Means and ends

Cheltenham's Meantime has tried to shine a light into the artistic future during the past seven or so years. Now that light has gone out, following tonight's closing party: for it, more than 50 artists who had worked at Meantime contributed pieces to a final show.

All strength to Sarah Bowden's elbow as she strives to find some new outlet for her considerable energies! This most versatile of upper rooms is destined to become someone's living space, no doubt, in the redevelopment.

HFA

"HFA" stands for "Hadfield Fine Art", which was unknown to me till yesterday, when we tumbled upon its Autumn Exhibition.

We had been visiting Caroline's brother, to wish him a happy birthday (and to admire the work they have been doing on their house restoration). I vaguely knew that there was an art exhibition on nearby, so we sought it out: round and round the parish of Sevenhampton we drove - stopping to admire an incongruous paddock full of rheas (see photograph) as we went along Gassons - when eventually we came across the HFA sign only a door or two from where we had started.

The gallery was once a indoor swimming pool: it is big enough to show off well the work of 14 contemporary artists (potters as well as painters). The paintings are principally landscapes, still lives and abstract subjects, very varied. Caroline (the expert on this sort of thing) thought the work was of pretty uniformly high quality. And I agreed.

If you want to see the show, hurry: it finishes on 12th. Though the Gallery is open at other times, you need to ring for an appontment save during the exhibition at weekends between 10 and 5: see their website for details. (We arrived late in the evening, without an appointment, but we realised quickly that that wasn't really fair.)

Besides the high quality displays, it's worth visiting HFA just to see the view across the infant River Coln towards Brockhampton Quarry: one of the best in the Cotswolds.

Spain and Swindon

Four years ago, we were on holiday in Asturias, staying with Caroline's cousin Lizzie. She drove us up into the mountains one memorable day, to the village of Villabre, which modern life seemed to have passed by. There we picked our way amongst clogs and cats and chickens, and between ancient farm buildings, and I photographed this cobwebbed window, which I have always taken to be reminiscent of a Ben Nicholson. For his birthday last week, we gave Tim a framed, blown up version: the postman brought a lovely Timmish thank you letter this morning.

After receiving which I took a train to Swindon for lunch and a walk round Coate Water with my friend Jeremy Rigden: as there was time before the train back, I visited Swindon Art Gallery, and marvelled at its collection - not numerous, but significant - of Modern British (and later) artists.

And there I saw a real Ben Nicholson, which of course bears no resemblance whatever to my photograph. (Perhaps Tim was more on the button in his letter, joking "Eat your heart out Rothko.")

Art and recession

This is "stodgy" Cheltenham House (Pevsner's description), in Clarence Street, Cheltenham. "Offices to let" signs are up; and despite it being mid-afternoon of a weekday (today), no traffic is to be seen along this, the Cheltenham inner ring road. Yes, we are in a recession.

Built in 1972 for the HQ of what was then the Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society, Cheltenham House cruelly conceals the town's only mediaeval building, the neglected and not-at-all-stodgy St Mary's Church. Barbara Hepworth's sculpture Theme and Variations, attached to Cheltenham House, provides some compensation for this: it is Cheltenham's most prestigious (though hardly most conspicuous) piece of public art.

The C&G left Cheltenham for Barnwood, near Gloucester, abour two decades ago, since when parts of Cheltenham House seem to have been more or less continuously vacant. What hope is there now, therefore, that someone will ring DTZ to say "Yes please, I would like to become your new office tenant," as the advertising boards invite us to do?

Actually, I feel that Pevsner is a bit hard on Cheltenham House: I rather like the building's gentle curve, its ashlar facing and copper-coloured window trim: it's just in the wrong place. And those five hideous posters completely overpower Theme and Variations.

And so does recession compromise art. It puts artists and craftsmen out of work: commissions are stalled, even cancelled. There is less ready money to ensure great works of art - particularly historic buildings - can be adequately maintained. Craftsmen builders, picture restorers, musicians all find their skills untreasured.

The paradox is that recession brings unemployment, meaning more time for those who, having lost mindless but well-paid jobs, seek to develop hidden talents by creating new works of art, notwithstanding there may be no present market for it. And doesn't hardship so often bring out the best?