Charlotte Wych and Bruer Tidman

  Portrait of Charlotte by Bruer Tidman

Mother and son joint exhibition across two venues:

Norwich Theatre Royal - 8th October to 7th December, 2010 (www.targetfollow-arts.co.uk)

Central Library, Tolhouse Street, Great Yarmouth - 11th October to 30th October, 2010

   Painting by Charlotte Wych

Waveney and Blyth Arts

An opportunity on Saturday 6th november 2010 10.30 – 3.30 to come along  and help launch

at The Cut, New Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk IP19 8BY

• listen to inspirational speakers including naturalist, author & waveney resident Richard Mabey

• help plan an arts celebration of the waveney & blyth valleys in 2011

• network with other arts groups and creative people

• promote your/your organisation’s work in the arts marketplace or via a 2-minute verbal advert

• attend the 1st AGM and vote for committee members

• £10 inclusive of lunch and refreshments

to find out more or book your place contact jan@ollandstreet.co.uk or call 01986

Blessing of the Nets Service

St. Nicholas Church, Sunday 3rd October, 2010 at 6.30 pm.

A special service to celebrate the medieval tradition of Blessing the Nets of the fisherman of the town and to pray for them before they went to sea:  includes sea songs by the Masquers, followed by herring snack (ticket event £5

HERRING FISHING EVENING WITH ERNIE CHILDS

7.30 p.m. Friday 12th November 2010 at Furzedown Hotel, North Drive, Great Yarmouth. 

Tickets £10, includes Steak and Ale Pie or vegetarian option, for more information click on  St. Nicholas Preservation Trust  

In aid of the church fabric and the organ

The Osiligi Troupe at St. Nicholas

   Note: Click on image to see large

The Osiligi Troupe gave a beautiful performance at St. Nicholas.  The members of the troupe were so obviously enjoying themselves, their congenial relationship with the audience was totally uncontrived.  Nor did they feel any need to  compromise the extraordinary nature of their singing in order to please western ears.   All the aspects of their performance, costume, movement and sound, combined to create the richly textural expression of a completely different culture.  The men are small in build and delicate in feature: they sing with unusually high voices, and the height gained by their leaps is astonishing.  The women are demure and provide the only rythmic accompaniment, created by the dancing of the necklesses as they move forwards in rhythm.  Nearly all the singing was accompanied by a forwards movement of the whole troupe,  as if related to the communal activities of a nomadic and hunting life.  Whether this is true or not I don’t know, but the length and scale of St. Nicholas provided a good venue for creating a sense of song and dance created for travelling across a landscape rather than in an arena.

Time and Tide Autumn/Winter Talks

A programme of Friday talks at the Time and Tide Museum, Great Yarmouth, 11.30 a.m.  Tea and coffee provided.  Admission £2.25, also provides entry to current contemporary exhibition.  Admission is free with general museum admission (adults £4.50, concession £3.80, young people £3.30) .  For more information tel. 01493 743942.

01.10.2010  Murders of Yarmouth Beach, delivered by Les Cole, NMAS

08.10.2010  Crime and Punishment in Medieval  GY, delivered by Dr. Janka Rodziewicz, UEA Postgraduate Medieval History

15.10.2010 Great Exhibitions inside T&T’s temporary programme, delivered by Alison Hall, Exhibitions Co-ordinator, Time and Tide, NMAS

22.10.2010 Boars, Bulls and Norfolk’s Celtic Menagerie, delivered by Dr. John Davies, Head Curator, NMAS

29.10.2010 Postcards of Yarmouth Seafront, delivered by Peter Jones, Collector, Great Yarmouth

05.11.2010 The History of Roman Roads in the Landscape, delivered by James Albone, Planning Archaeologist, Norfolk Environment Service

12.11.2010  Great Yarmouth Community Garden Project, delivered by Caroline Fernandez, Community Project Worker, GY Library

19.11.2010 Hello Sailor: fashion, costume and textiles of the sea, delivered by Ruth Battersby Tooke, Curator, Costume and Textiles, NMAS

26.11.2010 Olive Edis, Photographer of Fishermen and Kings, delivered by Alistair Murphy, Curator, Cromer Museum, NMAS

03.12.2010 The History of Witney Blanket, delivered by James Everitt, Museum Development Worker, NMAS

10.12.2010 Pleasure Gardens, delivered by Colin Tooke, Local Historian and Author

14.01.2011 Textile Tales of the Notorious and the Capricious, delivered by Lisa Little, Curatorial Asst. Carrow House, NMAS

21.01.2011 Curious Creatures, delivered by Dr. Tony Irwin, Senior Curator, Natural History, NMAS

28.01.2011 History of the Tolhouse, delivered by Les Cole,  Great Yarmouth Museums

04.02.2011 Norfolk’s Seventh Sense? Art, Spirit and Ancient Places, delivered by Trevor Ashwin, Artist and Archaeologist

11.02.2011 The Projected Picture – from Magic Lantern to 3D Cinema, delivered by Peter Stibbons, Poppyland Publishing

18.02.2011 1913 – That was the Year that Was, delivered by Janice Bell, Great Yarmouth Museums

25.02.2011 Flights of Fancy – Space in the Temple, Space in the Airport, delivered by Jonathan Tooke, Events Coordinator, GY Museums

04.03.2011 Recent Finds in Norfolk, delivered by Adrian Marsden, Finds Officer, Norfolk Landscape Archaeology

11.03.2011 Crinoline to Crape: The Story of Silks, delivered by Cathy Terry, Curator, Social History, Strangers Hall, NMAS

18.03.2011 How to Dig up a Tyrannosaurus Rex, delivered by Dr. David Waterhouse, Curator, Natural History, NMAS

25.03.2011 A Tram Ride to Gorleston, delivered by Colin Tooke, Local Historian and Author

Caister Local History Day

Bring your artefacts along to Caister Library’s Local History Day (Friday, 24 September)

People with unexplained heirlooms, puzzling documents and mysterious old photographs relating to the Caister area will have the chance to find out more about them next week.

Caister Library on Beach Road is holding a Local History Day next Friday (24 September) and people are being asked to bring any documents and artefacts relating to the local area along to be discussed and explained by local authors David Higgins and Colin Tooke. It is hoped that the event will uncover some revealing insights into what life was like in Caister in times gone by.

David Higgins has written several books about the history of east Norfolk towns and villages with particular emphasis on their seafaring heritage. He is therefore particularly interested in seeing items related to Caister’s maritime history and families, for example title deeds, beach company documents, share certificates, and anything to do with the fishing industry.

Colin Tooke has written several books about the history of Great Yarmouth, Gorleston and Caister. He would be particularly interested in being brought photographs depicting old street scenes, shops and the people who lived in the village.

Caister Library’s Local History Day is a completely free event and will take place between 10am and 4.30pm (with a break for lunch between 12.30 and 2pm). People are welcome to drop in with their items or to listen to the discussions and both authors will be happy to sign copies of their books throughout the day.

For more information on the event, ring Caister Library on 01493 720594

Life and Portraiture Study Classes

Adult Education will be running a life and portraiture study course at the Central Library in Great Yarmouth starting from Wednesday 29th September 2010, 6.30-8.00 p.m.  The course will run for 15 weeks for which the full fee is £139, concession £65 if in receipt of means tested benefits. 

For further information email to mailto://information@norfolk.gov.uk or phone 01493 856647, or to enrol call 0344 800 8002.  Alternatively an application form can be found on www.norfolk.gov.uk/adulteducation.

John Sell Cotman

An Aesthetic Appreciation by Dom Stephen Horton

(written in response to the post about the collector and patron Dawson Turner )

On 4th July 1803, Cotman was in York with his fellow artist, Paul Sandby Munn. They were making their way to stay with the Cholmley family at Brandsby Hall, Yorkshire. July 4th is a significant date because it marks the boundary between the aspiring artist in search of a “voice”, and the mature artist who, in the blink of an eye, found it.

Like all great moments in Cotman’s oeuvre, the event was marked, not by the drama attendant upon the production of a big or powerful statement, but by a small pencil drawing. In “Ouse Bridge, York, 4th July 1803″, what we have is not an embryonic statement of things to come but a fully formed manifesto of intent. The drawing, now in the Norwich Castle Museum, measures 127mm by 228mm. Unlike previous works by Cotman, it shows a sureness of touch and an economy previously unseen. Here we have the “art of leaving out”, (a phrase used by Cotman) manifested in blank paper, punctuated with very little pencil. The bridge comes into focus through pressure brought to bear on the pencil. There is, at one and the same time, consummate control, and relaxed detachment. Cotman is not attempting to dominate the scene, nor is he dominated by it. What he registers in this small drawing is a perfect equipoise—the contemplation of the object by the subject—which results in a meeting of the two, or rather a fusing of the two, so that, looking at the drawing, we see through the artist’s eyes; yet, because Cotman’s ego has taken second place, the artist as subject disappears.

What is true regarding this particular drawing is also true about Cotman’s subsequent early work. From 1803 to 1808, nearly everything the artist produced has about it the quality—one could say, the ambiguity—which all great art has: that it was produced by someone yet, coming into the world fully formed, it has a life and identity of its own.

Such ambiguity is reinforced stylistically by the fact that Cotman can never be labelled either a Romantic or a Classicist. His “involvement”, his ability to convey “sensation”, is certainly a Romantic trait, but such identification with the object, whether it be a great monastic ruin or a few leaves by a stream, is balanced by an objectification. Cotman is both fully there in the scene, and coolly detached.

What attracts us today to Cotman’s first and greatest period, is his consummate ability to abstract, or take out from the real only that which is necessary to convey the ideal. For this reason Cotman is not “realistic”; he deals, as did Claude or Poussin before him, with the mythic and universal. In Cotman’s case, however, the universal is conveyed through the particular seen object of pastoral England. Such transformation, from particular to universal, means that the image becomes symbol and, as with all symbols, is multivalent: it works on many levels.

At this point, a word should be said about the way in which Cotman produced his early work, which was entirely made up of pencil drawings and watercolours. Economy is the watchword here. In his great series of watercolours, which are often at one remove—i.e. studio productions made from preliminary drawings done in the field—we see a further transformation: colour, even if only one is used, becomes all important; the build up of washes is always “clean”, and hardly ever does Cotman “bleed” one colour wet into another. His technique could be termed “linear”, since each area of tone or colour is well defined. However, such is his skill as a colourist that Cotman often allows the second wash of colour to “slip”, so that it is difficult to say where one colour area begins and another ends. Such technique gives a wonderful, slightly “off-key” effect, similar to that seen in Japanese block prints and in Warhol’s silk-screen printing. There is no attempt, on Cotman’s part, to hide the medium in which he is working. On the contrary, he allows each layer of wash to speak, inviting the viewer to take a closer look, to move in to the surface, in an attempt to crack open its secrets.

In these early works, Cotman is the consummate colourist. Each colour has a familial relation to the others and, usually, only a few are used. The unity of effect amid the diversity of the scene is achieved through such family relationships of colour. Hence the eye is not bounced breathlessly from area to another. Like Girtin before him, Cotman achieves a monochromatic effect, even when he uses colour—thus his watercolours are full of colour but are not (paradoxically) “colourful”. Even when he is depicting a complex tangle of vegetation or a highly detailed architectural motif, the result is poise and balance, which has a stilling effect on the viewer. Cotman’s ability to “take out” and reassemble the constituent parts in a way which seems inevitable, is what marks him out as one of the great early 19th century artists.

Stephen Horton is a watercolour artist. Examples of his work may be viewed on the Prinknash Abbey website www.prinknashabbey.org

Winning poems for the Ernest Peaford Award, Quill creative writing group.

1st place     Heather Smith

2nd place  Susan Wooden

3rd place   Tamara Minns