Where  were we? As busy as always here beneath the calm. I think we can say the Mixtape group shows of October and November went rather well, as did the Three x Three shows, positive engagement from all over the country and indeed the globe, I know I keep saying it but I do like the way these show take us out beyond the London bubble and at the same time bring artists from other places into our bubble, all about bursting those damn bubbles and connection both artists and those interested in the art we artists make.

Both Emma and I have been a little distracted by the Art Car Boot Fair and our own art over the last couple of weeks, frankly selling our own art is really the only way we keep funding Cultivate activities and our own sales are the only way we fund these online shows so do please forgive us if the eye has been off the Cultivate ball at the start of December

So yes, both the Mixtape group shows and the born again Three x Three shows went rather well in October and November, the shows are still being viewed on a daily basis, the idea of a focussed Autumn season seemed to be a positive thing. Over the next few weeks we’ll be focusing a little more on some of those artists that took part in the  recent exhibitions, running features and interviews on our sister Organ website (we do it over there because the Organ website has a ar bigger readership and a long established reputation, Organ is something that has existed in one form or another since my art student days of the last century), expect features and a little more focus on some of the artists we’ve been featuring this Autumn.  Meanwhile behind the scenes we plan for an even bigger Spring Season of online exhbitions including the next Mixtape group show (more about that later today or maybe tomorrow morning). We plan a Spring season of monthly Mixtape group shows as well as more Three X Three exhibitions and solo online shows for some of those artists who we’ve been featuring in recent group shows. Expect more from artists like Melike, Milly Aburrow, Sarah Jones, Agata Cordosa and more…

Someone asked someone about us doing everything on line now, well yes, we’re enjoying it, we’re enjoying being on line and working with artists from Blackpool or Istanbul or Sheffield or Chicago as well as artists from our home ground of East London and really, Covid and the utter lack of support from anyone as physical shows closed down as lockdown kicked in back there – we were half way through a month of shows when the first Lockdown hit us rather badly, old ground now and yes, we still do question what happened back there. The reality of the situation is we took a big hit when Lockdown kicked in, unlike lots of people, we had no support and well, enough of that.  We were actually doing the online thing well before Covid, the first online group show was back in 2017, it was always a plan to grow these shows and embrace the ideas of online exhibitions. We’ve learnt a lot, we’re 26 on-line shows in now, and each time we learn more, each time we connect with more people, we find more people wanting to engage, it feels a little more exciting than sitting in a cold East London Gallery on a Friday morning. Not that we’re done with physical shows and events,no no no!  I n nearly said real life events just then but what we’re doing now might well be far more in touch with actual real life than physical exhibitions are? They certainly are in terms of numbers and engagement.  yes, we will be back with live shows in 2023 but right now in terms of Cultivate, the plan is to focus on online exhibitions and to kick off with a series on online shows in February. How expansive these shows will be really depends on how much funding there is, whatever happens there will be a season of shows but we want to take things a lot further. To that end, expect a little bit of crowdfunding to maybe kick in, expect some exclusive art on offer as part of it, watch this space.

The plan is a series of online shows, a Spring Season stretching from February to the end of April, A monthly Mixtape show for three months, a monthly set of Three x Three shows and a programme of solo shows and online exhibitions featuring names familiar to Cultivate regulars, as well as a number of new artists we’re excited about as well as quite a few artists we haven’t discovered yet – that is one of the exciting things about these shows, the artists we discover as we search through social media, as one ‘like’ leads us to the next, that and the open calls (we love running open calls). More in a bit, we need to get going, it might be cold right now but Spring is coming, we have work to do! Keep an eye on the website for more new and for fresh open calls in the next few days… on with it all!