Dear Blogger
Message from Tereska at the Willow Gallery, Oswestry.
| Covid Lockdown 3 While we've again had to close our doors, we remain open online and have a wide range of contemporary art and crafts to browse. Please check in with the gallery's website and follow us on social media for further information and updates.?? Stay safe
We hope to welcome you back soon | | Safe dog walking If you have a dog, you're allowed to take them for a walk as part of your daily exercise - but should follow social distancing and other rules. Dog owners walk an average of 9 hours per week and, if you walk at about 3 miles an hour, this equates to 27 miles a week - a good amount of exercise for you both! | |  For artist-in-residence Karl Robinson-Bray, creativity continues in lockdown. Karl is currently working on a series of snowy landscapes - a great subject to explore and with each painting observing a different light quality. As well as landscapes, he also undertakes portrait commissions, and can be contacted via the gallery. | |  | | Madonna of the Cwtch
[The Welsh-English word means 'hug' or 'cuddle']
The painting, by Ceiriog Valley-based artist Diana Baur, is all about the preciousness of 'the friendship hug' that the coronavirus is denying us
Original painting on watercolour paper
Limited-edition signed prints available from the gallery | | | BUY ORIGINAL ART ONLINE
Explore our online gallery's great selection of paintings, limited-edition prints, jewellery, glasswork, ceramics, wood and textiles | | | SMALL WORKS BY BORDERLAND VISUAL ARTS | | SHROPSHIRE GUILD OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFT | |  | STEFANIE GUNDLACH
Autumn Shower
Watercolour
ALISON HOLT
The Avenue
Freehand machine embroidery
MARGARET CHARMAN
The Dorve
Acrylic
ANGELA SCOTT
Early morning
Watercolour |  | JILL LEVENTON
Spider's web bowl
Vitreous enamel on copper
SUE CHRISTIAN
Not just black & white
Silk scarf with fine red stripe
ROBERT SHELTON
Coffee table
Oak & ash
 Jacqueline & Roy Abbott
Amber leaf table
Glass with brass & copper inclusions
and hand-forged mild steel stand | | | TEXTILE WORKS BY RE-VIEW TEXTILE
Exploring such themes as the home, safety and nature as metaphor | |  | | HELEN COOPER
Fragility
Organza, lace & hand embroidery |  | | SUE BOARDMAN
Nest
Textile | | | SIGNED LIMITED-EDITION WILDLIFE PRINTS BY CRAIG HUSBAND |  | | | CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The Watcher; Hanging Around; Cooling Off; Lion Around | |  WILLIE CARTER
Earthenware platter | | 
Buy art over 10 months with an interest-free loan
Start an art collection for as little as £10 per month
| | |  THE HEALING POWER
OF ARTOn the two Saturdays just prior to Christmas we were so pleased to welcome local art studio Designs in Mind to the gallery with a display of original arts and crafts that proved very popular with shoppers. Designs in Mind offers local people with mental health challenges opportunities to help themselves through artistic expression. Research finds that the presence of art and art therapy can have a positive impact on improving a person's mental health. Find out more HERE. | | |  Pet portraits by David Bannister
Send David your pet's photo - a shot that you love - and he will create a one-of-a-kind portrait. Contact David via his website for more information.
| | | HOT DOG
Picasso had many dogs including a poodle, Afghan hound and German shepherd, but his favourite was a dachshund named Lump (the German word for rascal and pronounced 'Loomp') who features in many of the artist's work. | | 
 Picasso & Lump
Photograph by David Douglas Duncan |  One of Picasso's many recreations of Las Meninas by Velázquez featuring Lump in place of the original royal mastiff
Museu Picasso, Barcelona | | | Dogs are also a great passion of Oswestry artist Judith Harrison, and here's her version of Lump ('Picasso's Other Muse')  Lump also features in Judith's book 23 Hounds (with text by fellow-artist Sara Piper Heap), for sale at the Willow Gallery | | Italy begins year of Dante anniversary
with virtual Uffizi exhibition The Uffizi is showing rarely-seen sketches from Dante's Divine Comedy to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the poet's death
View the exhibition HERE | | | | The prehistoric artists used natural ochre to show how people would have lived amongst and hunted huge, now extinct, herbivores such as mastodons and giant sloths, before the region became a tropical rainforest. There are also images of deer, monkeys, horses and other animals as well as ancient plants - and numerous hand prints. | | Eight miles of Ice Age rock art uncovered in remote Colombian Amazon
 José Iriarte, Professor of Archæology
at Exeter University, at a rock art wall depicting mastodons in the Amazon rainforest | | The Great Conjunction of 2020 Skywatchers all around the world prepared for an end-of-year treat when Jupiter and Saturn drew closer and closer together, culminating in the evening twilight of December 21 in a 'great conjunction' - the planets appearing closer than they have in centuries. They were actually 450 hundred million miles apart.
Sadly we had clouds over Shropshire and couldn't see a thing! It was however possible to enjoy the spectacle over several nights around December 21 - the planets just appearing less close.
| | | New technology protecting against Covid-19 Despite legitimate concerns about possible side-effects, the speed at which vaccines are being developed and how much protection they may actually provide, no major adverse effects appear so far reported, and for the majority of people vaccination would seem to be the best step forward. We hope those of you at higher risk and keen to go ahead will get your shots as soon as possible - just hope there's not another pandemic waiting in the wings! | | | Tel: 01691 657575
email: willowgalleryoswestry.gmail.com
Website: willowgalleryoswestry.org
Facebook: Willow
Address: 56 Willow Street, Oswestry, Shropshire SY11 1AD
Gallery and Café currently closed due to the coronavirus crisis Editor: Hilary Moorcroft
January 2021 | | | | | |
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