Art and crafts guild in the pink after 70 years

THE Henley Art and Crafts Guild will stage its 70th autumn exhibition next weekend.

New chairman Simon Pink will be among the exhibitors at the Old Fire Station Gallery, where two new awards will be presented for best wall art and best craft.

He will be showing some landscapes that he painted locally.

Simon, who lives in Sulham, West Berkshire, has succeeded Ann Spicer, who stepped down earlier this year.

He says: “Ann had been the chair for 10 years plus and is in her mid-eighties so she decided it was time to take things a bit easier and enjoy her life a bit more without the stress. Her husband also stepped down as treasurer.

“I will do my very best in guiding this charity forward, bringing all aspects of art and craft to everyone.

“Art should be fun, inspiring and a great way of meeting like-minded people. We’re trying to get people that are more hobbyist, or a bit shy, to get out there and start creating.

“It’s really good for your mental health and we do lots of workshops each month. Members pay £20 and workshops vary from painting a (clothed) model to making a lampshade, lino printing, card making and techniques in oil painting or watercolour.”

Other exhibitors will include Kerry Webb, who is a librarian at the University of Reading and paints in her spare time.

She graduated with a degree in English literature and art in Chichester in the Nineties.

Kerry, from Tilehurst, says: “I mainly focused on sculpture with a bit of painting but subsequently life got in the way. Then 20 years on, I was coming out of cancer treatment during lockdown in August 2020 and I needed something to distract me, so I dug out my easel and my paints from the back of the garage. I haven’t looked back since.”

Working in oil and acrylics, she paints landscapes.

“I like ruins, follies and towers,” says Kerry. “I like the mark that we make on the landscape and the fact that the landscape absorbs them over time. In lockdown, none of us could go anywhere but I had hundreds of photographs of places that I love. I thought, ‘Well, I can’t go there, I’ll paint them’. At least I could pretend I was looking at the sea, even if I was stuck in a garage in Tilehurst.

“This year I’ve actually gone slightly off-piste and done a lot of memorials and stone angels. One of the pieces I’m putting in the exhibition is of a stone angel at St Nicholas’s Church in Remenham.”

Another exhibitor is textile artist Valerie Powell, who used to run a needlework business in Henley but now concentrates on painting.

She says: “I was trained in design for printed textiles and fine art, mainly oil painting, and I seem to be moving more into decorative wall art. I’m working on a big commission, a diptych which is two large vertical panels with seahorses on.

“The guild is featuring a similar panel, called Sea Dragons. It’s in deep crimson grey with variegated gold leaf background. I’ve put that in as well as a small oil sketch of the River Thames at Wargrave.

“I lost my husband immediately before lockdown and when lockdown came, I couldn’t get out, so thank god for painting — it kept me sane.

“I’m a great fan of the actor Mackenzie Crook and during that time I did a portrait of him. I gave it to him for his 50th birthday and I got a lovely letter back. He was over the moon with the painting, so I was really chuffed. I think Mackenzie’s wonderful. He’s an extremely talented artist but he doesn’t tell anybody that as he’s very shy. In the last year there have been all these comedians who have professed to be doing art and painting and they’re all terrible. Mackenzie has got more talent in his little finger.”

The praise from the actor encouraged her to paint a portrait of her late husband which she had been avoiding due to her grief.

Valerie said: “I hadn’t done a portrait since art school 60 years ago but I was quite pleased with it.”

Jewellery maker Ros Hatt will also be exhibiting.

She was a mature student when she discovered a passion for working with sterling silver in the Noughties.

Ros, who is also from Tilehurst, says: “A friend suggested we did an adult education class at Maiden Erlegh School, so I went along and I was hooked straight away.

“It was a lovely, friendly, chatty group run by a professional jeweller called Cathy Newell Price. You’d learn things and make mistakes so our favourite phrase was ‘organic jewellery’, i.e., we’d aim to make something and it would go horribly wrong so we’d turn it into something else.

“I had a little insulated studio built at the back of my garage, so I have a dedicated space to use.

“I typically start with either a sheet of silver, which you can get as thin or thick, or bits of wire and create things. What inspires me is texture because it makes the light show off more from the jewellery.”

She uses a range of techniques, including a fretsaw, hammer, acid and heat to create special effects. She particularly likes the results of reticulation, where the silver is repeatedly heated, bringing the pure silver to the surface to create random reliefs.

Ros will be showcasing a serpent cross necklace pendant at the exhibition.

She says: “A friend of mine was living in the Middle East and her friend had been to Jordan and seen the Brazen Serpent sculpture at Mount Nebo. My friend asked me to make something for this friend as they loved it so much. I’ve made several but none of them is the same as I hand-make all my items.”

• The Henley Art and Crafts Guild’s autumn exhibition is at the Old Fire Station Gallery from
Friday to Tuesday, October 6 to 10 from 10am to 4pm daily. There will be a private view on Friday from 6pm to 8pm, when people can have a glass of wine with the artists. For more information, visit
henley-art-crafts-guild.org