And on to the gallery wall went this year’s daffodil painting, all opened up and ready for the first night of Fool’s Gold – the 2012 flower has emerged. Last night someone told me it made her feel very emotional, that it reminded her, for some strange reason, of her childhood, I asked her if she had been brought up in Wales, and indeed she had. Growing a daffodil every year wss a big thing for a kid growing up in Wales, everyone had to do it, everyone wanted to, everyone in the class had a bulb to plant and a flower pot with their name tag on, all kept in the dark until the first hint of spring, sneaking a look to see if your one had broken through in search of light, every year a new infant school daffodil…

Last night’s opening was a friendly relaxed enjoyable event, lots of good people, good conversation and a busy busy set of walls – lots to explore, that’s the way we like it at Cultivate. Lots of photos on the gallery website or indeed on the Facebook pages if you prefer (this is my own art website/blog thing, so please forgive me for not posting photos of the other work from other people, we have done on other websites, gallery pages and such. And it is as enjoyable showing other people’s work as it is showing mine, well probably more so, showing your own work isn’t really enjoyable, introducing new artists to new people is – cross pollinating, mixing things up, street artist over there in the corner with his painted cans, contemporary colour thrower up on that wall… We had something like 24 artists sharing the room last night (and for the next two weeks should you feel like coming down the street and having a look), the challenge is to pull it together as one united whole in one space, some don’t like it so busy, some want it more formal, ours is not a formal space, it is a space for daffodils to break through next to the painted cans and the planks of wood and the big canvas colours. I wouldn’t treat every gallery space like this, but this messy little room demands this kind of energy, this is not a polite formal art space… it is the right place for this year’s daffodil

Infants school daffodil growing was always one of the things I most enjoyed from these early days of education, rather pleased the girl from Wales found something of that in the painting, a daffodil must be painted early in spring every year…