My experience: Dulwich Open House by Leonie

As many of you appreciate, my life as an artist is quite often filled with doing everything on my own from creating,to promoting, to selling, to problem solving, to anything and everything it often seems! It is part of what I love about being an artist but also keeps me from learning how to do things in new ways. This year I was taking part in Dulwich Open House 2009 in Bainbridge studio, which is not just a new studio for me but for all the artists there, Lucy is evolving a commercial space into studios, screen printing facilities and a gallery no less! I also was trying to create a presence of SLWA within the event. Moira Jarvis organized a group of SLWA into the lovely All Saints church on Rosendale rd, and many of the SLWA opened their studios and homes.I hope many of you saw our lovely bookmarks designed by Julie Bennett, (if anyone would like one I have some spare!) As you might expect from the open house I met and chatted to lots of interesting people, but what I learned was that I enjoyed working as part of a group doing small manageable tasks that added up to greater effect. Lucys private view was buzzing with the excitement of a new venture and the promise of a great addition to West Norwood, and I felt very proud when I heard over the weekend of how visitors had been to see a lovely church of artists up the road or had come clutching the work or fascination from a SLWA studio. As I tried to palm off another bookmark onto a visitor whose reply was they had seen more of those than the pink booklets, I felt then that SLWA had left their mark!!! Leonie Cronin