Crowborough Arts

Crowborough Arts supports the arts, and arts practitioners in our area.

During the current COVID-19 outbreak, like so many other organisations, we have had to suspend our programme for the time being. However, we've decided to use this website to keep in touch, and to create a space for use as a showcase for our members' work. So we're inviting you to contribute - perhaps a new painting or photograph you'd like to share, a poem - your own or one you think might strike a chord at this time - or perhaps a short story. We'll also be including the latest news about CA's planned activities for later in the year, for example, Open Studios.

Please do get in touch if you'd like to contribute. The page will take shape over time, but please email Gaye with your suggestions and ideas. In particular, if you'd like to be featured as an artist, with a picture of you or your work, and would be willing to give a short telephone interview, we'd love to hear from you.

Now see what we've put together so far, and make sure to scroll all the way down!

Inspired by Art

Over the past six weeks or so, Christine Roberts has been running 'Inspired by Art', an online course designed to inspire the reading and writing of poetry as a response to the visual arts. Now, drawing to a close, the course has proved challenging and fruitful for participants and a debrief via Zoom is planned for the end of May. Christine has written an article about her course which is available in our archive (click here). Barbara Murray has gone one step further than most, in responding to her own painting 'Waiting for Bats' (left), and her poem is below. All the poems and paintings are available here and it's well worth taking a few minutes to enjoy what has been produced.

'Waiting for Bats' by Barbara Murray

'Bats''by Barbara Murray
Watching an Indian dusk
while sipping illegal beer
particularly cold on this balmy evening.

Velvet air envelopes distant hills
Darkness falling
The only sound a child’s voice
calling across the water.

All at once a disturbance of vision
Bats!
Ducking and diving after
unfortunate insects
at alarming speed.
And now heading straight for us.

Our calm disrupted,
unable to move,
we sit transfixed as they dart.
The fear of a collision and
small claws becoming entangled
in the hair is intense.

The memory of echolocation however,
comes to our rescue.
Calm is restored and
eventually, leaving the bats,
we retreat inside
hair intact.

Decorative Face Mask Competition

Angela models her own creation!

CA Chair Angela Vernon Bates says: "Throw your creative energy into this unusual competition - you don't have to draw or paint, just let your imagination soar! Make a simple face-mask (click here for details) - it only takes a few minutes!"

This mask is for decoration so it doesn’t need to be germ proof but can be if you prefer and you can decorate it in any way you like, though please don't use bought masks - the NHS need all they can get.

Take a photo of you or someone else wearing the mask and send to Gaye -gaye.jee@clara.co.uk. She will put them on the website for us all to see. - There will be a virtual prize for the winner. Closing date 1st June.

Take the Painting Challenge!

Mary Harris, who facilitated our life and portrait sessions for many years, has shared an idea for a series of art projects first suggested by Ros Plumley at RTW Art Society.

Part 1 was a challenge to paint a scene of your choosing in your kitchen, BUT only use art materials that are from the back of your cupboard, gathering dust, that you haven’t used for years. You can repeat the same picture using your favoured medium if you like.

Part 2 is to produce a picture in a Surrealist style, in any medium or subject. Think lobster telephone, inflated lips ... let your imagination run wild! Mary has done just that, with her 'Tangle in Trafalgar Square'!

Please photograph and send pictures to Mary: m.h.harris@hotmail.co.uk

We will allow a fortnight for each challenge, before giving you the next one, and submitted pictures will be featured on the CA Home Page.

Caroline Hobbs sent in this lovely view of her kitchen window

Tangle in Trafalgar Square by Mary Harris

Everyone Likes a Project

Elizabeth Wood (L) and Christine Roberts have collaborated to set up art projects which they then both interpret. See previous weeks here. Week 5: Christine writes, "Elizabeth had two flat felt pouches that she was given on a long haul flight to New Zealand. Inspired by various
bits of fabrics I had we decided to embellish them with a Japanese theme."

We think this is a brilliant idea to stimulate creativity while we're all cooped up - why not give a friend a call and give it a go?

Paintings from the Lockdown

This stunning painting is by Jeannette Towey. She writes: "I recently finished this painting of the lake in the Country Park. I walked there with the dog at the beginning of the lockdown and was struck by the reflections and the somewhat numinous quality of the place - as if some faerie creature might peek out from behind a tree!"

Erica Adams has sent us this lovely, colourful watercolour. She says: "I hadn't heard of the artist Shirley Trevena until a couple of months ago and I find I love her work and am now trying to create a few watercolours in her style - a completely different method from my usual."

Rewind ...

We're getting so many contributions, we've set up an archive for earlier items. Click here!

Zoom in on Peter Medhurst

Many CA members will remember the fascinating and entertaining lecture, 'The Sound of Paint', presented by music historian, Peter Medhurst. Peter has been in touch to tell us he has put some of his lectures online via Zoom. He kicked off on 18th May, with 'The Genius of Beethoven' (to be repeated on 22nd May), and on 21st May, 'Music at the Court of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I'. Click here to go to his website where you can find more details of these and future lectures.

CA People: Todd & Todd

Barbara and Justin Todd have been great supporters of CA since the early years and are familiar faces at most of our events. Both practising artists, we asked them to tell us a little more about themselves.

Barbara writes: We have both spent the last 62 years living in a world of all things creative, on Justin’s part as an illustrator, very well known for his amazing powers of imagination and exquisite technique. He has an enormous body of work under his belt, ranging from History books, Science Fiction, Children’s books, to magazines like Men Only!

His first commission was for a large mural for Morley College, London; the subject: The Canterbury Tales. Recently restored, it looks as fresh and bright as it was sixty years ago. Always working at home, he took on one day-a-week teaching at Brighton College of Art which kept him sane and in touch with the outside world.

Justin is best known for his interpretation of Children’s Classics and won Prizes for his versions of the two Alices and his delightful Wind in the Willows. He had two major Exhibitions at the National Theatre, one for his Book covers, very collectable, and one covering all the original artwork for his many children’s books. The University of Brighton gave him a large retrospective exhibition on his retirement from teaching. Now in his late eighties, he continues to produce charming and amusing paintings which have a narrative quality but can stand alone as Fine Art. They have the exquisite finish of his illustrations, but now he can choose his own subject.

My own career took a very different direction. Realising that it would not be easy to make a living as a Fine Artist, I turned to teaching and spent 38 years teaching Art & Design, the last 30 years as Head of Art at Wimbledon High School. I taught Fine Art and History of Art up to A level, supporting the latter with regular trips to Italy: not for the faint-hearted, but a good time for all!

Other activities which came with the job were designing sets and costumes for drama productions and organising outings to London Galleries for the whole school – a very busy life, which left little time for my own work. Despite this, I found the students very stimulating and felt they taught me as much as I taught them!

When I finally retired, I began to develop my own work, so long neglected, and have struggled to persevere with this to date. This can be a mixture of frustration and satisfaction, (sometimes), but always interesting. So, every day is a working day for both of us; apart from friends, holidays etc, what else is there to do?

Booklovers Update

As physical meetings are not possible at the moment, members have been meeting via Zoom, Click here for the latest titles and to find out what they thought!