‘Fun with Arts’, organised by Arts Destination South Molton, took place in the South Molton Assembly Rooms on Sunday 5th December 2021 as part of the South Molton Business Association’s (SMBA) ‘Winter Wonderland by Day’ event.
Local artists and makers were invited to display, sell and demonstrate their artwork – and to encourage children, families and everyone to join in with fun Christmassy arts activities.
Colin Allbrook is one of the most respected and renowned painters in the South-West of England and we were delighted that he demonstrated his painting skills at our ‘Fun with Arts’ day. His easy, relaxed and friendly manner meant you could chat with him whilst he painted!
Working in both oils and watercolours, Colin depicts the life and activity of the area. He is an elected member of the Royal institute of Painters in Watercolour (RI), the Royal Society of Marine Artists (RSMA), The Society of Equestrian Artists (SEA) and the South West Academy. He has exhibited in many exhibitions such as the Sunday Times Watercolour exhibition and the Lynn Painter Stainers show
Colin has lived and worked in Umberleigh in Devon for over 40 years, where he has a studio by the River Taw, in a beautiful area which inspires so much of his work.
Multi-talented Joseph Witchall, an engaging local artist, illustrator and children’s writer brought his artworks and some of his books, which gave a great opportunity to have your book signed on the day.
Art is Chris Paterson-Deacon’s passion and comes straight from her heart. She has studied architecture and graphics, and briefly taught theatre set design. This combination of disciplines has provided her with the ability to observe and understand shape, structure, perspective, and form, that she uses to produce drawings and sketches of buildings and places, usually in pencil or a pen and ink wash. She loves to see the work come to life on the page, precise, but with an element of freedom that allows the work to breathe.
Her work in oil contrasts dramatically and is ruled and inspired by her emotions. Her work is truly a window to her soul; bright, colourful, energetic, bold and sometimes shocking. She is inspired by nature, water, love, grief, joy, anger, all the things that make her feel alive. If they can evoke a response, then she feels she has succeeded.
Throughout her life she has been drawn to creativity, and the emotional response to it. Sometimes light, sometimes dark, as long as it is real.
Jeremy Hughes is a community artist, recently relocated to Combe Martin. Working with local communities, he encourages them to make fantastical paper lanterns and extraordinary ‘hats’ and all types of weird sculptures, figures and mystical creatures for street parades.
Although Lettie (Lettice Bowen) was only 17 in August she’s already enjoyed two exciting art related trips to London this year! At the beginning of the summer holidays she attended a week long illustration course at the famous London art school, Central St Martins and enjoyed every minute of it, she also learnt a lot and loved going out every night in London! Then in September she attended the Unique Art Awards in Kensington where she won the silver award in her category for a pencil drawing of a bison and butterfly. This topped off a lovely year which had begun in the spring when Lettie won the Exmoor pony Society’s centenary art competition for her age group for a drawing of an Exmoor pony!
Barnstaple based, textile artist and up-cycler, Alison Nicholson joined us for our ‘Fun with Arts’ day – you may have seen Alison with her Up-cycled Garments on Saturdays in the Pannier Market!
Her exquisitely detailed textile work is an inspiration of what can be done with stitches and fabrics. As well as displaying some of her creations, Alison demonstrated wet and dry felting techniques and showed how to create felt Christmas decorations embellished with stitches and beads.
Lesa Gray is a mixed media, collage artist whose work is mainly influenced by nature into abstraction. Her work tells a visual story to connect with, and she loves the idea that anyone viewing her work can create their own personal story, perhaps seeing something different with every glimpse.
As well as displaying her work in the Assembly Rooms, Lesa offered simple and fun printing suitable for children and all members of the family.
Sally Rainger (Angel) 
Scrap Store Items
Sally Rainger (Angel) & South Molton Scrap Store were there with fun crafts to try and badges to make, as well as scrappy packs and crafty essentials to raise funds for a Xmas hamper for their sponsored child in Uganda.
Filmmaker, Gordon McKerrow, was there as well, showing the new film for our town, ‘Capturing South Molton in Our Words & Images’. A display of the original art works and words accompanied the film. An opportunity for everyone to see this charming film and meet the man who created it for us out of the many contributions from local people.
To find out more about the ‘Capturing South Molton in Our Words & Images’ project, and to see the film, go to the mySouthMolton page.
