My first art exhibition!

From answering a community call out to seeing my watercolour on the wall

Hi all, and welcome back to rumblewrites. This is a bit of a different post from me, but it’s something worth celebrating: my artwork was recently included in a community art exhibition!

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The Things We Learned to Ignore

A few weeks after setting up my artist Instagram account, I came across a call out from Alicia Doel for a local community exhibition. She’s a final year student at the University of Essex and this was to be her first curatorial experience! I thought this was wonderful and I was immediately drawn in by the exhibition’s theme: The Things We Learned to Ignore.

I knew exactly what I wanted to paint. All Saints Church in Maldon: a place I used to walk past every week when visited my nan. Since her passing, I have only returned to Maldon twice, and have been unable to linger around this Church or walk anywhere near her street. It’s strange how a place once so familiar to us can become estranged, yet still hold such emotional weight.

I decided to use watercolours for my piece to give it that whispy, dream-like feeling I was after. I’ve always been slightly afraid of this medium, but I’d recently designed a bird-themed calendar for my partner using watercolours, so my confidence was up!

Barn owl (watercolour), Lucy Rumble (2025). My favoruite watercolour bird.

And drum roll please… here it is:

Memories of All Saints Church (watercolour), Lucy Rumble (2026).

Painted in a loose, impressionistic style, parts of the scene are intentionally unfinished. These incomplete areas echo the fragmentary nature of memory. Memories of All Saints Church is the building as I know it: vivid in my childhood memory, yet increasingly lost to me.

Nestled on the town’s busy high street, the church stands as a quiet reminder of mortality. Inspired by the exhibition theme The Things We Learned to Ignore, this artwork reflects on how death is threaded through our everyday landscapes; a constant presence, yet one which we rarely acknowledge.

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The exhibition

I found out the following week that my piece had been accepted for display. This was my first time submitting an art piece to an open call, and my first acceptance. I was so excited!

On Saturday 2nd May, all the contributing artists came together for an opening night, hosted by Artsy Image Gallery (Colchester). It was a wonderful night of reflection and celebration. Alicia had even hired a local musician to sing us through the evening.

Here I am, on at the right :)

I felt quite emotional seeing my art on the wall, especially displayed alongside the work of such talented local artists.

I felt proud, both of my artistic ability and the fact I’d decided to go for it!

But above that, I felt worthy. Like I deserved to be there. It was a good feeling.

Obligatory artist-art shot!

It was lovely to hear from Alicia, too, who did an excellent job at putting the whole exhibition together - I can’t believe it was her first time! She’s clearly a natural, and I’ll be eagerly watching to see what she does next. You can read more about her collaboration with Artsy Image Gallery in their blog post.

I’m so thankful to both Alicia and Artsy Image Gallery for their care and support throughout this process. They made it easy to get involved, and have inspired me to continue pushing myself and my art out into the world. Here’s to the next exhibition.

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Interested to see what I do next? Follow me on Instagram for art updates: @lucyrumble.makes.

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