Catherine MacDiarmid is growing in artistic stature, breaking new ground and painting with such magnitude - no more apparent than in the Kendalian artist's Tuer le Temps (Killing Time), her latest success landing her the first Brewery Open Award and a neat £500 cheque.

Last Saturday, Catherine took her bows at the Open Award preview night combined with the Kendal Windows on Art awards evening in the new look Brewery Arts Centre's Warehouse Gallery - as top notch these days as the artwork it displays.

Lively and varied, Kendal Windows on Art was yet another success.

Those in the frame included Flowers by Arrangement, on Library Road, near Marks and Spencer, which won The Westmorland Gazette best window award.

Close on the florist's heels were runners-up Granary Collectables, on Allhallows Lane, and Anne Irving, on Stramongate.

Karen Lloyd received the Sturt family award for most noteworthy artwork with her embroidered textile Down to Earth, with runners-up Michael Hipkins and Richard Light.

Kendal's Queen Katherine School student Kitty Blair won the student category; The Lakes School's Rachel Hayton and Jenna Hargreaves, from Ulverston Victoria High School, were runners-up.

Following the awards ceremony, KWoA artistic director Carole Hamby told me the exhibition around the main streets of Kendal had been highly praised with the highest standard of work yet: "It is also good that the KWoA Farm Project goes from strength to strength!

"The programme of lectures and workshops was well attended on the whole and, again, I think it is safe to say that the approach taken, which allowed for collaboration with the Romney Society, was valued and enjoyed."

Now in its fifth year, I noted a definite KWoA 'windows spirit' - obvious in people such as the Brewery's visual arts officer Trevor Avery; the teachers who I chatted to while they were hanging the school art exhibition; the many artists; and Peter Blaskett, who is holding the Romney Repro exhibition at his Kirkland arthouse (Signature) until October 5, tied in with KWoA as part of the Romney bi-centenary celebrations.

The awards night signalled the conclusion of KWoA 2002 but, hopefully, heralded a new era involving the Brewery.

And with the fresh excitement that director Sam Mason and his team have injected into the Kendal arts centre, who knows what Carole and co will create next on their journey towards fulfilling a vision of a Kendal Windows on Art festival.