Informative and sociable meetings for local artist and makers.

Join Arts Alive Wales for our bi-monthly networking meetings at our studio in Crickhowell. These supportive meetings enable local artists and students of all disciplines to come together in a relaxed setting, with plenty of tea and cake, to discuss their own creative practice, share experiences, news and opportunities.

Each meeting features one of our network artists who introduces their work to the group and a guest speaker to facilitate discussion about various aspects of professional development.

FREE to attend – but please let us know if you’re coming.

Refreshments provided.

Next Meeting:

Wednesday 18th July, 5-7pm

This month we’re welcoming Laura Thomas, an award winning textile artist and designer specialising in producing striking textile artworks for public spaces, corporate environments, exhibitions and private homes. http://laurathomas.co.uk/

Born in Pembrokeshire, Laura studied woven textiles in the University of Central England, The Royal College of Art, and then went on to become one of the founding Fellows of The Ann Sutton Foundation, a weave design research centre in Sussex. Since completing her Fellowship in 2003, Laura has worked from her studio in the centre of Cardiff, dividing her time between public art commissions, research and freelance design consultancy. Laura is also a part time BA Contemporary Textiles lecturer at the West Wales School of the Arts.

Laura is a member of the Makers Guild in Wales and will be discussing her involvement with ‘Flourish: Continuing professional development for craftspeople’ at Craft in the Bay Cardiff. www.makersguildinwales.org.uk/workshops

Wednesday 19th September, 5-7pm

Guest Speaker TBC

Arts Alive Wales’ Practitioner Network is supported by the Arts Council of Wales.

Tuesday 22nd May

7am from Crickhowell car park (behind the CRiC centre), picking up at 7:15am from Abergavenny Bus Station.

Dropping off and picking up outside the V&A, Cromwell Road, South Kensington.

5pm, return journey from London

£29 travel only.

Places are limited! Book early.

Summer Open Day: Craft Sale, Creative Workshops and Demonstrations.

Saturday 2nd June

10am – 3pm

Arts Alive Wales, Crickhowell

FREE to attend.

Featuring Pottery by Martin Craddock, Knitting by Melissa Warren, Felt Jewellery by Mandy Nash, Prints by Kay Leverton and much more…

35% of all craft sales on the day will support Arts Alive’s community programme.

Refreshments and Homemade Cakes

Parking is available in the grounds of Crickhowell Primary School.

The Crickhowell and Area Open Studios and Galleries Art Trail is in its 4^th year and will run over 4 days during the Jubilee bank holiday weekend. Over 40 venues are included in the Trail, exhibiting a rich and divers range of work from the area’s artists and makers. Not to be missed!

For more information about the Trail visit: http://www.crickhowellinfo.org.uk/

(photo: Melissa Warren)

Saturday 7th July

Open from 10am – 3pm

£6 for adults, £3 for children (under 16 years)

Children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult.

Refreshments and homemade cakes will be on sale during the day.

Register at Arts Alive Wales:

• Bring your own digital camera and memory card. Make sure both are cleared of any images before you start.
• You’ll be given a secret itinerary of 8 themes, designed to spark your creativity! The weirder the better.
• You can only take one photograph for each theme and in the order that the themes are listed.
• When you’re done, return to Arts Alive where your photos will be downloaded.
• All the images will be included in our online gallery. Our panel of judges will select a winner for each theme and an overall winning photographer will receive a special prize!

Judging panel:

Photographer, Toril Brancher

Photographer, Nathan Morgan

Director of Arts Alive Wales, Justine Wheatley

(photo credit: Nathan Morgan. Arts Alive dragon at the  Crickhowell Summer Fayre, 2011)

The Abergavenny Food Festival’s market hall decorations are always a huge hit. They are eagerly anticipated and give real pleasure to thousands of people – visitors and locals alike – for a whole year. Here’s your chance to get your creative work centre-stage at one of the UK’s top foodie events.

Arts Alive Wales is gearing up to produce the 2012 food-themed offering and volunteers are needed. If you like turning great ideas into a visual feast then you’ll definitely want to get involved with this exciting annual project. Theatre Designer, Bettina Reeves will soon reveal the inspiration for this year’s installation. So watch this space for more details!

Bettina and textile designer Susan McComb would love to have a lively and committed team to work with. They can offer the fun and satisfaction of creating large scale art for a public space, with good company – and excellent lunches too!

If you have textile/stitching/painting skills, can spare a few days and would like to take part, the Food Festival workshops will be held at the Arts Alive building in Crickhowell on the following dates:

Mon – Weds & Fri – Sat

20th August – 14th September

10am – 5pm

FREE. Please bring lunch to share.

(No workshop on Bank Holiday, Monday 27th August)

To express interest, and for more information, please contact Justine Wheatley or Rebecca Spooner at Arts Alive Wales: info@artsalivewales.org.uk – 01873 811579.

An exhibition and fund-raising sale of Art and Craft at Porthmawr Country House, Crickhowell, NP8 1DE

Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th March 2012
2pm to 5pm

Featuring a retrospective of the work of

CATHARINE MARR-JOHNSON

And the work by contemporary artists including Hannah Firmin, Tom Hallifax, Annika Neumuller, Roy Powell, Kumar Saraff, Sarah Thwaites, Mary Zammitt and others

Entry £3 Adults, accompanied children free

All proceeds from the exhibition and sale to support Arts Alive Wales’ Community Programme

In collaboration with Five-Ways Art – www.five-ways.net

Patrons: Lady Bingham, Susannah Fiennes, Sir Robert & Lady Hayman-Joyce, John and Sally Leighton Williams

For more information please email info@artsalivewales.org.uk or call 01873 811 579

If you would like to attend our private view please contact us

Download the Catalogue and Price List as a PDF

Catalogue and Images

Jane Bennett

Girls Paddling
Oil on canvas
25 x 32cm
£470

Jane Bennett

Grey Sea
Acrylic on canvas
30 x 40cm
£490

Jane Bennett

Low Tide
Oil on canvas
18 x 24cm
£270

Jane Bennett

Evening Light
Oil on canvas
18 x 24cm
£270

Seren Bell

Courting Cockerels
Watercolour and ink
30 x 30cm
£325

Seren Bell

Welsh Mules
Watercolour and ink
30 x 30cm
£325

Carl Chapple

Leila 13
Oil on canvas
51 x 67cm
£1,800

Carl Chapple

Leila 16
Oil on canvas
67 x 51cm
£1,500

Carl Chapple

Morwenna
Oil on panel
30 x 23cm
£550

Shan Egerton

Three Brass Pots
Pastel
21 x 26”
£500

Shan Egerton

Oranges in a Red Bowl
Pastel
15 x 16”
£450

Hannah Firmin

The Red Dress
Linocut and paint 9/15
46 x 55cm
£295

Hannah Firmin

The Far Travelled Fiddler
Linocut and paint 6/15
49 x 61cm
£295

Hannah Firmin

The Urn
Linocut and paint
45 x 57cm
£295

Veronica Gibson

Tom Hallifax

Red Tractor
Screenprint
75 x 60cm
£300

Tom Hallifax

Pink Tractor
Screenprint
75 x 60cm
£300

Tom Hallifax

Blue Tractor
Screenprint
75 x 60cm
£300

Lois Hopwood

Jenny Joice

The Eye of the Shire
Carbon pencil original, drawing with
watercolour
16 x 18”
£495

Jenny Joice

Badger Face Sheep
Glycee print from watercolour
16 x 20”
£175

Jenny Joice

Abergavenny Morning Queen, Supreme Cob Champion
Glycee print from carbon pencil
original drawing
22 x 17”
£225

Annica Neumuller

The Good Day
Mixed media on canvas
120 x 150cm
£1,240

Annica Neumuller

And So It Is
Mixed media on canvas
50 x 50cm
£395

Annica Neumuller

Hanging Around
Mixed media on canvas
60 x 60cm
£450

Josh Partridge

Castle Combe
Watercolour and gouache
36 x 41cm
£275

Vicky Penn

Pont Esgob
Linocut
9 x 13cm
£40

Vicky Penn

Capel y Ffin
Linocut
£80

Vicky Penn

Windy Day
Linocut
9 x 26cm
£60

Vicky Penn

Hay Bluff
Linocut
£80

Vicky Penn

St Issui Well
Linocut
14 x 8cm
£40

Roy Powell

Helga Prosser

Little Dancer
Bronze
15cm tall
£750

Helga Prosser

Ballerina
Bronze
27cm tall
£1,300

Helga Prosser

Dark Angel
Welded Steel
54cm tall
£950

Helga Prosser

Scoring
Welded Steel
27cm tall
£450

Bettina Reeves

Cushion

Tim Rossiter

Still Life Under the Tree
Oil on panel
31 x 31cm
£310

Tim Rossiter

Hills and Trees and Houses
Oil on panel
31 x 31cm
£310

Kumar Saraff

Snow – March, Mid Wales
Watercolour
£395

Kumar Saraff

Bright and Misty Morning
Watercolour
£485

Kumar Saraff

Three Willows
Acrylic on canvas
£485

Kumar Saraff

April Morning Light, Frost
Watercolour
£495

Kumar Saraff

After Sundown
Watercolour
£495

Kumar Saraff

Failing Light
Watercolour
£485

Sioni Rhys Handweavers

Llanofer Skirrid
Constructed textile
137 x 208cm
£125

Sioni Rhys Handweavers

Celtic Connection III
Constructed textile
137 x 208cm
£125

Sioni Rhys Handweavers

Wedgewood
Constructed textile
137 x 208cm
£125

Annie Spearman

Green Landscape
Oil on canvas
18 x 24cm
£1,200

Annie Spearman

Honeysuckle
Oil on canvas
25 x 31.5cm
£1,400

Annie Spearman

Quince Blossom
Oil on canvas
19.5 x 22cm
£1,200

Annie Spearman

Landscape 4
Oil on canvas
18 x 24cm
£1,200

Antonia Spowers

The Hills
Hardwood and stainless steel
12 x 30 x 30cm
£385

Michael Strang

Sugarloaf
Oil on canvas
10 x 7”
£400

Sarah Thwaites

Penny Timmis

Green with trees

Penny Timmis

Floppy Clouds

Penny Timmis

Wild sea

Tessa Waite

Solar
Mixed media
11 x 12”
£185

Tessa Waite

Honddu
Mixed media
12 x 12”
£185

Tessa Waite

Garden
Collograph (1 of 1)
12.5 x 16”
£185

Brontë Woodruff

Close of Day
Earth pigments, gesso,
van dyck crystals
21 x 21.5”
£300

Brontë Woodruff

Spring Grass
Acrylic, van dyck crystals
21.5 x 21”
£300

Brontë Woodruff

Wild Skies, Marches
Van dyck crystals, watercolour
20 x 24”
£300

Mary Zammit

It takes 1000 years for a metre of peat to form. On Pen Trumau, above Pengenfford, 7 hectares to that depth have vanished since the mountain caught fire in 1976. The unhealed scar has lost 6,125 tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere along with equivalent carbon storage capacity.

In 2010, 500 people took part in ‘Woollen line’, beginning repair of the eroded mountain by making a 300m long line in heather-seeded felted wool crossed with wool ‘sausages’ pegged into erosion channels.

The wool is helping to stabilise the surface of the scar and allow vegetation to re-grow. However at last year’s rate of progress it would take 324 years to repair the whole site! ‘Growing Woollen lines’ develops this idea aiming to double the repair efforts and heal the scar in less than 6 years.

So this year, with the help of Arts Alive Wales, artist Pip Woolf has recived funding to buy the felts, 600 metres of it from a company called The Woolly Shepherd, in Devon who specialise in finding a good use for ‘waste’ fibres. With the help of volunteers Pip will also be making wool sausages by creating nets and stuffing them with washed wool. Using horses we will take all the wool onto the mountain on Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th May and put the sausages in place. Then on Saturday 14th May lay the 600 metres of felt, some of which will cross the ‘sausages’. Effectively we are darning the landscape!

Pip will be running sessions to make wool sausages, at her studio on April 7th , 8th, 13th from 2.30-4.30 and at Arts Alive on 20th and 29th April 10.30-12.30.

If you are interested and want to get involved you would be very welcome!

You will need to wear old clothes as wool fibres do get everywhere! Pip will show you how to create the nets and stuff and pack them ready for the horses to transport the wool onto the mountain in May.

You can contact Pip Wollf directly to register your interest:

Email: gilpip@googlemail.com or telephone 01874 730995

For more background about the project please do look at the blog http://www.woollenline.wordpress.com

(photo credit: Robbie Robertson)

This work was supported by Environment Wales, with funding from the Welsh Assembly Government, and by the Countryside Council for Wales as part of its programme of research into sustaining natural beauty, wildlife and outdoor enjoyment in rural Wales and its inshore waters.

Further grant aid and in kind support was provided by the Brecon Beacons National Park Conservation & Community Grant, the Brecon Beacons Park Society, The British Wool Marketing Board, Arts Alive and numerous volunteers.

Paintings, prints, sculpture, ceramics and jewellery by leading contemporary artists

Auction Patron: William Gibbs

The works may be viewed at the Ballroom, Angel Hotel, Abergavenny prior to the Auction between 11am and 4pm on Friday 11th March 2011.

For those unable to attend the Auction commission bids may be made using the Arts Alive Auction 2011 bid form. Please note that bids submitted by post or email must reach us by 12 noon on Thursday 10th March. Alternatively commission bids may be submitted in person on Friday 11th March between 11am and 4pm at the Angel Hotel, Abergavenny.

A small number of tickets at £30 each are still available for the Auction, which includes a wine reception, music and tapas: please contact Catrin Slater on 07977 599026 or catrin@artsalivewales.org.uk if you would like to find out more or book a seat.

Arts Alive Wales gratefully acknowledges the following for their generous support of the 2011 Auction:

• The Angel Hotel, Abergavenny
• The Art Shop, Abergavenny
• Edward Chetwynd Antiques
• Fitting Frames
• Galanthus Gallery and Café

For more information please contact Catrin Slater: catrin@artsalivewales.org.uk or 01873 811579.