Oliver's Guests at Rodney Matthews
in Graphite exhibition BlogRodney Matthews

Oliver's story of the Matthews in Graphite exhibition

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I had a great evening last weekend as the guest of Rodney Matthews at one of his exhibitions.

This particular one is called Matthews in Graphite and is a collection of his pencil sketches. If you have ever seen Rodney's books you will know that his work with a pencil is phenomenal and I think anyone would be just as proud to own one of his pencil sketches as one of his full colour originals.

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It was a important day for me as we had some neighbours kindly agree to look after our kids and so for the first time in over 4 years my wife came with me to a music event. She did ask me earlier in the evening what the evening was to consist of...

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I replied "Well it'll be like a chat show with Rodney and I being interviewed in front of an audience." To which she countered...

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"What? I'm getting to go out and I have to listen to you talk and not play the piano... I get enough of that at home..."

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Anyway, we arrived just in time to watch the first half of the interview in which Rodney explained his process for creating work from his pencil sketches and it was very interesting and I would've enjoyed just listening to more of that but Rodney wanted to do something different and so had asked me to come and talk in the second half about our work together on his new album and about my music history which involved Rodney.

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After a short interval during which I got to catch up with a few people, I was up on the stage answering a collection of questions which covered my interactions with Rodney over the years, my Art and Design Diploma which featured my final year project on Rodney's work, his work on the Jabberwocky album sleeve and the work we've been doing on his new album. We also talked about my projects for the upcoming year, one of which I hope to announce soon.

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We also talked about this being the 20th anniversary of my Heaven's Isle album and the performance of "Memories" I recorded on the 1st January this year and put on YouTube. Sarah, who was interviewing, then proceeded to play this YouTube video on the big screen for the audience which was very well received. (You can see the original video here.)

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I then answered a few questions before we had to head home for the babysitters.

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A very enjoyable evening was had by all and I'm grateful to Rodney and Sarah for inviting me.

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Oh, after all that, my wife did get to see me play the piano, just not live..!

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Oliver Wakeman
Jan 2017