Beatrix Potter: the reluctant tourist to Torquay wasn’t happy with the city and its surroundings

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) was an author, best known for children’s books featuring animal characters.

Beatrix was from an affluent family which had the resources to travel extensively. The Potters would leave their Kensington home for several weeks to allow their servants to tackle the spring-cleaning.

In March 1893 Beatrix visited Torquay. She wasn’t impressed:

I didn’t much want to go. I did not take to what I had seen of Torquay… I sniffed my bedroom on arrival, and for a few hours felt a certain grim satisfaction where my forebodings were maintained, but it is possible to have too much Natural History in a bed. I did not undress after the first night, but I was obliged to lie on it because there were only two chairs and one of them was broken.

Anstey’s cove was “curiously pretty but rather too much of a show place”, while St Marychurch was “a most dreary suburb”.

Then came the turn of Kent’s Hole – which we now call Kent’s Cavern:

I can imagine no more unlikely or unromantic situation for a cavern. It is in a suburb of Torquay, half way up a tangled bluff, with villas and gardens overhanging the top of a muddy orchard with some filthily dirty cows in the ravine below…

The dilapidated wooden door was flush with the bank. Outside an artificial plateau or spoil-bank of slate overgrown. A donkey-cart was encamped and the donkey grazing. The owner, a mild light-haired young man, was sawing planks. Papa enquired if there was anyone here, to which he replied with asperity ‘I am’, put on his coat and prepared to unlock the cavern. The youth hung a notice board outside the door saying that the Guide was in the cave and scrubbed out certain derisive remarks which had been scratched on the portal since the last descent.

Beatrix Potter outside Keint’s Cavern in 1893

I implored him to take a good supply of matches. There was a quantity of ginger beer in a nice cool place, also an umbrella stand. I shall not go into details about the cave, which is well described in a pamphlet, and only remark it is very easy to explore and only moderately damp. Papa got dirty enough in all conscience, slipping off a board into the sticky red clay. I was puzzled by one feature which I took to be geological, but was in fact the dripping of innumerable candles…

Remarkably, Beatrix finally found herself ever so slightly impressed:

…I who had never been in a cave was extremely interested.

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At the Liberal Democrat Arts Launch in March, which countless actors, directors, writers, producers, drama teachers, musicians and artists attended, Nick Clegg pledged not to cut arts funding. This naturally pleased his audience including the likes of Sally Philips and Richard Dawkins.

However, it is not only those in the arts industry who benefit from state support of the arts, it is local people, children and businesses, who are able to watch subsidised theatre and visit free art galleries and museums, providing appealing tourist attractions.

Since the 1980s, a number of local authorities have adopted some form of ‘percent for art’ scheme, whereby all new buildings incorporate a quota of artwork. Major new public artworks have attracted visitors and have become part of the tourist and heritage industry.

This has been demonstrated in Torbay with Anthony Gormley’s Field for the British Isles installation that last year attracted thousands to the Bay. The exhibition helped generate hundreds of thousands of pounds of visitor spend and valuable press coverage for the area.

An exhibition by the very well known Damien Hirst will be displayed in Torre Abbey later this year, having already been displayed in Venice, London, Tokyo and Oslo.

The new Damien Hirst exhibition will not only raise the Bay’s cultural profile further, but will provide a source of interesting discussion because of the controversial nature of the piece entitled Mother and Child, Divided, which won the Turner Prize in 1995.

These exhibitions put Torbay on the cultural map and provide Torbay with an exciting space for innovative contemporary art.

It is clear that cuts to arts funding would be a bad idea. If anything, the money allocated to arts should be used even more to engage the community in new and innovative ways as a source of education, creativity, tourism and new business.

But if the Lib-Con coalition is planning to cut arts funding, they have certainly hidden it well in their newly published Programme for Government. This promises to increase arts funding by reforming the National Lottery so more money goes into sport, the arts and heritage. The agreement also promises to maintain free entry to national museums and galleries, and give national museums greater freedoms, which sounds promising.

It also seems to promote local media, which has sadly diminished in recent years because of the popularity of online media. The coalition says it will enable partnerships between local newspapers, radio and television stations to promote a strong and diverse local media industry.

There is good news for pubs and charities affected by Labour’s ridiculous live music restrictions, as the Coalition Agreement promises to cut red tape to encourage the performance of more live music.

If the coalition government live up to their promises we can continue to enhance our cultural life and improve everyone’s quality of life as well as assist our way out of recession.

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What a weekend for arts (starting Saturday, June 20). The contemporary dance troupe Task Force, led by Stephan Koplowitz, begin stepping their way around the historic South Devon with their Liquid Landscapes tour. Over on arts+culture there’s a run down of the venues, plus a diary of South Devon artist Helen Snell‘s involvement with the Mayflower Steps performance. But that’s not all

At the CCANW, Hadlon Forest there’s the Skylines Festival Day today (June 20). Check out arts+culture for more. And there are animated workshops as part of Exeter Festival and in association with Animated Exeter, tomorrow (Sunday, June 21). Check out D+CFilm for more.

Also on D+CFilm, there’s a Quails music video (by filmmaker Darren Jones) to celebrate the Teignmouth band’s Turkish Tour.

(and if you’re heading north – that’s North Devon, remember North Devon Festival’s Art Trek. Arts+Culture has some behind-the-scenes insights from Stella Levy as she organises the last few days up to the event).

posted by Cptn

(image: the Primitive Hut – part of Skylines at the CCANW)

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Artists are being sought to create ‘an impressive landmark to enhance and promote the new Brixham Fish Quay redevelopment’.

If you’re interested in gaining a commission for the new public art, you should register your interest by emailing kei...@torbay.gov.uk, including details of previous work, by Wednesday, July 1.

The shortlisted applications will then be asked to put together a presentation to a steering group on Thursday, July 9, about their past work and how they’d approach this new project.

If you want to get a quick recce, the work will be on the south western wall of a new employment building next to the South West Coast Path, from Oxen Cover car park ot the inner harbour.

You’ve got until August 2010 for the whole project to be finished.

• For more, including quotes from Torbay’s deputy mayor and Brixham 21 member, visit the arts+culture site.
posted by Cptn

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Devon Eccentric Colin Shaddick (no it’s official – he came third in this year’s competition), dropped us a poetic line to explain a bit about the origins of his award-winning eccentricity. You could get more of an insight at the Salon del Eccentrica, an Eccentric evening at the Broomhill Art Hotel, Barnstaple on Thursday, June 18 at 7.30pm.

Eccentric! Who, Me?

Maybe this is how it all started?

Imagined kazoo solo.
One hooded and very blue day
when I was at a most sensitive stage,
I was struggling
to wring some temperate words

from the chilly language

that shot to-and-fro,

above my rattling head.

I decided to try out

a few investigational expressions of my own.

I needed to make my mark:

draw a line in the sand.

I waited for a fleeting lull

in the daily hubbub

that continually clanged

from the pots and pans

in the steamy kitchen.

I made my entrance

and Mother turned towards me,

her arms now motionless

and her reddened elbows quivered

just above the popping soapsuds

and waited for the off.

I smiled, and determined to show off my verbal skills,

began my tirade…

They were not well-received words.

I was not allowed to continue with my experiment.

My father hurriedly interjected

and promised he would give me a thick ear…

in a minute.

I had no memory of him giving me anything, before.

I was totally flabbergasted

when he said he’d give me something -

and so speedily too.

I so wanted him to give me something.

I then pictured myself with one thick ear…

and decided it would look quite daft.

I told him that I thought it would look daft,

but he took no notice

and he up and gave me one anyway.

But it wasn’t within the minute!

No.

He said he’d give me one…

in a minute.

It took much longer than a minute.

By the time my thick ear arrived,

a good twenty minutes or so had passed!

Can incidents like the one I’ve just described above,

have a lasting affect on a person’s life?

Time moved on and I slipped inaudibly along with it…

Then, one day it happened –

I think I said something like,

Eccentric…Eccentric!

Who, me?

I’d never given much thought to eccentricity, really…

that is until they said I was eccentric.

They, were the British Broadcasting Corporation.

An eccentric was the last thing I’d contemplated being.

After all, as far as I was concerned

it wasn’t me who was heading in the wrong direction!

Vivid pictures then began to flow through my mind:

eccentrics as mad, frizzy-haired inventors,

or mumbling white-coated professors

ensconced in leaded-light, oak-panelled lodgings …

Stereotype images like that.

So, how did I get into this situation?
I vividly remember my dad treating me like an outsider,
but my mum often said she thought I was an artist

and that poetry was the most noble art.

So, when I left school and flew the uncomfortable nest,

I knuckled-down and made a new start.

I bought myself a Moleskine notebook… in black.

The sort that all the best poets

painters and composers are said to use.

It had an elastic band to hold it tightly shut…

(for when I wasn’t ready for the muse.)

With tried and tested equipment like that

how on earth could any decent publisher refuse?

But I’d get this recurring dream.
“Oh,” I’d be saying out loud.
“If I held the post of ‘Chair of Professor of Poetry’

at a famous old university,

I’d kiss goodbye to adversity.”

I’d be repeating this phrase over and over.

But, I’d be as happy as old Larry.

What a great way

to spend each and every busy-buzzing day.

I’d just tarry… there,

reading piles of good books, (and my guitar mags)

and every so often, quietly gaze down

from my dusty old window

at the pigeons pecking and puffing themselves up

on a perfectly manicured lawn,

in the quaint and quiet quadrangle.

I’d chat to the poetry students

in a fatherly-like way.

(They have scant knowledge

about anything in the real world,

you know.)

“This is the way poetry’s done,”

I would say to each one,

then show them a selection of

my very popular

self-published pamphlets.

They would probably pipe-up and say,

“Caw that’s brilliant, that is, sir.”

Then I’d rock back on my heels

and say to them: “Off you go then.

Order yourselves some copies from Mr Jenkins,

in the lovely old library downstairs,

and give ’em a good read.

But, no cheating though.

Make up some of your own stuff.”

They would then say,

“Oh, sir, pleeease!”

Then I’d relent and say:

“Well, go on then,

but change the words about a bit.”

I’d tap out my pipe on the pitted stone window ledge

and chuckle to myself, muttering quietly:

“Huh, bloody kids, who’d ’ave ’em?”

Then I’d sing a little song.
Who drew

the very thin line

between sanity and madness? (X3)

Who drew,
who… drew… it?

‘Aren’t all eccentrics bonkers, though,

and think of nothing other than their pet subjects,

and even if they attempted to repair the most simple of things

they’d turn out to be bodgings?

‘Their heads are in the clouds.’

That’s what people say.

Then again,

I do tend to engage my brain before my mouth

and some people have to wait ages

to get an answer.

Sometimes it can be as long as…

say, a goose would take

to complete its hazardous journey south.

I don’t always mean to be rude,

but you should understand

that I like a lot of solitude.

It’s not that I’m particularly shy,

it’s just because…that’s why.

‘An eccentric slice of a British way of life’,

that’s how I was described…

and all because I wrote Japanese-type verse

called haiku.

They thought it rather strange that I sometimes compose

when I’m riding on my baiku.

They wanted me on Radio 4.

I was to talk to Clare Balding about my poetic style,

and while I was explaining it, she would interject a bit.

It was something new for their programme, Ramblings.

Ramblings is a broadcast where everything depends

on supposedly interesting folk and their amblings.

That’s how the final die was cast.

Normality, for me, had breathed its last.

I was now officially ‘Eccentric’

and the BBC had nailed me to their mast.

Whatever happens in the future

as a result of this whirl of eccentricity…

will be secondary.

But that crowning moment

at the ‘Eccentric Club’ will always remain

with me and be the best,

because it’s where I got my title:

‘The Great British Eccentric 2009.’

I’d passed their test.

It now gives me the opportunity

to get so many dark secrets off my chest.
And did you know that…

If you say the word

kazoo, backwards,

it reads, oozak?

It then sounds more

like a question:

‘Oozak?’

That’s probably why

they never called

it that.

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The weekly column from the world of Geoff Clams

Given the media tumult surrounding the Iranian presidential elections, accusations of stolen votes and an inflammatory cultural split, one might be tempted to say that, by comparison, political passions in Britain are either dying, dead or extinct.

Contrast how tepid and lazy we look next to these guys. They don’t feel that the winning ticket is representative, and so they invest their hearts and risk their lives by taking to the streets in their thousands to say so. By comparison, and after decades of being ideologically shunted between the centre and the far-right by two illusory red and blue factions, we just roll over and present our behinds and our livelihoods to whomever is brandishing the lube tube.

Granted, this wasn’t a general election and most are turned-off by Europe because, in all honesty, too few of us are truly informed enough to understand the real implications of the Lisbon Treaty as it stands. What’s more, can an economic bureaucracy like the European Parliament ever look like an arousing or alluring phenomenon? Isn’t there something else on? Can’t we all gawk at some terminally-ill celebrity undergoing chemotherapy instead?

Europe aside, this creeping voter apathy will probably gain momentum, as more and more of us resign ourselves to abject powerlessness and/or misguided protest votes. The recent MPs’ expenses debacle has certainly tickled our anger buds (evidently, it seems that the British are more prone to hate a scrounger than a war criminal/torture apologist/authoritarian creep) but the consensus is, that our ruling elite will soon roll out some new, corrective legislation and the nation’s boiling blood will inevitably cool. What a shame that would be. If we do get the election the majority of us so vehemently demand, can we even trust it to be free and fair? Will we all go back to sleep after the dust has settled and give the Tories a blank cheque mandate?

It is worth taking a retrospective look at our recent elections, now that we have the distance of hindsight. Not just for what the results tell us about the perceived rise in fascism or the death of the New Labour project or whatever else, but to examine the conduct of the polling itself. As more and more political bloggers seem to be invoking the term “Dark Arts” in their analyses of June 4, it seems that a disconcerting picture could still be emerging. Therefore, I would like to relay what happened to me the week I went to the polls.

I live in a very quiet road in Preston (Paignton), tucked away behind the Shorton Valley within a friendly and supportive community. We have many neighbors who are elderly and, who by-and-large, are passionately-engaged voters who still cling to the lifeboat ideal of democracy. It was, after all, their generation’s young men who truly fought and died for this abstract concept. Since polling day, my partner and I have had many over-the-fence conversations with our neighbours and we’ve been able to compare our recent experiences with them. If what we seem to be uncovering is a country-wide phenomenon, then ‘We The People’ are indeed entering the realms of the truly fantastical.

On Monday the 1st, I was returning from a meeting with Project Duvall out in Buckfastleigh. As I mentioned last week, they are a Devon-wide arts committee who meet every fortnight to discuss cultural projects and to lobby for potential funding. Overall, it had been a productive meeting up until my being very publicly sick again. Hence, I was feeling a bit jittery after an unpleasant and introspective drive back to Torbay.

As I pulled into my road, which is a cul-de-sac that branches off from a deathly steep hill, I forgot to drop gears and the car stalled. While fumbling with my keys in the bluish nine o’ clock twilight, I noticed an intense buzzing noise in the near distance. I couldn’t ascertain at first whether it was a far-off lawnmower or a close-by hornet, but it was indescribably high-pitched. Looking up the hill, where the local polling booth had just been erected, I noticed something no larger than a small suitcase suspended in the air and silhouetted against the bruising sky. It promptly zipped out of view with a weird serpentine confidence before I had any chance to get a lingering look. Dismissing the object as either another hallucination or an oddly-shaped night bird, I restarted my car and trundled to my driveway. As the night got thicker and followed me to bed, so too a sense of malicious, creeping dread.

In the earliest hours of the following morning, whilst I was shifting and turning in the throes of sleeplessness, the noise reappeared. Much, much louder this time. Opening my eyes, I watched a singular red dot of light centering itself on the bedroom curtains. It turned green momentarily and then back to red. I leaped from the bed and hurtled towards the window, yet, again it hurried off and the buzzing soon became distant. Elusive. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a further wink and decided to get up at around seven.

On my way back from the newsagents that very same morning, I was invited to share a cider (Al fresco) with my good, kindly neighbour Hugh, who lives at number four. Hugh is a pensioner, originally from Rotherham, who served in the RAF for thirty or so years. When he retired from the ranks, he went into local-level politics as a Conservative councillor and spent four years there before leaving to work on his garden. A great conversationalist who never beats about the proverbial bush, Hugh managed to surprise even me when, after a short, comforting summer silence and a sup of cold apple gold, he asked: “So, have you seen The Drone yet?”

“Drone?” I replied, unnerved. “What’s that then?”

“Noisy bloody camera that’s been buzzing around the streets at night,” he wheezed with the corners of his mouth downturned. “Whatever next, eh?”

“I saw it last night. Twice. It’s a camera?”

“A floating, talking camera, aye. Did you not get the leaflet? The local Police are doing a trial with it.”

“Why here? Unless of course they finally caught up with you nicking cuttings from Mrs. Frattelli’s Lobelia every summer.”

Hugh gave me the leaflet to study at home, which I did. The Drone is an unmanned CCTV camera with inbuilt facial recognition technology and sonar-based capabilities. Remarkably lightweight and agile, it is remotely accessed and controlled by the Police themselves and employs a series of tiny propulsive fans to hover about six feet from the ground. The Drone has been designed to combat anti-social behaviour, and is being trialed in six other counties up and down the land. Tossing the leaflet aside I went to my computer to write an email to the Devon and Cornwall Police Constabulary to air my concerns. I have since received a reply, effectively referring me to the IPCC. What’s the point?

Judith and I saw The Drone again that night. This time it was scanning the opposite side of the valley, hovering busily past a succession of living room windows, doing it’s red light/green light thing. Looking through walls no doubt. Perhaps not surprisingly, we both dreamed about the floating camera that night. I was so tired I slept right through.

Come Wednesday o’clock, and with the heady buzz of intimidating synthetic Police fading in our minds, we awoke to a loud and forceful knocking at the front door.

To be continued next week…

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You know how it is when all the cupboards are bare, and you’ve got so many projects you want to pursue but for a little lolly (that’s money to you). We know that feeling only too well. Well, here’s some funding opportunities that have come across our desk

Funding Stuff
Global Music Company supporting music education and encouragement
The aim of this foundation, set up by EMI records, is to support projects that encourage education, in particular for young people, in all aspects of music. Bursary (£5000) and general awards up to £2,500. www.musicsoundfoundation.com

Heritage Lottery funds: Young Roots; Townscape Heritage initiative; Your Heritage. www.hlf.org.uk

Arts Council – Grants for Arts. Activities that benefit people or that help artists and art organisations to carry out their own work. Minimum grant is likely to be £200 and the largest in the region £200,000. www.artscouncil.org.uk

Funding for skate park projects
Gravity Engineering Ltd, a manufacturer of concrete and steel skate parks, is looking to sponsor new skate park projects with donations towards funding of up to £5,000 per project: http://www.gravityparks.co.uk/

Free Website Offer for Your Partnership or Community Group
The Devon Towns Forum is offering all of Devon’s Community Partnerships and Community Groups the chance to apply for a free Website and Training Package worth over £600: info@devontownsforum.org.uk

The Co-operative Community Fund
Community groups, voluntary groups, self-help groups, community charities or local branches of national charities are eligible to apply for grants of between £100 and £2,000. www.co-operative.coop/membership/Community-Fund/

South West Loans Fund
The South West Regional Development Agency (RDA) has announced the launch of a new £10m South West Loans Fund which is now available to help growth-oriented business with viable business plans, as part of the drive for economic recovery. www.businesslink.gov.uk/southwest

Greater Dartmoor LEAF
Greater Dartmoor LEAF is a new publicly funded organisation which has been set up to identify and fund environmental and innovative projects and businesses which will increase the future prosperity of the wider community, within the Greater Dartmoor area of Devon. www.greaterdartmoorLEAF.org.uk

The Future Jobs Fund
The Future Jobs Fund is a new initiative, which will help to generate jobs for those in greatest need, particularly young people, and also in areas of high unemployment. This aims to create 150,000 jobs providing real help for young people and who face significant disadvantages in the labour market. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/futurejobsfund

The Big Lottery Fund and Channel 4s’ The Secret Millionaire have teamed up to give viewers a chance to access funding worth £1 million in grants of between £300 and £10,000. http://secretmillionaire.channel4.com/fund_info.shtml

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If you’re looking for the creative offerings that Torbay and Devon has to offer, to quote the literature, pop along to Creative Torbay’s Arts Market and Creative Happening, which takes place today (Sunday June 14) at the Palace Avenue Gardens, Paignton.

The event is free, with 20 or so stalls selling jewellery, textiles, photography, glass and ceramics, with art from the Cheltson Gallery and the Torbay ArtsBase network.

There’s a make do and mend family textile workshop with Yvonne Temple and comical magical memories from Robin Fox. Plus stilt walking, music dance and a treasure trail.

Most of the stuff is free, but check.

posted by Cptn

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Our friends in the north (that’s North Devon) are up to all kinds of crazy art antics. Powerhouse of the North Devon arts scene Stella Levy, who’s organising this year’s Art Trek, June 19-21 and June 26-28, has started a blog over on artsculture.

“The last few days have been spent sending out invitations to VIPs for the Art Trek launch at Arlington Court, Carriage Museum, next Thursday (June 18),’ she says.

Find out if she can cajole anyone to make ‘dainty’ sandwich as the blog unfolds.

posted by Cptn

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A few things over on D+CFilm have caught our eye this week, not least South West Screen’s notion that naming something after a Devon myth alienates people from up-country.

Exeter filmmaker Ashley Thorpe has funding for the latest in his Penny Dreadful series The Hairy Hands from the regional champion (that’s a reference to South West Screen, by the way), but they want to change the title to something, well, a little less Devon.

“I think they’re missing the point and the source of the appeal,” says writer, director and independent filmmaker of the year award winner, who’s recently had his films shown at Cannes, Ashley.

We say it sounds like the thin edge of the culturally homogenized wedge. Have your say over on D+CFilm.

Also on the site is a behind the scenes of the latest Ashley Wing film Robbing Peter, a darkly humorous tale from what we can gather (and a bit of a who’s who in the South Devon filmmaking scene).

Other stories include the announcement of a screenwriter talk at the Exeter Phoenix and a documentary filmmaking course as part of the Dartmoor Arts Summer School.

Got films or film stories, get in touch with D+CFilm on info@devon-cornwall-film.co.uk

posted by Cptn

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Are you talented Tenor? Dartington International Summer School is looked for one to be the dastard Pinkerton in Madam Buterfly.

The role is part of the summer school’s Advanced Opera course, which runs from August 15 to August 30. According to them it’s aninvaluable opportunity for singers on the threshold of their professional careers.

Plus there’s a 100% bursary available for this position, which includes all accommodation, food and course fees are included, plus access to concerts.

If you’re interested, you’ve got to at least prove you can carry a tune in a bucket and send a short recording and a CV to summerschool@dartington.org

posted by Cptn

For more arts stories, visit arts+culture

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Picasso, Matisse, Emin… and now, after a Saturday workshop at Plymouth Museum, add Smith to the list of people who have produced monoprints, (although unlike the list of artists before me, income from my efforts wouldn’t even cover the bus fare home).

Monoprinting is a printmaking technique which creates a one-off image.

Basically, paint is applied to a smooth surface and is then transferred to another (paper, material etc), either by hand or by press. It’s a simple technique, but one that can be used to produce a wide variety of unique images.

The monoprinting workshop is just one of the adult art activity days, ranging from papermaking to rag rugging, currently being offered by the recently revamped museum. Helen Round, who helps to develop the organisation’s programme of activities, was keen to reintroduce the days after having her enthusiasm for art encouraged by a workshop ‘many years ago’.

Helen, who is a textile artist and member of the Drawn to the Valley group of artists, led the workshop. After a quick introduction it was down to business with a sentence guaranteed to make the collective stomachs of the participants drop: ‘I’d like you to make a few sketches from the museum exhibits.’

It soon became apparent, however, that fine art drawing skills are not a prerequisite for printmaking.

After covering a sheet of plexiglass with acrylic paint we placed our sketches onto the painted sheet and traced our drawings. As well as the traditional pencil, Helen encouraged us to use our ‘other’ hand, fingers and erasers to transfer our images and achieve ‘interesting’ effects. Removing our drawings revealed a positive image on the back of paper and an inverse in the remaining paint. This was transferred, using a roller, onto a piece of paper to create another print. The variations on this technique are many – layering paint, smearing colours, adding cut-outs to the painted plexiglass for example.

After a couple of hours of experimenting with this technique we moved on to a press and printing inks. Plastic covered cardboard rollered with ink was passed thro ugh the press together with a piece of paper pre-soaked in water. The effect of the press was to spread the inks very thinly into the wet paper, allowing for multiple layering of colours and the addition of different shapes to the print through the use of stencils for example..

The final monoprint can also be used in other projects. Stitching, colouring and collaging are just a few techniques that can be added. And of course the wipes used to clean the plexiglass (which, worryingly, are primarily used to clean babies’ bottoms) can also provide inspiration for mixed-media creations as well as an interesting visual record of the day

So much of the success of a workshop is down to the facilitator. Helen was excellent – showing us the basics and encouraging us to experiment. Materials were plentiful, so it was with straining carrier bags that we left the workshop at 3:30pm.

So I guess you want to see my efforts? Miro, eat your heart out…

For further information on adult art workshops visit the Plymouth Museum site.

posted by Heather Smith

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