Hello!

Well the shop is shut, barn sold, house bought, builders in.... I'll be going across the square as soon as I have a roof! I have managed to squeeze a painting studio and a sewing room into the house so happily I will still be able to work at home. Thinking of getting a little dog so I will walk every day. Am hoping (weather permitting) to be in very soon. It will be great.

Hello all of you! Well, it's still all change but after much soul searching I have decided to stay in St Just - I love it too much to leave.  There was exactly one house I can afford after paying off the mortgage, so it wasn't a hard choice, I am moving across the road!

I'm closing the shop at the end of August, but we will be renting the living space from our buyer until next Easter, to give me chance to make the house nice, and to get rid of all my STUFF!!! This is a drastic downsize, it serves me right for envying the minimalist way of life... Wonder how long it'll last!!!!

So - the websites will have checkouts, and all the lovely bag ladies can buy their new bags online.

I'll keep you all posted....

Well hello. Been busy painting and making bags again... We now have a firm buyer for this place and expect to be going over to Brittany again in August to choose a house! Hurray! The great thing is that we can rent the upstairs living accommodation here until Easter so we can move gradually, closing the shop at the end of the summer and going internet only, something that I have been wanting to do since the economy nosedived. Fingers crossed that the workshops we want to buy in Huelgoat are still available. It's a building like this one only block built not granite, it needs new windows etc but would make a great pottery/sewing workshop/gallery. Sue Dove and I have an exhibition at the Schoolhouse Gallery Morvah, a couple of miles around the coast from here, we hang it on Saturday 4th July so my paintings have gone to the framer's and I'm just finishing a few little ones off. Have coaxed the printer into doing some top quality prints of the big paintings so it'll be interesting to see what the response is, not having shown my work anywhere for well over 20 years.  Gulp. Not nervous at all.....!!Will blog again when I see what happens.....

Well here we are in Spring - the sun is shining and it's lovelier than the last two summers!
I have spent some time making a new website for Smart Tart - www.smarttart.co.uk as I have an advert coming out in Vogue magazine next week (well, they asked, it seemed rude to say no!!) and my ancient website was looking a bit tired, and not as user friendly as it used to be due to me messing about with it too much... So I now have severe computer fatigue and will spend a few days making bags to try and get over it! Or maybe a bit of painting...
We've put the for sale sign out on the Barn now so watch this space for any moving news!

Hello again!
Do you ever feel like you are living in the twilight zone?  I was checking out the other websites called www.karensgallery and there are only two, the dot com site is lovely, and as you would expect, owned by a painter called Karen, but - spooky - she is also called Karen Arthur!! What are the odds against that happening?

We just came back from a lovely weekend in Brittany, visiting my favourite town, Huelgoat. I will be doing some painting about the dramatic scenery there. It's a wonderful place, we are hoping that St Just will be twinning with Huelgoat soon so we will have many excuses to visit... they are very keen on the arts and crafts there, they could teach our "powers that be" a thing or two about nurturing talent and creativity....