“drawn” exhibition at the RWA

Blimey!

It was perhaps appropriate that daughter Ruth accompanied me to last night’s private view at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) as she was the person who effectively got me drawing again on a regular basis - as the instigator of the Iona Postcard Project last May/June (note: we’d invited great friends Ros+Eric from Thame for the weekend, so Moira was otherwise engaged).
I decided to enter a piece comprising eighteen café drawings from my sketchbook for the RWA’s “Drawn” exhibition and it's all been a bit of a roller-coaster. Ruth’s husband Stu kindly delivered the framed work last Friday 15 March (while we were on holiday); judging took place on Sunday; a couple of days later, I was notified that it had been accepted; and last night was the private view!
I was delighted to have been included amongst the 201 works from 156 artists (over 700 pieces were submitted) and was rendered almost speechless when I found that someone had actually bought it!! As if this wasn’t enough, I later discovered that I’d even been mentioned in the RWA’s press release (“Steve Broadway's work Cafe Mornings: sketchbook extracts shows quiet observations of cafe scenes drawn in black pen, embodying the lines of an architect but through the eyes of an artist”)!
The exhibition runs from today, 23 March, until 2 June.
I appreciate that all this is of minor significance when compared with artists who do this sort of thing week after week but, for me, it’s been a new and very pleasant experience!   
Photo: the evidence – my picture and the red dot!
PS: When I went to check who had purchased my drawing, the woman leading the front of house team congratulated me (as far as I could tell there had had only been one other piece sold at the time!) and said: “Steve, you used to be a teacher at Norton Hill School didn’t you?”!! She (Rose) had apparently been a student during my time there (even if I didn’t actually “teach”)… I hadn’t recognised her, but it was a lovely coincidence and very nice that she’d remembered me. 
Note: I’d also submitted my “Postcards from Iona” piece but, unfortunately, this hadn’t been selected. Shame!