Heather Hookey.”  Observer Building – 1 ” 12 – 17 Aug in AF1.

Heather asks “How is it that such an iconic building in the centre of Hastings is being allowed to decay?….(it) becomes more fragile… eventually it will be declared a danger to the public, allowing the authorities to demolish it”  

Dates for your diary….

Fri. 20  Aug .  PV  in AF1.  Taster exhibition for Forum members taking part  in Coastal Currents(and also privately). Curated by Geraldine Wheeler.

Fri 27 Aug. PV in AF2. “ Art and Science to a degree” ( Peter Andow and Sid Beynon)

Thu 2 Sep. 7 for 7.45. SLOS Film Soc – new season opens with “Lebanon” –An Israeli soldier has doubts about being in Lebanon. Set in a tank.

Fri 3 Sep. 6.30 – 8.30. Private views for Cathryn Kemp (AF1) and George

Robertson.

Thu 9 Sep. 6.30 – 8.30. Hastings Humanists meet in AF1.

Stop Press… 

Sid Beynon. Sid was operated on in Eastbourne Hospital on Fri 13 Aug and had part of his intestine removed. He is now recovering, but is expected to be in hospital for some three weeks.

One piece of light relief was when Sid regained consciousness – he could not work out where he was and thought he was hanging a show for Alastair Fairley!!!

Sid’s friends hope to ensure his exhibition with Peter Andow,( who is out of the country on a planned visit ) goes ahead as scheduled. We are considering ways of how Sid can participate in the presentation of his exhibition through a live link. Our hopes are that those attending his private view will also be able to wish him well on a live link, but first we need to clarify several issues, particularly hospital policy and technical feasibility.

Meanwhile for those who wish, we have a large A3 board for members to write a message or draw an image.

Seeking five artists!!  “Conflicts in Time.”

 ***Last week for submitting your entry***

We are still seeking five artists to take part in an LSE ( Dept of Anthropology ) sponsored exhibition, “Conflicts in time”  in March 2011. Submissions close on 20 August. The exhibition is in support of an inter- university project looking into the conflicts of time across the continents. Is ‘time‘ a man made strait-jacket?. If you can contribute to such an exhibition, whether as a painter, ceramicist, sculptor, poet, musician, writer or other, please set down your ideas and send them to Dr Laura Bear at  L.Bear@lse.ac.uk.

Gallery costs and private view will be met by the LSE.

A fuller version of the LSE letter appears at the bottom of this bulletin.

Lynn Painter – Stainers Prize. This prize is awarded to encourage creative representational painting and promote the skill of the draughtsman. First prize is £15,000 and five runner-up prizes of £1,000. Deadline for entries is 20 Sep (London). Entry forms at www.parkerharrisco.uk/downloads

Member Discounts.

Brookers, Norman road, SLOS – 10%.

Expressions, Kings Road, SLOS – 10%

Relax Café / Restaurant , Marina SLOS – 10% on a meal

Imagen – Gallery and Framers, 20 Claremont. – 10%

Public Liability Insurance. Brian Rybolt  tells us that if you have a subscription to Artist Newsletter, you are covered for ten million under their AIR policy for public liability.  The subscription rate is around £30-40.00 per year (?).

A comment is also made on the Hastings Creatives discussion groups (formerly H_C_M_C ) by Michael Hambridge of Hastings BC, that the Insurer “Zurich” has launched a new insurance policy aimed at small, local charities and community groups. The firm has partnered with the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA) to provide a policy, which includes liability cover up to £10 million. In order to qualify, organisations must have a turnover of less than £5,000 and no paid employees. To read more on this story go to:

http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/finance/news/content/7069/low-cost_insurance_for_local_charities_launched
It says:
“The policy will provide comprehensive liability cover for a wide range of activities with a limit of up to £10m, and will be available for less than £10 a month or as little as £75 a year.”

Showing Now…

Heather Hookey in AF1. 12 – 17 Aug.  

A long time ago I was a librarian, then a hotelier, then a civil servant. When I retired I joyfully studied Fine Art at Hastings College of Art and Technology, completing the Foundation course followed by HNC and HND.

I get fairly obsessive about painting and drawing but also enjoy sporadic gardening.

Joan  Roche in AF2, 12 – 24 Aug.

Joan Roche is a painter based in St Leonards-on-Sea. She  came to London from Dublin in 1965 to study Fine Art and received her MA in 1978 from the Royal Academy Schools.

She maintained strong connections with the Schools’ alumni whilst combining her art practise with a career as senior lecturer in Fine Art between 1990 and 2010. This relationship with the Academy is sustained through attending weekly drawing sessions in the famed circular studio, an engagement deeply influencing her development.

© Joan Roche.

Working within the tradition of landscape painting, Joan works in a studio on the sea front in Marine Court, the apartment block above this gallery. The view from this ‘ocean liner’ charts the continuous flux of the sea’s surface; a vast plane of energy. The atmospherics complement a long-standing fascination with hydro-optics and natural light. Predominantly working in oil based media experimenting with brush, montage and print techniques, she draws directly from the environment that the town of St Leonard’s overlooks.

She has shown work in a number of exhibitions in the U.K. and internationally including the R.A Summer Shows, the Centro Modigliana Florence and Poly Nation in New Delhi. Other awards include the Landseer Landscape Prize and the Royal Overseas League where she was presented to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. She is represented in notable collections worldwide in the Middle East, Australia and California.

Forum at the Azur (AF3).  Brij Sharma, Chris Thomas, Jeremy Ebdon, John Plummer and Katherine Reekie. Also  see Mike Williams wood sculpture on the terrace balcony, made from mahogany, beech and oak inspired by William Blake’s “falling forms”.

Coming up…

Taster, Coastal Currents in AF, 19–31 Aug. Curated by Geraldine Wheeler.

The Forum Taster is for Forum members who wish to open their studios to the public whether as part of Coastal Currents or by special arrangement.

©  Lynda Turner and published in the Bexhill edition of the ‘Observer’.     Iain Johnston working on “Medusa”. Iain is taking part in the ‘Taster’ ,      19 – 31 Aug.

Sid Beynon and Peter Andow in AF2. “Art and Science to a Degree”. 26 Aug – 7 Sep.  Artist statements below.

Peter Andow

I do not have a formal art education. I left school at 17.

In 1972 I traveled overland on the Hippie Trail to Australia and back, armed with a Kodak Instamatic.

I have been a traveller all my life and I enjoy all aspects of photography..

In 1999, I became a student at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff and left with a degree in Environmental Risk Management. It was during my time at Cardiff that I met Sid Beynon, who introduced me to the world of art. I was privileged to work with Sid on several installations dealing with the environment.

Since moving to Hastings, Sid and I have started working together again, resulting in this exhibition., “Art and Science to a Degree”.

         ©Peter Andow. Llanspydidd

Sid Beynon

I was born and bred in Hastings.. I was sent to school at West St Leonards Infants and Primary School and the Grove School for Boys. I unofficially left school aged 12 ( officially aged 14). My total qualifications on leaving school were width, length, 100 yards and quarter mile swimming. Certificates.

Never having lifted a pen or brush in my life I returned to education through a foundation course in art and design in 1998, followed by a BA Fine Arts course graduating with 2 (1) honours.in 2003.

I am now a volunteer with the Hastings Arts Forum, where among my many duties, I have found a passion for curating and presenting exhibitions.

The main body of my fine art practice is making site-specific art of an ephemeral nature – photography being a medium much used to both document and display work in a gallery setting.

                          © Sid Beynon. “Wilma”. Print of an image on the beach.

Cathryn Kemp in AF1, 2 – 14 Sep 

George Robertson  in AF2 , 9 – 14 Sep.

David Reeve in AF1, 16 – 28 Sep

“Best of  Degree”, (Craft Show  curated by Alastair Knight) 16 – 28 Sep

Members’ Announcements…

 

Felipe Hewitt posts : I am a 58 year-old former life guard in Bermuda and in Brighton, now an experienced artists’ and hairdresser’s model. I am a Charles Laughton lookalike. References available.  Tel: 01273 275955.

Anna Casson posts :  I am a Life and portrait model. Tel; 7791794103

FILM

St Leonards Film Society. SLOS Film Soc is on holiday in August.

The next film is showing in AF1 on Thursday 2 September @ 7 for 7.45. “Lebanon”. About the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The film schedule for September and November will be posted in next week’s bulletin.

MUSIC

Nancy Cooley posts. Calling all parents!!!! A new creative music course for children kicks off with a summer holiday course this August in the Reading Room, 12 Claremont in Hastings town centre. 16 – 21 August www.enchantedlark.co.uk

11 Sep @ 7.30 “Don Giovanni”. St Mary-in-the-castle. This staged production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is adapted from the Longborough Festival production, which received great reviews in the national press. It promises to tremendous value for money for opera aficionados. It is produced by Jenny Miller with young singers from the Music Colleges (ie to-morrow’s professionals). Very affordable at £12.00 (£8 student concessions )

Conflicts in Time: exhibition collaboration between Department of  Anthropology, London School of Economics and Hastings Arts Forum 

Call for Artists 

We would like to collaborate with up to 5 artists in an exhibition at HAF and in a one-day creative workshop, also at the HAF, with 6 anthropologists. The theme can be addressed through visual, spoken word or musical mediums. 

The interpretation of the theme, Conflicts in Time, can be wide-ranging and should grow out of the individual artist’s interests.

As anthropologists we seek to understand current changes in experiences of time, related to economic uncertainty, social change and urban environments. We work in India, China, the UK and Africa on  themes of heritage, planning, social revolution and global workplaces. Because of this work we are interested in how people experience and represent the past, present and future. We particularly want to explore the following broad issues. 

1. How do people sense multiple rhythms of time?

 How do we sense the rhythms of money, nature, social relationships and our own limited life-span in everyday life? How do we navigate our own lack of control of these rhythms and our own impermanence in the world? 

1. How do we experience conflicts between these rhythms? 

When in our daily life various pacings of time meet in contradictory ways how do we negotiate these conflicts? 

1. How do representations emerge from contradictory experiences of time? 

What representations of time surround us? How do these simplified images of time attempt to compensate for, or express, contradictions in experience/ How do works of art act to create permanence in flux or to reflect on the ephemeral nature of human life?

  How do people imagine and represent the long-term cycles of time that transcend a single life-course? 

We are affected by long-term rhythms in the natural world and society that we attempt to discuss and act in relation to. But how do we make these rhythms present to ourselves? How do works of art reflect on these long-term cycles? 

1. The social consequences of representations of time 

     2.     What social conflicts and social consequences emerge from representations of time?  How can social change emerge from reflective representations of time? 

We are interested in a collaboration with artists because visual, spoken and musical mediums can express and mediate between conflicting rhythms of time in a way that the written word cannot. Therefore we would like to extend the scope of our reflections by engaging with these more experimental and subtle forms of expression.

Artists should email Dr Laura Bear at  L.Bear@lse.ac.uk sending a statement, and any appropriate images, outlining how they would wish to convey, in  their chosen medium, their concerns and thoughts about any of the issues outlined above. Proposals should reach Laura by Friday 20 August and she and another curator from HAF will then consider the proposals and get back to artists by the middle of September. The normal HAF gallery costs for the exhibition which will take place from Wednesday 16 – Wednesday 30 March 2011 will be covered by the LSE.