My second residency visit was at the beginning of March and the days were now starting to get longer. Although there were still grey moments of rain and cold, the light gave a hint to the new season on its way and I was very happy to once again be back in Whitstable, working from The Horsebridge.
We need to say a big thank you to visitors, friends, artists and bidders for a wonderful fundraising art auction. We were able to raise an incredible amount, but it wouldn't have been possible without our staff team and volunteers and we wanted to thank them particularly.
Can you imagine bumping into a hippo along our high street? Or a meeting a mammoth on the beach? How about paddling in the sea next to a prehistoric shark or wading in shallows with a woolly Rhino? That's what our Young Makers did this week!
Our volunteers programme has always been a vital part of The Horsebridge providing help with everything from reception desk cover to ushering at film matinees, website design to delivering flyers and so much more in between.
This support works both ways though.
At The Horsebridge we provide a large variety of arts based activities and central to our work is ensuring that no-one feels excluded from participating in the arts, now we need your help to keep achieving this.
On Wednesday we held the first of our Wild Escape Whitstable creative workshops inspired by some of the more surprising animals found in the Whitstable Community Museum.
Anastasiia Tory is a Ukrainian ceramicist, artist and teacher currently residing in Whitstable. We are delighted to be able to include in our makers market a series of small vessels and traditional Ukrainian cups, the first work made by Anastasia since being in the UK.
We were delighted to host a second visit from Sarah and her students from ISP Fostering Whitstable to finish their contribution to our Extraordinary Places Antarctic project, this week focusing on the human life in this fragile, beautiful, but inhospitable landscape.
Week 3 of our Print making taster course introduced the students to the tactile process of creating a collagraph, which essentially is the process of collaging materials onto a printing plate to create a printable image.
For the last 2 weeks our Young Makers Club have been transported to one of Earths extraordinary places: Antarctica! For the last 2 weeks our Young Makers Club have been transported to one of Earths extraordinary places: Antarctica! All part of a larger project that includes young people from ISP Fostering and our volunteer group.