That's the view from our garden with a biplane flying over from Compton Abbas Airfield. Aren't we lucky to see free aeronautical displays?!
*
Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Flights of Fancy
That's the view from our garden with a biplane flying over from Compton Abbas Airfield. Aren't we lucky to see free aeronautical displays?!
Monday, 12 June 2023
Next project
Building up to working on my next masterpiece: Melbury Hill from the Artist's Garden
Grenville Allen
Monday, 29 May 2023
Sue Hannant going beyond the call of duty!
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Pavla Andrews
Date: Mon, 29 May 2023 at 12:41
Subject: Cygnet Bulletin 22
From: Paula Andrews
Date: Mon, 29 May 2023 at 12:41
Subject: Cygnet Bulletin 22
From: Paula Andrews
Dear artists
Another quiet week, as far as news goes.
Firstly, I would like to share a message from Grenville and Hazel, that surely resonates with all of us:
This is just a quick note to express our thanks to Sue. She went in at nine yesterday to steam clean the floor, opened at ten prompt and then never stopped selling till way after three, filling two sales sheets and taking just over three hundred quid!
Hazel and I popped in last night to restock as Sue rang to say she'd sold four of mine including The Greeting, one of my latest, featuring a mallard paddling up to a white Aylesbury duck in a duckhouse.
Which just goes to show why the Cygnet needs to stay open on Sundays right through the summer season.
Well done, Sue, and thanks again!
Grenville Allen
Wednesday, 3 May 2023
Life changing day!
Saturday, 22 April 2023
Sunday, 16 April 2023
Foal Farm demo of car hidden for Gold Hill application 2021
Foal Farm
Gold Hill with Air Balloon in the Cygnet
Monday, 6 March 2023
The story so far....
From: Grenville
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2023 at 12:38
Subject: Re: Hello
To: Claire
Subject: Re: Hello
To: Claire
'Afternoon Claire
Many thanks for your email. And yes we have moved to Dorset ~ East Melbury nr Shaftesbury to be more specific. Glad you liked my website which we'd updated at that very moment to include the following show page ~ just click/tap here. As you can see, Hazel and I are in a cooperative gallery in Shaftesbury now which I do all the social media for. It's located in a place called Swans Yard ~ hence the swans I'm fond of photoshopping in here and there. My twenty-five years' experience in advertising has come in v handy!
My Cygnet Gallery bestseller is Sunrise at Gold Hill (pictured below in the window and on the wall inside). Click/tap here to see one of my recent posts I concocted in its entirety. I used to work with an art director during my ad career. Now I do everything ~ words, pics, logo, the lot. Quite apart from doing the odd painting ~ mad March hares presently. So we're both always busy.
My pics on the gallery website which I also maintain and update: click/tap here.
If you click/tap here you can see what I create on Instagram. Apparently, someone asked how long Swans Yard had been flooded! 😂 Here I am with a blackbird! And a two=page Instagram post for Swans Yard itself HERE! I've promoted the adjacent Ugly Duckling café on that one (simply click on the arrow).
Finally, here I am at a nearby show ~ just click/tap on this! Chilly!
I hope you're all keeping well and once again, thank you for remembering us! It made our evening!
Cheers! 👍🎨
Grenville Allen
On Sun, 5 Mar 2023 at 21:14, Claire Blackburn wrote:
Hello Grenville and Hazel ,
Hope all is well with you both and I haven't looked for any paintings for a while ! But there was a programme on about our rivers and it reminded me of the "Silent Place" that I purchased for my husband for a birthday and had a long look at your website and new paintings all still very lovely . The last time I had seen you was in Tunbridge Wells ! My Mum purchased The Waiting Game . I noticed you may be living in Dorset now ? I came to your home in Iden and you changed some of my frames for me and that message is still on your page which was lovely to see . Well I thought I would send a note to say hello and I still have my Grenville Allen gallery wall .
Regards
Claire Blackburn
Sent from my iPad
Sunday, 5 March 2023
Insta kismet
What a coincidence: everything and everybody is looking at the adjoining frame on this Insta screenshot! #Whoosh!
Wednesday, 1 March 2023
BON ANNIVERSAIRE!
LOVELY RESPONSE FROM GINETTE....
Hi Grenville & Hazel,
Thank you so much, this is brilliant, I love it!
You are so clever and really made my day.
All the best to you both,
Ginette & Matilda xx
P.S. Many thanks from Melvin too, for sending him birthday wishes.
-----Original Message-----
From: Grenville Allen <grenvilleallen@gmail.com>
To: Ginette Rainbow
Sent: Tue, 28 Feb 2023 7:40
Subject: BON ANNIVERSAIRE!
From: Grenville Allen <grenvilleallen@gmail.com>
To: Ginette Rainbow
Sent: Tue, 28 Feb 2023 7:40
Subject: BON ANNIVERSAIRE!
All our fondest, Ginette! 😘 Receiving a MATILDA!
G & H
Sunday, 19 February 2023
Wednesday, 15 February 2023
2003 sees a bearded Grenville
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=3234978323391342&set=a.1424254364463756
Grenville Allen
Saturday, 4 February 2023
Thursday, 2 February 2023
Time Warp
Just click/tap here and then use the arrows to go forwards and back in time. Wow!
Grenville Allen
Wednesday, 11 January 2023
Saturday, 31 December 2022
More replies between Tel & Gren
The MS stuff sounds nasty. Hope you keep it under control. No wonder you've stopped drinking.
I stopped drinking 'cos like you I had an invite for a medical check-up which came through in the December when I was about the same age as when you had yours. Which I hid at the bottom of a drawer.
'Course the ever-astute Hazel found the letter and booked me in.
"Aaargh! That's my Christmas ruined. No more drink for me! Thanks, Hazel!" I screamed. I was booked in for Jan 6 of the new year. Such a shame as every wine rack was loaded ~ even ones out in our garden shed. You see Hazel had taken a part time job at Chapeldown Wines when all our shows kept being cancelled due to hoof 'n' mouth, floods, Sars disease, you name it! We ended up with all these award-winning sparklers, reds, whites, the lot from the winery. All our liquid stash got given over the subsequent months to tradesmen and so on.
Anyway, I passed with flying colours. The nurse asked if I did any exercise and I told her about my cross-country running. (I jogged around four steep fields at the last house we lived in.) She said whatever you're doing, keep on doing it!
....Interruptions just now: your addendum about your other sites which I know all about ~ and notification from the gallery of a Gold Hill sale (yippee!).....
Right back to my MS/syrinx. You won't remember but when I worked with you on the Euston Road one morning I'd run up several flights of Euston Station escalators in my trusty cowboy boots perfectly ok then I tripped over some cobbles just as you leave the station. Then at lunchtime that same day I tripped over some raised bits of concrete in the centre of the carriageway.
Thought nothing more of it but my urinary frequency was becoming noticeable. The GP sent me to the Conquest for a DRI and flow test. Which again I passed.
Then I was booked in privately for an MRI scan of my brain and spine. Ninety minutes. The chap who tested me said I wouldn't need a pee. (I had one after 45 mins just to be on the safe side.)
Weeks later the result revealed a little white blip. The Conquest chap said it was a syrinx but the Salisbury Hospital female doc thought it was MS. "Benign?" I asked 'cos by then I knew all the lingo. She then booked me for several blood tests. Lotsa needles sticking out my arm. Like Jack Osbourne I'd had optic neuritis at twenty-five and then a few years later my left leg went stiff with acute pins and needles. A GP at Brasted (we lived nr Sevenoaks then) said it was a trapped nerve. Again I thought nothing more of it.
The main thing is I take Vit D and still quaff a glass of V8 every day and keep active ~ which is what it's all about. Hazel cleverly kept all the letters from the hospital and claimed a blue badge from them. Well done, Hazel. I ~ as you can imagine ~ didn't want one. Had big arguments about it. It's humiliating, I told her. I'll end up really disabled. But then I saw how a fellow stallholder who flogs plants has turned out with MND. Just click/tap here and scroll down. OMG! He could outrun me any time in his heyday. Only our age. Now that is a truly terrible affliction.
As for your prostate, Alan Clark kept seeing his top class private doctor who thought Alan had the same problems as his brother who died from prostate cancer. But his wife, Jane, booked him into the Ashford Hospital and a nice NHS Indian doctor discovered that his problems were nowhere near his prostate: he'd contracted a brain tumour which soon killed him.
I've tracked Katherine down from your FB account. Seen the wedding shots and everything. Nothing's private once you get on social media. Yes, it seems you've raised a v bright brood!
There's an eighty-year-old artist called Peter at our gallery with two new knees. He says they wear out with time. So I reckon Ros is all right for a good few years yet.
Good to see you're still going for it. It's your Protestant work ethic. 💥🚀
G
On Fri, 30 Dec 2022 at 10:39, Terence Ross wrote:
Hi Gren,
Sorry for the delay in replying. Try to shut mail and social media out for a few days…. Clients expect you to answer questions on Christmas day!!!The MS stuff sounds nasty. Hope you keep it under control. No wonder you've stopped drinking.I had Prostrate Cancer. Or rather I didn't. No symptoms, no problems what-so-ever. Had my normal yearly MOT when I was 56. Doc asked if I had ever had a PSA check. 'Nope' said I. 24 hours after the blood test I got the "we need to talk" call from the doctor!So had Bracky therapy (Can't remember the correct spelling) Where they pop a few radio-active seeds into your prostrate. Job done. Just have a yearly check. PSA level last time checked was 0.05….. Had an interesting 18 months after the procedure due to the fact I'd have to be fairly close to a loo… Sadly two friends went down with exactly the same problem at similar times to me. One is now not around anymore, and the other had a close shave, had his prostrate removed but now has a clean bill of health. So that's me. Ros now has two new knees…. Apart from that we are roughly the same as when we last saw you.Good to see you are keeping busy with the gallery and H is in control. You now live in Shaftesbury, or close by? Shame about Cyril. Knew Terry was a Coke head but didn't realise it went back to his early teens. How the hell did he carry on???Katherine now teaches art. Lives in Yorkshire. Has a 6 year old daughter. Rebecca decided art collage wasn't her thing. So went off and trained as a lawyer instead! She had a little girl three months ago. So can't complain about how things have turned out for us. Got a couple of friends who have retired and moved down to the west country so we do venture in your direction now and then.As for work, can't stop…. In the blood! So do Goodwood, this year might only do the Revival. Get invited to Pebble Beach and Retromobile in Paris all the time. But due to the fact my stuff is all sculpture, it costs lots to move it around. When I sell to clients abroad, custom built foam lined crates are the norm. So things get expensive. Not too sure about 2023…. Might take it a little easier, but why I feel like a 35 year old, I don't see any reason to stop.Apart from playing with my cars…. But that's another story!Catch you sometime. Probably scare the life out of each other!Terry.
Sunday, 25 December 2022
Merry Christmas, Grandpa! And you with your international reputation. Haven't we both done well?!
From: Grenville Allen
Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2022 at 10:51
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas, Grandpa! And you with your international reputation. Haven't we both done well?!
To: Terence Ross
Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2022 at 10:51
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas, Grandpa! And you with your international reputation. Haven't we both done well?!
To: Terence Ross
Just click/tap on this! And you will see an encapsulation of where I am now. Saves me going on.
If you accept my FB friend request everything will be made even more coherent.
Cyril died a couple of years back at 84. When you left me and Tony Abrahams put me in charge of recruiting my replacement Cyril turned up for an interview. I turned him down in favour of that ex-CDP reprobate Dave Edmunds.
Years later Hazel wondered who this white haired old man was hanging round my display in the Royal Victoria Place shopping centre in T Wells. Lo and behold it was Cyril! He'd moved from Kingston to Staplehurst.
We kept bumping into each other in various places like the Tenterden Waitrose car park where he told me about Terry's cocaine addiction from 14 and his sad demise in a care home.
I dunno. Sorry to hear about your cancer. Which one is it? Terry Howard's was leukemia (blood cancer). I was diagnosed with either a syrinx or full blown MS. I occasionally fall over while talking and walking. Either way we've managed to get a blue badge so we can park in all sorts of silly places.
Glad to hear Ros and your ever-growing brood are doing ok.
We're now at the bottom of Zig Zag Hill nr Shaftesbury with its Gold Hill made famous by Ridley Scott's Hovis commercial in 1973. My Sunrise at Chiddingstone, featuring a Kent oast led to a quick adaptation ~ Sunrise at Gold Hill ~ featuring an air balloon and tiny black cat sitting on a doorstep waiting to be let in. Below is one of my many FB posts with Photoshopped swan ('cos the gallery's in Swans Yard). This particular giclée print is minus an air balloon. There are numerous sizes and versions of my image as you can imagine. Yesterday Hazel took over 900 just during our three hour morning shift, selling my large donkey Sanctuary pic and a few of my aforementioned Gold Hill pics. I sell the most pics and Lindsay Keir RA takes the most money with her hare and bird originals. THIRTY artists here now and a waiting list ~ all down to the way Hazel and I have instilled in 'em all a mentality where you give the customer a shopping experience. I've branded the place, given it a quirky tone of voice (as is my wont) and so on. All the gloom and doom is actually helping us: like the Hollywood movies were an escape from the Depression.
Have a good one, Tel.
Grenville Allen
On Sat, 24 Dec 2022 at 16:30, Terence Ross wrote:
Hi Grenn,Still not sure about the beard delete?How you doing? You and H keeping well?How time flies? Still got our RD award?Where do you live now? Still near Winchelsea or have you moved on?Everyone seems to be dropping like flies, Terry Howard a while back, A few CDP people I knew now gone as well!!!! My old partner Kim got throat cancer, he's now well. Do you keep in contact with that old Hockney look a like? Not seen Trevor B in a while. He's now moved on from advertising as well. although he still has his name on the agency door. Now spends most of this time producing movies!I got the big C 11 years ago… But as you can tell I'm writing this so I managed to beat it as well…..Two granddaughters now. Both Katherine and Rebecca happy in their careers and married off.Still live in Anerley.Work ticks along nicely, I'm lucky I get great PR from the car mags and I exhibit at Goodwood twice a year. So still working. Albeit a little slower now….Ros is well.We'll see what 2023 brings apart from ULEZ! Strikes and anything else that can be blamed on Putin!Merry Christmas!Cheers.Terry.On 24 Dec 2022, at 14:26, Grenville Allen <grenvilleallen@gmail.com> wrote:<gswan.jpg><hcygnets.jpg>That's my best selling Sunrise at Gold Hill with air balloon on one of my displays (above). All the art direction, Photoshop, copy etc for ALL the social media done by me: https://www.instagram.com/gallerycygnet/ https://www.facebook.com/thecygnetgallery/ https://twitter.com/GalleryCygnetThe Cygnet GalleryGrenville
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