Four Art Exhibitions in a Day

 I had a choice on Saturday - I could either go to Wye Float in Hereford (with Viking re-enactors) or I could go to Brecon.

I chose Brecon because I wanted to support Les Coveney, who was singing and playing guitar in one of the art galleries in Brecon, and because someone else I know had his photographs in another art gallery.

Also, it was the weekend of Brecon Jazz.  I've never been into Brecon during the Jazz Festival before, because I'm not overly keen on jazz, but the atmosphere was great.  The whole middle of the town was cordoned off, with food stalls and face painting and cocktails on offer.  The Brecon Tap had their bar outside, and there was a big stage set up facing the statue on the Bulwark.  There were buskers at intervals around the town centre too, as well as the indoor venues.  The Market Tavern, near the bus station, had a stage set up in their beer garden, too.

So I started off at the Ardent Gallery, where Les was playing, and admired the (mostly) landscapes there.

Then I headed to the other end of the Bulwark for the Found Gallery.  (It used to be a Chinese restaurant).  Richard Greatrex has his photographs down in the basement, and I thought they were very interesting.  I was sort of expecting, well, photographs, but what he's done is to take several images and layer them into the same picture, and the results are gorgeous.  I noticed that the five musical pictures already had a red dot next to them.

The paintings upstairs are worth seeing, too, and later in the afternoon I saw a double bass getting into position by the window as they had musicians too.

Meanwhile outside, a band was playing on the stage, the rain was pouring down, and a large crowd was still watching, and dancing, as a juggler juggled with Indian clubs and a stilt walker waved a huge Welsh flag.  I got a deep-fried vegan lunch from one of the food stalls - mini spring rolls and pakora and a few other bite sized nibbles.

Then I headed for Y Gaer, and into the Museum part for their two exhibition.  One was the paintings and engravings of David Jones, who was one of the artists at Capel-y-ffin.  I thought his engravings were similar to the style of Eric Gill, who was the really famous artist who lived at Capel-y-ffin.  David Jones was engaged for a time to Eric Gill's daughter Petra, and one of the portraits is of her.

The other exhibition room at the Museum had pictures by a range of artists who visited the area - mostly, it seems, to paint or engrave pictures of Llantony Abbey.  One of the featured artists, Reg Gammon, also did the illustrations for the 'Romany' series of nature books that accompanied the radio programme on Children's Hour in the 1930s and 40s.

Both the exhibitions are free to enter.

Meanwhile in the Market Hall, the Farmer's Market was going on, though I only managed to make it down there when they were starting to pack up and call the raffle prizes.