Story of an Exhibition

As we reported in our last edition, in March Marianne Pryor exhibited some of her beautiful photographs at the Figaro café bar in Rethymnon Old Town. For Marianne it was the first time that she had hosted a public exhibition. Here she gives us her impressions of what the experience was like. Marianne writes: ‘It had been a slow build-up since the idea first came to me: months if not years of tentative thoughts and discussions. For some time, friends and family had been encouraging me to go public with my photographs, but, for me, the big question was, would anyone else be interested in seeing them? Wasn’t it a bit presumptuous on my part? After all, I’m not a trained photographer lugging round an expensive SLR camera and myriad lenses. I felt that I was just someone who had spent her life, on and off, having fun snapping away. It was true that in recent years I’d noticed the emergence of what could be called a style, a certain way of seeing, but from there to putting on an exhibition seemed a big leap.

In the last year, though, I became aware that more and more of my photographs were giving me little thrills of pleasure and I started to think that maybe that was something I could share. And eventually I decided to go for it!

I knew that the Figaro café in the Old Town held exhibitions, and it seemed like a good place to start. Gathering all my courage, I went to talk to Tassos (one of the two Tassos’ who manage the place – apparently they used to be three!) who said, “Yes, no problem; when do you want to do it?” As simple as that! And no charge for the space, no commission on sales – almost too good to be true! “We just like to support local artists,” Tassos told me.

So we fixed the dates, and from there it was all go: getting the prints made, mounted and framed and posters and fliers designed, printed and distributed.

The exhibition space at the Figaro is upstairs from the main bar area. It’s fairly small but pleasant, with a good atmosphere. The only major drawback is the lighting which is no good for pictures framed under glass: the lamps are all situated just above head height, which means that the reflections are infuriatingly obtrusive. But there’s something about not looking a gift horse in the mouth…

The other thing that needs to be taken into account is that, for security as well as sales purposes, the exhibition needs to be staffed. In that case, that meant that I sat there with a mini library of good books and endless supplies of sudoku puzzles every day for most of the opening hours (10am – 8pm). There were some long periods of waiting for visitors but it was worth it, not only to sell a few prints but also to get feedback from the public. After all my initial hesitations, it was heart-warming to receive enthusiastic and positive responses. This exhibition idea turned out not to be so presumptuous after all! Note from the editor: Here at the Bugle we really enjoyed your exhibition and are looking forward to your next one!

Rethymnon CIC Excursion: Pictures from Spinalonga

The editor generally likes to be ‘jolly jolly’ when reporting on trips out and about on this most wonderful island. And our trip to the East on the 28th March, was, all by all an extremely joyous occasion. Many thanks to Albert, Stella and Stavros for giving us such a wonderful day out. We were shown some wonderful sights - including the marvellous frescoes at Kritsa church. We saw some lovely views too, and lunch was a whole heap of fun with great company (the editor just loved her big fish!). And then of course we had the trip to Spinalonga - the former leper colony set on a beautiful island in a beautiful sea. A tragic and moving place that helps to give one pause to think about the nature of humanity. A very meaningful day.