily. Subscribers will receive news updates from LAG, and we are aiming to broaden our audience of non-members who may be interested in signing up to our mailing list to receive news about upcoming demos, exhibitions and other activities. You will notice there is now a ‘subscribe’ button on our news/blog website page – if you know of anyone who might like to subscribe to receive our news please point them to that page.

Our second exhibition of the year took place over the Jubilee weekend on 4-5 June. The weather was not particularly kind to us and, with Thursday and Friday being holidays, the village seemed eerily quiet. That said, over £1,000 of sales were achieved, so proceeds easily covered our costs. My thanks go to those who volunteered their time to help set up, man the desk, steward and take down the stands. Many thanks in particular to Linda Ridler who provided the van to take the boards to Ken Baldy’s house ready for a professional painter to give them a fresh coat of paint. We received numerous suggestions for improvements to the exhibition from members, which we’ll be assessing.

​The re-instatement of “vote for your favourite painting” slips and the striking floral voting box were well received by visitors. Children in particular took part and offered a welcome distraction to their parents.

I know you’ve all been waiting to know the results so here they are: 
190 votes were cast in total. 82 different paintings received a vote.
And the winning painting, with eight votes, was ‘Bengal Kitty’ by Karen McGreevy. Congratulations Karen!

​On 19 May Mike Skidmore demonstrated his technique of painting a portrait using oils. Mike’s delivery was amusing and informative and made it look easy! He gave us numerous good tips on equipment, one particularly good example that I liked was the use of foil “Lazy Susan plates” to organise your oil paints, with the base flesh tone being in the middle well and the other tones in the wells around it. A big 'thank you' to Mike for such an enjoyable evening.

Several non-members, mostly from Box Art Group, attended the demo, and it was great to welcome them. Overall the feedback was very positive. There were some comments about visibility, so we are reviewing our decision to stop the use of the cameras/projector for demos and work is in progress. We will not make recordings of demos, however, because the quality of the end product is simply not something we would be happy to post online; the skills or time to perform editing do not exist within the membership. Additionally, some artists now do not want their demos to be recorded unless they are paid a higher fee.
Here are a few images taken at the demo: Mike Skidmore; his finished oil painting; and the audience.

Finally, a reminder for you to check out forthcoming activities on the events page of our website.
​Thank you.