There’s just 20 short days until we officially wave goodbye to the chill of Winter and can all head outside to frolic through fields of sun dappled daffodils. That’s right, it’s March, and to paraphrase a hit HBO series, “Spring is coming!”
If you’ve got your hands on a copy of the Beach Hut whilst it’s still hot from the presses, you might be just in time to catch our popular February Exhibition, The Art of You. This evocative exhibition welcomes visitors to explore their own creative being in a showcase that brings together works, objects and writings from individuals of all walks of life. Some of the exhibitors call themselves artists. Many do not. Throughout the show we've been sharing their works and their stories with you, as we challenged the idea of what it is to lead a creative life. The exhibition closes on March 2nd, but if you’ve missed it, you can explore loads of great content from the show online (art-hub.co.uk/february2018).
Another event for Beach Hut early birds can be found across the Bay’s museums for the first weekend of March. For everyone reading this who is over the age of 12, join us in reminiscing for a second and think back to your primary school days. One day in particular in fact, when classrooms across the country would be transformed into an imaginary scene, apparently formed out of some grand literary collaboration between Roald Dahl, Dick King-Smith, Enid Blyton and various other children’s authors. I am of course referring to World Book Day, which this year will be celebrated by Torbay Museums in their ‘Sharing Stories’ Festival, taking place across all three sites from 1st-3rd March. The line-up for this event is set to be pretty packed, so whether it’s a night of Retrospective Poetry you’re after, Roald Dahl themed Puppet making, or the chance to hear from a few of the Bay’s authors, the festival has something for you (torquaymuseum.org/events).
Alternatively, if you prefer to put your pencils to use drawing rather than writing, then the recently started Torquay branch of Urban Sketch is where you need to be. This global organisation brings regional groups together to draw, sketch and paint, live in the real world as part of a social and supportive meetup. Gathering in coffee shops, parks and public spaces, groups create from direct observation as an honest record of time and place. The next meeting of Torquay’s new group is on the 10th March in Coffee #1 on Union Street and all are welcome (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1487283731326012/).
We’re going to quickly rattle through some other events to finish off, links to all of which you can find on our site www.art-hub.co.uk. Barrie Riley will be talking about Brixham Battery Heritage at Brixham museum on March 26th and Jason Disley hosts Stanza Extravaganza at Artizan Gallery on the same day! Greg Hancock brings his exceptional guitar playing to the Artizan Acoustic Sessions on March 19th and Harula Ladd returns for another Creative Writing Session on March 5th. We’ll also launch our exhibition of watercolourists Michael McDonagh Wood and Veronica Charlesworth on March 9th.
