Waveney & Blyth Arts

Creatively connecting people with place along the Norfolk/Suffolk border

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New area reps, Lisa Henshall and Chris Reeve

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Lisa Henshall is area rep for Harleston along with Nicky Stainton.

I’m an artist and a teacher and I run a pop-up gallery in Harleston.  As a massive fan of WBA,  I’m really excited to help promote and explore the opportunities in and around my local area.

My background is a traditional art school background, I studied Fine Art at Loughborough University and then Art Education at Cambridge University and I’ve painted and taught art since the late 90s in a variety of settings.

Sharing and promoting creativity is fundamental to my life and I see representing and supporting W&BA as an extension of this.  Thank you for this fantastic opportunity.

Chris Reeve is area rep for Bungay along with Ann Woolston.

I’m delighted to be asked to join the committee of W&BA, having been involved with the Guided Walks in the summer months for a number of years, and thoroughly enjoyed organising them.

My career has been as a Museum Curator, and for twelve years I was Keeper of Art  for St. Edmundsbury Borough Council. I took early retirement in 2000, and settled in Bungay taking a part-time role as Community Project Officer with Waveney District Council and then the Lowestoft Community Forum. This got me involved with many local groups assisting them with grant funding applications, and getting intergrated  into the welcoming, and vibrant ethos of our warm-hearted town.

 

 

 

 

 

Laina West, This Fearful Thing 

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A new novel has just been published detailing the little-known story of Ann Camell of Southwold, who, in 1645 was accused of bewitching a sailor, William Whitton.

‘This Fearful Thing’ by Reydon author L M West is extensively researched and tells the sometimes harrowing story of a woman accused of witchcraft, not once, but three times and her fight to survive. Ann was the wife of Thomas Camell, whose family once owned what is now Sutherland House in Southwold High Street and the novel is set very much in Southwold and the surrounding landscape as it may have been 400 years ago.

The cover has been designed by local printmaker and illustrator Sandy Horsley.

‘This Fearful Thing’ is now available on Amazon as a paperback at £8.99 and Kindle version at £2.99 and also from Southwold Books, Aldeburgh Bookshop, Beccles Books and Browsers Books, Woodbridge and there is lots more information at www.lmwestwriter.co.uk

A song and dance about Young People

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The Seagull, has launched a programme of practical dance and song workshops for young people interested in musical theatre. The JukeBox Musicals workshops will run on Sundays from 13th June for 5 weeks and are open to young people from the ages of 12 – 24. These free workshops will run from 11.30 to 1.30 for four Sundays, with the fifth session being a performance where the young people can show off what they have learned. The free to attend course will be run by professional choreographer, Imogen Osborn and professional musician Francesca Warren, both of whom have masses of professional experience. We are particularly happy that Francesca will be joining us on her days off from working with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Company !

This is the latest in a series of wonderful opportunities for young people in Lowestoft to get involved with theatre, music and dance. There will be further workshops running throughout the summer and autumn and all of them are fully funded to allow for free participation.

The Seagull operates a number of free and subsidised opportunities for young people to explore music as part of the Origins Project. They have recently held successful zoom workshops for young people wanting to get into composition and choreography, and are now preparing to run their first set of in-person workshops! The Origins project has been designed to try and address the lack of opportunities for expression and creativity which the last year of pandemic has brought. Being locked down and separated from groups has left many young people feeling isolated and alone, the Seagull wants to address that with opportunities to get involved and express yourself using music and dance.

More here 

Harleston’s Link to the Mayflower

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400 years ago the merchant ship Mayflower left Plymouth carrying 102 passengers, a mix of merchant adventurers and religious separatists seeking a Promised Land, to start a new life in America. Amongst them were two brothers from Harleston, Thomas and Samuel Fuller, and this connection has led to an 18-month project to research and bring to life their amazing story.

On SATURDAY 10 JULY a free LIVING-HISTORY EVENT will take place around Harleston Town Centre between 11am – 12.30pm. Actors will bring to life Harleston residents who lived during the early 17th century, including Thomas and Samuel’s elder brother, the local gentry and the town’s brush with the Plague in 1626. At 12.45 there will be a procession around the town centre.

On SATURDAY 17 & SUNDAY 18 JULY at 2.30pm and 7pm there will be outdoor performances of 1620: A NEW WORLD ODYSSEY, a new play about the Fuller brothers and the extraordinary story of the settlers. On Harleston Recreation Ground IP20 9DD. Tickets: Adults £9, 10-18 years £4, under 10s free available from Robinson’s Traditional Stationers and www.harlestonplayers.co.uk.

Supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Norfolk County Council, South Norfolk Council and Redenhall with Harleston Town Council.

New workshops at Mill Street Etching Studio

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Two new print workshops are coming soon to Mill Street Etching Studio in the Summer.  

Thursday 19 &  Friday 20 August which will be run by Fine Artist and Printmaker, Catherine Greenwood who has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in printmaking. On 19 August ‘Looking through the eyes of Whistler’ through hard and soft ground including contemporary and traditional techniques and on 20 August the second workshop will be ‘Sketch book to Plate’ inspired by a circular walk around Darsham Marshes and will include Aquatint with Sugar Lift.

Catherine Greenwood (b. Beckenham 1968) studied at Camberwell School of Art, KIAD and gained an MA at the University of Maine, USA, returning to UK in 1998 to set up her own studio and was a Fellow until 2020 at City & Guilds set up by Jason Hicklin & Norman Ackroyd. Catherine currently teaches Etching and Creative Printmaking at Putney School of Art, London.
Numbers are limited to three places for each day!

Alternatively if you are a practising printmaker and want to start on an edition or work on a current plate, please email to book an induction prior to using the printmaking studios.

Please email direct for more information and to book your place, enquiries@millstreetetchingstudio.co.uk

Two new books from Poppyland Publishing

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Poppyland has two new books to whet your appetite for Norfolk history.

How Norwich Fought the Plague: Lessons from the Past is
Frank Meeres’ exploration of plague in the city in time past. His close examination of the surviving records shows that the ways in which the city aldermen tried to contain outbreaks in the past do not differ that much from today’s pandemic—isolation, lockdown, shielding, movement restrictions and the closure of places where people might gather were all employed.

At only £9.95, it provides an excellent example of how history repeats itself.

Pauper, Prisoner, Patient and Parent in Victorian Norfolk, by Harriet Kettle, looks at the grittier sides of life in Victorian times through the story of a girl who became a rebel against authority. With the death of her mother and her father transported to Australia, Harriet grew up in the workhouse. When older she became a sex worker in Norwich. Getting into trouble she was imprisoned several times before being diagnosed with ‘moral insanity’. Spending periods in both the Norfolk County Lunatic Asylum and Bethlem Hospital in London, she eventually settled down in Toftwood. Disputes let to her assaulting the local schoolmistress and taking her neighbours to court. A survivor, in old age, she died where she had been brought up, in the workhouse.
Priced at £10.95, the book provides a salutary reminder of how hard it was for those without much when judged by the attitudes of their day.

Both are available at Poppyland Publishing

The Yare Gallery

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New member The Yare Gallery, located on South Quay in Great Yarmouth, opened to the public on 29th May 2021.
This beautiful, light-filled and atmospheric three floor Grade II listed building with walled garden was once the home of parliamentarian Sir George England in the 17th century and now begins a new chapter as a setting for local and international art.

The opening exhibition celebrates the work of over 20 artists currently active in East Anglia, showcasing their work across painting, sculpture, textiles and ceramics.

WEATHERING: NEW ART FROM EAST ANGLIA, featuring the work of the Yarmouth 5, artists Katarzyna Coleman, Bridget Heriz, John Kiki, Emrys Parry and Brüer Tidman plus works by other artists from across the region.

Curator Sarah Lowndes has chosen the title WEATHERING to reflect the way that the terrain and climatic conditions of East Anglia influence work made here, but also to acknowledge the resilience of artists who work in the region, ranging from those who have been active for many decades to newly emerging practitioners.

Opening hours: 29th May – 10th July, Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 4pm
Admission: Free
More information: www.yare.org.uk

Looking Out, June

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June has arrived and with it warm sunshine. Combined with the inch of rain we had here towards the end of May there is a great green growing. I return from a walk waist high in cow parsley and knee high in grasses. I stood for some time listening to the turtle dove – its call a slow purr that gives a sense of drowsiness and contentment. I last saw a pair in my garden in 2013 and that territory now seems to be vacated so I walk up to the village where they still return to a four acre field tumbled down to scrub.

Turtle doves are migratory returning here each summer to breed. They like tall trees and weedy ground and their diet is mostly fumitory, black medick, red and white clover, common vetch, birds foot trefoil and redshank. All of those grow in my garden which has a tendency to be wild!

By June many of our resident birds are keeping a low profile, busy nesting and feeding young. Usually their absence is less obvious as the skies are full of swifts and swallows. But not this year. A pair of swallows returned to the barn but there are only four swifts here. And still no house martins. The skies might be brilliant blue but they are empty.

Instead I take solace from the butterflies. It has been a good year for the Orange Tip, which has been a regular visitor, feeding on garlic mustard and lady’s smock. I have also seen an early influx of Painted Ladies, a few Holly Blue, Peacock, Red Admiral, Comma and yesterday the first Speckled Wood. Some of the butterflies are resident but others migrate, most notably the Painted Ladies which arrive from Morocco – it seems an amazing journey for such a delicate looking, tissue paper thing.

With longer days it is time to sit and ponder and watch nature at its most abundant. I have been absorbed by the new pond, which is still finding its balance, the plants still settling and growing. Peering into the murky depths I watch the manic behaviour of water boatman as they rest for a few seconds upside down under the skin of the water and then row frantically across the pond to a new position. More elegant are the diving beetles which surface for a bubble of air and descend again. The least attractive is a small pale grub-like wriggling creature with a long spiny tail. It is a rat tailed maggot – yes even its name is unattractive – but it is the larva of the hoverfly which is an important pollinator. Everything has its place and we are too often drawn only to the charismatic wildlife.

One thing I am trying, this first week of June, is to keep a nature journal so I was encouraged  to find it is Nature Journaling Week – which has lots of ideas and inspiration.

The 21st of June is the summer solstice – the longest day with the sun rising earliest and setting latest – a great time to get to know moths, dragonflies, crickets, grasshoppers, beetles and all our other amazing minibeasts!

And start a journal.

Melinda Appleby June 2021

Buskers at Sculpture in the Valley

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We’ve had some lovely buskers at Sculpture in the Valley this year.

Opening with Lovely Boy on 28 May, and this weekend we saw Los Perroflautas and The Kitchen Band below.

 

MUSIC EVENTS

We are pleased to announce that we have a selection of the best local music talent performing for you outside the Yurt Café on a ‘busking’ basis.  Listening is free (applause is permitted!) and donations “in the hat” are much appreciated.  The Line-Up is as follows:

Wednesday 16 – Sizewell Gap – members of this famous local Ceilidh Band will perform a rollicking set from about 2pm.

Sunday 20 – Matt Shepherd – singer/songwriter somewhere in the spectrum between Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell – performs his own material from 10am.

Thursday 24 – Heartbeat – women’s choral group singing beautiful harmonies to delight the ear – from about 1pm.

Saturday 26 – Ambientstra who, as the name suggests, play improvised ambient music – from around mid-day.

Sunday 27 – Zarama – jazz-tinged tunes from around mid-day on the FINAL day of this year’s Sculpture in the Valley!

OTHER EVENTS – DANCING, WALKING, LISTENING, LEARNING AND DEBATING!

PLEASE BOOK ONLINE in advance at waveneyandblytharts.com so that we know whether the events are viable (we will contact you in advance and refund payments in case of cancelation).  Meet outside our Reception Marquee.

Thursday 17 – ‘Curator’s Walk’ with David Baldry – A walk around our Sculpture Trail in the company of the man who selected the works displayed.  David will say something about the artists involved and their intentions in producing the works that you see – there’s plenty of scope for vigorous debate! – from 2.30 to 4.30pm – £10 / £8 (for W&BA members) BOOK HERE

Saturday 19 – ‘Follow the Trail and Tell the Tale’ with members of the Suffolk Poetry Society – Join the poets who have been inspired by the sculptures to write and read their personal reflections in situ.  Come with them on the journey, listen to what they have to tell and offer your own responses to their poetry and the installations that inspired them – all in the intimacy of a small and interested group of fellow explorers!  It’s FREE but please use the link to the W&BA booking site so that we know that you intend to come.  BOOK HERE

(For information about the Suffolk Poetry Society go to https://suffolkpoetrysociety.org/ )

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