Forget September: April is the cruellest month.

Spring is here and nearly gone and then the rain comes. And you’re left inside, itching to get out, knowing that the Easter Bank Holiday isn’t quite going to be the ice-cream and man-mules extravaganza on Brighton Beach that you had planned.

BUT…. the rain hasn’t affected us at the Blue Rim Gallery. We’ve been busier than a Whistler, putting together the final touches on our new website (this very one, in fact…).

This last few months have been so very exciting, and this is the cherry on top. The art blogosphere is genuinely fantastic (one of our favourites is artmarketblog.com) - but we think there’s also a genuine black hole when it comes to the online dealership of fine prints. For sure, buying art isn’t quite like buying truffles, or spandex (not sure why those examples popped into my head…), but we think that the web has now developed enough to enable one to form the sort of relationship between collector and dealer that has been the bedrock of the art business for hundreds years . We’re definitely looking forward to making lots of new connections.

The print collecting community is a really great one. It’s a privilege to be a part of it and a privilege to serve it. None of the excitement of the last few months would have been possible were it not for the collectors who have put their faith in us, and with whom we have worked on dealing some truly wonderful art.

And, say it softly, but is it too much to suggest that printmaking is the probably the future of fine art? Rembrandt admubrated it two hundred years ago (stretching it, I know, but…). Hokusai had it licked in metro-Japan. Now, more than ever, we have more means to produce variegated forms of recursive, copyable art. Now, more than ever, the study, sale and discussion of prints and printmaking must take on a new, modern/post-modern dimension. Now, more than ever… I’m going to stop NOW before I start getting all Obama on you…

Certainly, this is the first page in a new chapter in the life of the Blue Rim Gallery. It is a time of great change in the world and a great change in the print community. I hope you’ll stick around and join in the fun.

Ash