Not eating my HAT just yet
On surviving — and loving — my first Henley Arts Trail, and what's in store for year two.
Our merry band of exhibitors · HAT 2025 · Photo © Elise Humphrey (@eliseshootsfood)
As I write this, there's about a fortnight to go until this year's edition of the Henley Arts Trail. It will be the Trail's 20th year… and my second. Last year I was incredibly privileged to show my art at the River and Rowing Museum (which has, sadly, since closed) — and I had no idea how lucky I'd been.
I wasn't sure I was up to displaying my work amongst that of "real" artists, let alone daring to ask people to buy any of it. Yet there I was, unusually super-organised, extraordinarily nervous, and feeling, well, not a little proud, but actually really rather proud of myself for pulling together a fairly decent display.
Talking with people who are genuinely interested in you as an artist, and in the work that you create, is probably the biggest bonus of the Arts Trail.
And I even sold some work!! In fact I was so excited by my first sale, I couldn't work out how to use the payment portal and nearly caused my very first paying customer to miss his train.
By the next day, I was well into my stride. Talking with people who are genuinely interested in you as an artist, and in the work that you create, is probably the biggest bonus of the Arts Trail, and one which I hadn't anticipated at all. But now I'm hooked.
Another plus is the chance to meet with and mingle with your fellow artists and makers. They were humans like me! Who knew? Certainly not me, at least not until I'd spent three days in the company of nine others, avidly listening to their advice and friendly words of wisdom — and realising that this was a world I'd been denying myself for far, far too long.
At my exhibition wall · HAT 2025 · Photo by Marina Randall
The next day I had what I could only describe as HAT-lag: a sense that I'd been somewhere in a different time zone and place entirely, but one to which I knew in my heart that I'd have to keep returning forever more.
So now to 2026. This year I'm a venue leader (get me!!) at Twyford's The Porcelain Pig (venue 33), which is new to the trail — like the other three artists who are exhibiting alongside me. There'll be two ceramicists (Melissa Jolly and Sandy J) and jeweller Nikki Louise — and I'll be the one who knows the ropes!
Come and say hello
Private View — Thursday 1st May, 6–10pm · The Porcelain Pig, Twyford (venue 33)
Open weekend — Saturday 2nd – Monday 4th May · 10am–5pm
There'll be new work, friendly faces, and tea from the café. I can promise I'll have figured out the payment portal by then. Probably.
