What’s on

Save the Date!

Burns Night Supper Saturday 29th January 2011 Barley Town House Watch this space for more information or call 01223 870251

Christmas Events are held at National Trust properties, churches and village halls around the district during December, so do check local papers and websites for details.

A QUIZ FOR CHRISTMAS

This quiz is for that period after Christmas Dinner when you don’t perhaps want to watch ‘The Great Escape’ on TV and the family are not in the mood for Monopoly or Cluedo.

Work out the answer and send your entry to me at 4 Chapmans Close, Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, SG8 6AH by 31st December. Written entries only and the first correct answer opened will win a small prize.

Assuming that bit-part actors work an eight hour day and can be hired for £25.00 per hour, livestock costs £50.00 per head irrespective of type, the local jeweller is having a sale, any one item for £40.00, the Forestry Commission is giving away saplings at the astonishingly cheap rate of £10.00 each, and instrument hire is £20.00 per day, how much did Christmas cost? Good Luck! Colin Limming.

Unpicked Meadow Public Art Project

Riverside Park, Stockbridge Meadows

A Quick Recap… Artist Jo Chapman was chosen at a public Artist Selection Evening back in March and since then has started on a year long public art project for the Meadows. Her brief was to create a year-long public art project with visiting artists and workshops to engage the local community and to inform a final permanent art work. Rather than an artist coming to the village for a day or two to create a work without knowing the village, Jo has been commissioned to spend time finding out about the Meadows and meeting people through creative workshops before producing a final piece. The project was launched back in May with visitors creating wooden plaques, painting or writing haiku poems. These plaques were joined by ones created by Orchard Manor and Melbourn Primary School and have been mounted to form a welcome wall for anyone entering the Meadows to see. Over the summer the ARTIVAN was launched, a project space to meet, make and exhibit work. Jo took a two berth stripped out caravan and Melbourn Village College students redesigned the inside and outside. We’ve had workshops in stick lizard making, clay fruit, print making and outdoor adventures with guest artists including Liz McGowan, Mark Haywood and Holly Rumble over the summer. This autumn will have seen lantern making, bird song inspired sound art and the launch of the Stockbridge Tapestry project.

Renga Poetry Sleeping Bag Party!

Another strand running through the project is renga poetry, a form of Japanese poetry with a series of short verses linked into one long poem about the season it’s composed in. Renga is a social form of poetry writing, led and hosted by a poet, anyone can come and join a renga party to write poetry. Local poet Clare Crossman has been leading the project. She has woven together individual haiku created in May for the spring renga, hosted a summer renga party in the Meadows and visitors to the Meadow in October contributed their autumn verses. Visit the website to read the poems so far.

The final renga to be composed will be the winter renga, which will take place in the ARTIVAN on the Meadows on Sunday 23rd January from 2pm – 4pm. Climb aboard, bring a sleeping bag to snuggle up in and drop in for a hot chocolate and to compose a wintery verse! All are welcome, poetry writing suitable for age 9 upwards. Paper, pencils, drinks and an explanation of how to write Renga will be provided. Contact Kirstin for more details or see: www.melbourn.org.uk/publicart

Take Part in Creating Art for Melbourn with the Stockbridge Tapestry So far we have contributions from ages 2 to 92 years old! Any age can get involved in your last chance to influence the final piece of art work.

Imagine a tapestry created by Melbourn residents stretching around the Meadow. Jo Chapman is inviting you to create a section for the Stockbridge Tapestry, a communal artwork that will wrap around the Meadows and provide a seedbed for the final artwork.inspired by the Meadows and the natural world.

What inspires you in nature?

• • • •

Why is nature important to our lives?

How can we look more closely?

How do we make connections? Launched this summer, we would like as many people as possible to write, print, stitch or draw and contribute a section to the Stockbridge Tapestry. You could even transpose photographs of nature onto the fabric.

Your section for the tapestry can be made at home or

you can come along to one of our events. If you would like to make it at home then here are some guidelines, it does not have to be a ‘tapestry’ this is just a word used to describe a way of linking images together and a long horizontal banner type artwork: • You can either use your own piece of fabric or collect a piece from Melbourn Village College, Melbourn Library or the Parish Council Office. • The section should be no larger than 30cm in height and can be any length. It should be 2 dimensional • It can be on any type of fabric and made in any style you like • You can make use of stitching, fabric paints or pens, collage, natural materials – any thing that suits you. • The section that you make will be part of the whole artwork and will be joined together with the others, so it needs to be reasonably robust and permanent. • The imagery or any words you use is up to you but we would like it to reflect an aspect of the natural world of

Melbourn, you may want to make a visit to the Meadows for some inspiration, it may be about the seasons or plants or animals in your garden.

Completed sections can be dropped into Melbourn Village College or the Parish Council Office. The deadline for dropping pieces off is Friday 14th January 2011.

What Next?

Jo will be gathering together the sections of the tapestry to create one long communal artwork. The tapestry will be exhibited at the winter flower festival. Look out for a date early in spring when you’ll see it as a temporary exhibit in the Meadows before becoming part of the village archive.

The final workshop will be the Winter Renga Party in the ARTIVAN on the Meadows. Feel free to drop in for a cup of hot chocolate to find out more about the project or to take part writing a haiku verse.

Jo will then be gathering together all the information from the project to create designs for the final artwork, which will be on show early in spring. The final artwork will be installed on the Meadow in time for a final celebration on the May bank holiday.

Key dates:

Friday 14th January – Deadline for contributing your tapestry section Sunday 23rd January 2011, 2pm - 4pm

Winter Renga Party

Poet Clare Crossman will be leading the renga party for ages 9+. For more details please visit: www.melbourn.org.uk/publicart

Keep up to date with the project by joining the local arts mailing list to receive occasional updates. To subscribe please email kirstin@start-arts.org.uk

For more information about the project or to book a place on the winter renga party contact Kirstin Bicknell, Arts Development Manager, phone 07770 643165, email Kirstin@ start-arts.org.uk

Arts Development

If your part of a group interested in working with an artist, hosting an arts event or if you run an arts related group and need some support then contact your local Arts Development Manager, Kirstin Bicknell. She can support with everything from marketing and fundraising advice to contracting an artist.

Kirstin is part of the stART partnership between village colleges and South Cambridgeshire District Council. StART run a number of district wide initiatives including an equipment bank and mobile cinema for community groups to hire. See their website www.start-arts.org.uk for more information or contact Kirstin, phone 07770 643165, email Kirstin@startarts.org.uk

Local Arts Mailing List

Do you want to know what’s going on locally? The local arts mailing list will include details of events and workshops linked to the arts in its widest sense (drama, art, music, dance etc). To join and receive occasional email updates contact Kirstin Bicknell by emailing kirstin@start-arts.org.uk with the word subscribe in the title. If you have a local arts related event or workshop, you’d like to promote then contact Kirstin with the event details.

The Tavern Gallery

Owned by David Chappell and located near the station in Meldreth, the Gallery is normally open 10 to 4 Thursday to Sunday. December Gallery Special, several artists January Closed February Royston Arts Society March George Meliniotis

Pictures from an Exhibition

Gallery Writers

The Tavern Gallery Meldreth Becoming less of a local secret is the fact that ever since December 2009 when the Tavern Gallery first opened its doors with Tam Joseph’s exhibition Works on Paper.

There has been a small art gallery in Meldreth, which is run with the local community at its heart. Because of this there has also been a writers group that meets in the Gallery on the third Tuesday of every month.

Started by novelist Chris West, writer Felicity Norman and poet Clare Crossman, each workshop provides a different way of writing about the visual. A different perspective.

Whether it is Mesch’s (Melbourn) excellent textiles or Terry Symonds (Meldreth) Landscapes… nine of us take delight every month in writing and talking about what we see. The founders each take it in turns to run a session so there is a wide variety of styles to play with and explore, prose, drama, poetry, non-fiction.

But it is all in the name of everybody taking two hours to write and share their work if they wish.

Group members come from Meldreth and beyond. As well as doing some writing the group get a chance to spend some time looking at each new exhibition in depth. David, the gallery owner, makes us all welcome with cups of tea and coffee and comfortable chairs to sit on.

There is room to park!

Having been together as a group now for nearly a year we have decided that late next year we will be producing a book from some of the writings we have created in response to all the artists work. We would like as many people as possible to be involved, so if you are making any New Year resolutions you might consider joining Gallery Writers for the next few months so that you have time to look closely at each new exhibition as it comes along, do some writing, and be in good company. You would be most welcome.

Gallery Writers meets every third Tuesday of the month from 7.30–9.30 at The Tavern Gallery. Each session costs £5.00. Contact: David Chappell 01763 261166 info@taverngallery.co.uk