My First Solo Exhibition held at Coffee for the People Cafe in Seaford
My sister-in-law used to work at a fantastic local community focused café in Seaford VIC called Coffee for the People. In addition to their friendly service and tasty food & drinks, the café offers their wall space each month to a different local artist to display their works. This is such a wonderful initiative to support local arts, and an incredible opportunity to be able to put yourself out there. In November 2020 I was very fortunate to be offered the opportunity to showcase some of my pieces for the first time.
I vividly recall exactly where I was when this opportunity came about. I was enjoying a weekend away with my girlfriends in late 2019, and while we were sitting down for afternoon tea I remember saying that “this year I'm really going to put myself out there with my artwork”. It was probably only 15 minutes after this that I received a message asking if I would be interested in showing my work at the cafe as they had an opening coming up the following year.
My first exhibition at Coffee for the People was titled “Splash of Colour”, and this was the first time that I had ever displayed my art solo. With my theme locked in, I began to experiment with lots of different bold bright colours using alcohol inks on both canvas and paper. I also used this opportunity to try out my new collage technique.
Being in and out of various lockdown conditions throughout 2020 certainly made completing the artworks more challenging. With our 2 year old at home this also didn’t leave a lot of spare time for creating. At the very least I used to make the most of nap and night times to work on my art pieces. To be honest it was nice to have these distractions focus on instead of the lockdowns and the heaviness of what was happening in the world at the time. It’s very true that colours can dramatically affect your mood, and for me when I was using light, bright and bold colours in my creations that year brought much joy and happiness.
By the time the dates arrived we were thankfully out of lockdown and the exhibition was able to go ahead.
Finally the day had arrived to hang up my art pieces. I was so thankful that family and friends came with me to help, as having never done anything like this before it certainly took a few hours longer than I had thought to hang up all the pieces! There was a lot of unexpected maths and measurements involved to make sure that everything was spaced evenly, but we got there in the end!
Heading home that night I had fears that my art was falling to the floor overnight, walking into a huge pile of broken pieces on the floor in the morning! What if I didn't hang it right, was it too heavy, did we use enough wire? On top of this, the nerves of “oh my gosh people are going to see my art” or “what have I just done?” started to kick in! Although some of these feelings still happen now!
The next morning the exhibition opened without any drama. In fact, within the first few hours one of my pieces had already received a red sticker next to it. These magical red dots meant that the piece was sold, it’s where someone had thought “I love this. I want this art piece to come with me.” It was really mind blowing and so special to know that my works were appreciated and brought others such joyful feelings.
On the first weekend I held a special family and friends event at the café to celebrate the exhibition opening. It honestly blew me away with the positive reactions to my art pieces, so many people said that it was a joy to walk in and see all that beautiful colour, and that it really brightened up their day and made them smile.
Fast forward a few years later, and I recently held my fourth exhibition with Coffee for the People, this one titled “In Bloom” which you can view here.
