VOLUNTEERING PROJECTS 2019

THE SUSI BEALE MEMORIAL AWARD

We at are delighted to see the outcome of the first Susi Beale Memorial Young Arts Award. The A3 books provide a showcase of the wonderfully creative work produced by the Year 8 students at The Weald School in Billingshurst. The books and the displays around the school, demonstrated how poetry can be used as a stimulus for creating visual art work. Rachel Long, poet and founder of Octavia, the poetry collective for women of colour, led six workshops exploring the students’ identity through poetry, based around their names. Having written some very personal poetry, the students went on to explore artists, images and text in order to create their self- portraits. The result is a collection of stunning portraits along with unique verse, which represent their personal identity.

MONCRIEFF-BRAY GALLERY VISIT

In May 2019 Yr 5 pupils visited the Moncrieff Bray Gallery accompanied by Maureen Wells.  The children sketched the sculptures in the garden, looking at shape and texture and then studied various paintings and 3D items in the gallery. There were 31 children so this was achieved in groups.  Before returning to school several pupils were asked to choose their favourite piece and explain to the rest of the group why they had chosen it as a curator might do. In the afternoon Maureen instructed half the group on the skills of using acrylic paint to create a scenic view after the artist Oona Campbell.

ENRICHMENT DAY 2019

In June this year we enabled an Enrichment day for gifted and talented children in the Petworth Area Group of 7 Schools. An experienced art teacher, Fiona Nethercleft introduced work by the French artist Henri Rousseau and the pupils had a great day making colourful collages of jungle scenes. To end with, they had a more formal class being taught how to draw the head of a lion. There were some amazing results.

POETRY IN THE PARK - OCTOBER 2019

We have recently celebrated National Poetry Day by running three days of Poetry in the Park. At the beginning of October, five schools attended workshops in Petworth Park with a delightful young poet called Antosh Wojcik. He inspired the children in the writing poems based on Truth in Nature, and also taught them how to write Haiku Poems. We had mixed autumn weather but the children produced some truly heart warming poems. Some of these were on display in Readers Bookshop window and in the Petworth Bookshop, for the Petworth Literary Festival week. As part of this Festival, the Workshops culminated in the Petworth Poetry Breakfast event. Antosh returned to Petworth and several students read their poems to the waiting public! They were very well received and played their part along with some renowned local poets.

RBA EXHIBITIONS

The Arts Society RBA Scholars are twenty aspiring young artists discovered and proposed by Arts Societies up and down the country and then selected by the RBA from 284 entries submitted for consideration. This year one of our submissions, 'Structure and Light' in mixed media by Yolanda Wang from Farlington School, was selected and will be exhibited at two prestigious exhibitions in London. This work together with work previously selected from The Arts Society West Sussex submissions can be seen in the slide show.

To view all 20 works selected by the RBA and for information about the RBA Exhibitions which include these works click here.

WESTDEAN

Sussex Area for The Arts Society make a bursary available to a student studying as a conservator every year. All Societies are invited to make a contribution, West Sussex donates to this very valuable grant enabling a student to pursue their studies to an exceptional standard.

West Dean College is an outstanding educational establishment in West Sussex, affording artists and craftsmen across the globe a remarkable training.

This year's recipient is Samuel Matthews who is studying Historic Craft Practices Furniture Course. Click here for a report of Samuel’s work and study at West Dean.

Without the support of The Arts Society West Sussex talented young students would not have been able to continue their studies and perfect their craft enabling them to follow a career which will preserve our heritage.