With the past couple of years having the COVID-19 pandemic lead to most of the public events being cancelled, it was great to have a summer season of fly-ins and vintage rallys blossoming once again. This is the first year I have taken the aviation art to shows, and I must admit to be somewhat novice at that area of outdoor trading. It was with great gratitude then that at this year's Middlezoy Southwest Vintage Aerofest fellow traders helped when the wind caught some of the easels and paintings whilst I was nowhere to be found. Naturally, I was skipping about the airfield chatting with air and ground crew and gawking at incoming aircraft and classic cars whilst this was going on.
Lesson learned - invest in a commercial-grade weather-proof gazebo for next time.
To be honest, I'm always happier to just let the art do the talking and more often than not, my commissions do come directly off of the airfield through talking with pilots about painting their aircraft. On the rare incidences I'm actually manning my post, a loved-one of a pilot may ask about a painting as a gift, or somebody with an RAF or Fleet Air Arm background may spot a military painting on the stall and this leads to some fascinating chats about their flying adventures, and maybe a military commission if I'm lucky.
So once again - my apologies if you were trying to find me at the Aerofest to chat about the paintings, but I blame Middlezoy Aerodrome for staffing and inviting too many interesting people, planes and vehicles. On that note, my old VW Scirocco GTX got to spend the weekend in good company with the classic cars, parked up next to a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow amongst others.
Thank you Middlezoy Aerodrome for moving my stall into the hangar where the paintings were much happier, and thank you too for being so accomodating to all the traders.
Despite some iffy weather at times, there were a lot of smiles to be seen as folks took in the sights and smells (and tastes - awesome prize winning burgers) to be had, with something of interest around every corner of the large site. Hope to back there over the summer to talk with the chaps about their exciting Percival Provost restoration to flight project. More of that in a future blog no doubt.
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