Waveney & Blyth Arts

Creatively connecting people with place along the Norfolk/Suffolk border

Accessibility Tools

You are here: Home / Blog

Blog

New area rep, Lisa Henshall

By

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.

Looking Out, a new column from nature writer Melinda Appleby

By

 

 

I watch snow fall

so small it is no

more than dust

and when it touches

is barely felt

scattering

on blades of grass

it melts and disappears

 

The beginning of February marks the ‘turning of the light’, the point in the calendar when warmth begins to return to the earth. The land is still sleeping, seeds of new life buried under a barren landscape. We are at the half way point between winter solstice and spring equinox, a date celebrated in the Celtic calendar as Imbolc and in the Christian calendar as Candlemas. It is a day when we celebrate new life waiting to return.

I take advantage of a still frosty day and walk up to the wood.  A mauve smoke of blackthorn curves along the ditch and the treelines are bones against the sky. I have been thinking about sound and our experience of it. In winter, wildlife sounds carry through the cold air. The woodland acts as an amplifier, seeming to bounce and echo noise within. Bird calls are crisp and bright, matching the weather. Sound recordist, Geoff Sample, in a talk to Waveney & Blyth Arts, told us that after the winter solstice the increasing light triggers bird song and that the great tit is often the first bird to sing.

The garden may be bleak, the grass crossed by frost blackened paths, the earth puddled down and lifeless, last year’s plants lying like brown shadows across the borders, but there are beacons of hope. By the front door yellow globes of aconites shine with snowdrops, Candlemas Bells.

 

small points of white light

shine beneath the hornbeam

like stars at night-time

 

In these dark days we might look to the skies for hope. Pin pricks of light shine in the night-time sky. The stars hold stories that go back to the earliest days of man. The Seven Sisters, the cluster of stars known as The Pleiades, feature in prehistoric cave paintings. Without the glare of human lights, which can be seen from space illuminating the globe, the night sky must have offered a deeply mystical and fascinating spectacle. Even now, if we can find a horizon away from artificial light we gaze in awe at the worlds spinning light years away from us.

How much we can see is calculated every year by the Countryside Charity, CPRE, whose star count maps record the stars seen within the constellation of Orion. Between 6 and 14 February 2021 look south into the night sky, find the Orion constellation with its four corners and ‘belt’ of three bright stars, then count the number of stars you can see within the rectangle formed by the four corner stars.

More info and sign up here

The stars offer our creative minds an opportunity for poetry, song, photography and artwork. And that feeling of awe when we gaze at the night sky can help with our happiness and well-being.

Beccles and Ahlem, twinned ‘Views of our Towns’

By

A virtual art exhibition, Views of our Towns, will be hosted in the spring by Beccles twin town of Petit-Couronne who have already started work on their virtual Gallery

The exhibition will include separate gallery rooms for Beccles and Ahlem in Germany, which twinned with Petit-Couronne in 1967. Making this a truly international exhibition, and an opportunity for virtual ‘visitors’ to explore each town from a distance through the medium of Art.

Beccles Twinning Association is now asking people to send them photographs of their artwork, paintings, drawings, prints etc as well as sculptures and ceramics, representing the Town.  Photographs as an art form will not be considered as this is not a photographic exhibition. They will also need to send the name of the artist, the title of the artwork, its dimensions and the date it was completed. Up to 2 pieces per artist will be displayed at any one time to ensure that visitors to the gallery can see a variety of work and styles. Photographs and expressions of interest should be emailed by the 29th March

This is a great opportunity to showcase some of the new and creative talent that has emerged in Beccles and district during Lockdown, although works created earlier and which represent the town are also welcomed.

For 3 dimensional objects, 3 photographs will be needed, (taken from the front, side and top at an angle of 30 degrees).

Helen Derbyshire

By

My work is about is about the textures and mood of the landscape around me – focusing sometimes on the details of vegetation and sometimes on evoking a sense of the season, of space, light and weather.

I draw and use digital photography, almost always in combination with experimental textile and mixed media approaches.

I work in series – responding to particular places, often the beautiful Waveney Valley landscape local to me, and exploring the possibilities of new techniques.

Instagram

 

Kay Barker

By

I try to communicate a sense of atmosphere by capturing the motion of the sea, the tranquility of the land, and the texture of the rocks.

I let my work develop and take over from my initial direct reaction.

The elements of the environment are not only beautiful, calm but vast, complex and dangerous. This relationship between fear and tranquility are emotions I can identify with.

Engaging with nature has helped me to overcome my recent surgery to remove a brain tumour. I admire and appreciate more so now the beauty found in an individual leaf or a spectacular view.

Website

Maria Clarke-Wilson

By

A mixed media and natural resources artist creating a selection of contact botanical prints and paintings using the plants gathered from around Suffolk.

The art work is a calm and gentle visual experience that allows the natural marks and colours from nature to connect you to the natural world.

Finding sanctuary in nature and seeking deeper connections with the landscape, I have immersed myself in researching and discovering the potential of natural colours and prints from my environment. Following a path that led to completing an MA at NUA I have continued to work exploring my locality through mindful practice.

Each print or painting is a result of a unique process, from gathering materials on long walks, to preparing the fabrics, dye baths and paints. Embracing the serendipity of creating this way allows for the materials to become their own part of the collaboration. I am able to guide the process but ultimately the outcomes are unknown until they are revealed. Each leaf, fabric or colour used has a journey attached to it, to create with these natural resources adds a deeper connection to the art.

Making my own paint brushes and paints, or using some recycled fabrics, feels different to painting with shop bought brushes and canvases. Seeking the beauty in natural resources and awakening ancient practices in our contemporary world is the way I feel drawn to express my art and my love for nature.

Website

Email

Instagram

Facebook

Surinder Warboys – Myglassroom

By

I am a Suffolk based artist working in architectural stained glass: light and colour are my medium.

Most of my work is commission based for secular and non-secular buildings. In some commissions, in agreement with the client, I enjoy taking an experimental approach to painting on glass, allowing for an element of surprise and discovery.

I also offer stained glass courses at my studio – Myglassroom in Mellis. There is a personal element running through my work, that is not commission based, in which themes of environment are explored and completed pieces can be displayed in numerous ways and places.

Website

World Land Trust

By

World Land Trust (WLT) is an international conservation charity that protects the world’s most biologically significant and threatened habitats acre by acre. Through a network of partner organisations around the world, WLT funds the creation of reserves and provides permanent protection for habitats and wildlife. Partnerships are developed with established and highly respected local organisations who engage support and commitment among the local community.

www.worldlandtrust.org

Waveney Heritage CIO

By

We collect and make accessible documents, photographs, oral histories and many other materials which record the history in all its forms of the River Waveney, its peoples, villages, and towns.

We support learning and the acquisition of useful skills and encourage social participation by people of different ages and backgrounds by inviting them to talks and exhibitions. We welcome volunteers, encouraging them to make use of their talents to enhance both our joint experience and their own.

We are based at the Old School, Grove Road,  Brockdish and are grateful to the Diocese of Norwich, the owners, who have allowed us to continue the tradition of learning and self-advancement envisaged by the founders of the school in 1845.

Waveney Heritage CIO is a registered charity

​Our trustees and helpers are all volunteers

We are a Community Archives and Heritage Group

Website

 

MENU