It is that time of year again, and the Open Eye Gallery opens its 2024 Small Scale show.

Selected artists are invited to submit works in any medium, unframed, with the only restriction limiting the dimensions to 15 x 21 cm, the classic ‘postcard’ size.

Small pictures usually reasonably priced. Lots of good ones from good artists.

Below:
Left: Nestled off the Loch by Megan Burns, Acrylic on board, 15x21cm [link]
Right: Full Moon Afternoon by James Tweedie RGI, Acrylic on card, 15x21cm [link]

Below:
Left: Patience by Clare Mackie, Acrylic on canvas, 15x21cm [link].
Right: A Squirrel for Mary by Tracey Johnston, Acrylic on board. 15x21cm [link].

Most of the paintings are priced £200 to £600 but there are one or two priced much higher. I'm not sure why. Have a look and see what you think. The show is online only.

Across Realtime
By Vernor Vinge

This is the omnibus edition containing the novels "The Peace War" and "Marooned in Realtime".

Warning: perhaps minor spoilers.

The Peace War

What price would you pay for peace? What would it cost you? And what about costs to society? These are some of the things Vinge considers in his 1984 novel "The Peace War".

In the book, peace is imposed through a "Peace Authority", a world-wide government that has a monopoly on a powerful weapon: a weapon that can enforce and isolate threats, small or large. Through this, they keep society at a "safer", lower level of technological sophistication. The USA and other sovereign states do not exist anymore.

The weapon is a "bobble": an impenetrable force-field bubble around a space (and it turns out, a time). This can be used to completely isolate and neutralise a threat, whether people or missiles.

There is a resistance of course: a mix of clans, tribes, gangs and technology devotees Vinge called "tinkerers": or tinkers. The novel describes how the ungoverned and tinkers fight back against the "Peacers". Vinge is obvious about where his sympathies lie but he give the Peace Authority its due as well.

I thought this was a great adventure novel. Exciting and full of good extrapolations of the new technologies coming online in the 1990's and early 2000's.

Marooned in Realtime

In the sequel, Vinge shows us a consequence of having such "bobbling" capability. The story is sets millions of years in the future: because (in effect) these things act as a one-way time machine. This book is a murder mystery story and quite different to the first novel. I found it just as enjoyable though.

Vinge, who died earlier this year, had an abiding interest in and sympathy with the quest for knowledge and scientific progress. A Professor of Maths and Computer Science at San Diego State University in California, in many ways he epitomised the Californian techno-optimism of the 1980's and 1990's. The era of the early internet, the birth of the Electronic Freedom Foundation and magazines like Wired (founded 1991). I definitely sympathised with this vision, and still do, even though it can seem naive today and has been overtaken by the reality of the modern world (and everything this entails). We are less optimistic about technology today, sadly.

Science-fiction is a great genre for exploring all the different ways science and technology can change the world, and ourselves. I like Vinge's books: this is the second time I've read these novels. I liked them before and this time I think I liked them even more. If you're in the right mood for a book then it makes all the difference. I am sure I'll come back to them in the future again.

Chocky
By John Wyndham

John Wyndham's 1963 novella (it's a slight book) is about a twelve year old boy, Matthew, who has a friend he talks to: however, this conversation is only inside his head. The friend is called Chocky.

Not completely unusual in a child (the imaginary friend) but Chocky is unusual. Leaving aside the indeterminate sex (Matthew settles on "she"), Chocky asks some very strange questions, such as why are there two sexes? "She" also has some very odd views of the world. Matthew's parents become very concerned but are not sure what to do exactly. In situations like this, you can do a lot of harm trying to do the right thing.

This is a short read but a good one. The family (two parents and two children) are perfectly normal other than the fact of this strange unwanted interloper to Matthew's head. This is a long way from a story of a "demon" child or one of "possession" and it is all the better for that. Another worthwhile Wyndham read.

Do pet owners look like the pets they own? There are two paintings in this show by Alice McMurrough that would seem to point this way.

The show is an exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery (show now closed) of works by Alice McMurrough and Neil MacDonald, husband and wife. I've admired their work separately so it was great to see a roomful of the two side by side (they're married, something I didn't know).

Both are a bit surreal and dreamlike. McMurrough being more heavily infused with the surreal end of the dream spectrum. Quite odd with both human and human-like animals often taking part on her stage. Macdonald is a bit more restrained and paints the Scottish landscape, not necessarily using a straight-edge for buildings. I like both artists a lot. I am sure they both get tired of being described as "quirky".

Right: Moon Shadows, St Clemet's, Rodel, Neil Macdonald, oil, 38x44.cm

Right: Together as One, Alice McMurrough, oil, 30x30cm

The show closed on November 16th but you can see the paintings and read more at the gallery site.

The Mall Galleries are hosting the 2024 exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. A big selection of some great painting, big and small. I am always inspired by work I see here. If you can, a visit is best: you can't beat seeing a painting in real life. But online is good enough for me. I love big mixed shows like this.

Right: Coffee Followed by Beer by Rob Burton, oil, 23x17cm [link]

I like the "painterly" aspect to this. Really captures the dark and warm atmosphere.

Right: Unravelling by Felicity Starr, oil, 18x13cm [link]

Some beautiful works, some very small. This painting is a case in point and shows that even the most mundane subjects can be worth capturing in paint.

Many more pictures at the Mall Galleries web site.

A Room with a View
By E. M. Forster

E. M. Forster's 1908 novel is a completely different book to the last one I read. It is full of human emotion and human relationships.

Set in the early 1900's, Lucy Honeychurch is on holiday in Florence, chaperoned by her cousin Miss Barnett. They meet the Emersons, father and son, who give up their own rooms because they have a view, which the women had been promised. From there, it becomes a story of the boy's attraction to the girl and if this is reciprocated. It is a familiar enough story (girl meets boy etc.) but written well and told in a very witty way. There is plenty of good old-fashioned class based prejudice of course, but overcome in the end. Oddly, it is clear that tourism was a bit of an affliction even back in the 19th Century. Forster would be speechless at the sort of things that go on now.

Beautifully written and sharp, my one main fault would be with the older Mr Emerson's speech at the end to Lucy, explaining his son's predicament. It was a little too flowery and overwrought to be natural. Other than that, a book I thoroughly enjoyed. The Merchant/Ivory film adaptation is also supposed to be good.