The Arts Society in Wylye Valley is now welcoming new members, after a period of operating a waiting list.  Please contact the membership Secretary, Sarah Terry on sarah.terry13@gmail.com if you would like to join.  

The 46th Annual General Meeting will immediately follow the Lecture on 15 January 2025.   In advance of this, please see the links below to the Agenda and the Minutes from the AGM held in on 17 January 2024.  The Accounts are in the process of being independently audited:  they will be made available together with the Treasurer's Report in due course.

Click HERE  to see the AGM Agenda;  and HERE to see the Minutes from the last AGM.

Arranged by the Nadder Valley branch of the Arts Society

On Friday 24th November 10 am - 3.15 pm to include lunch

Nadder Valley's next Study Day at the Nadder Centre in Tisbury and learn all about the extraordinary life and times of Oscar Wilde.

The two morning lectures will cover his life from his Irish roots through his days as a student at Oxford and his meteoric rise to the heights of celebrity.

In the final lecture, after a soup and sandwich lunch (with wine) we discover how, at the peak of his success, disaster struck, leading to the criminal trial of the century, prison & exile. We conclude the day with an appreciation of Oscar's enduring legacy and how he continues to inspire and entertain us today.

Our lecturer for the day is Simon Whitehouse, who describes himself as a (recovering) actor, lecturer, presenter, Alexander Technique and voice teacher and award winning London Blue Badge guide. He has worked as a guide at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Opera House, the BBC and the National Gallery.

The cost of the day is £40 for members and £45 for guests or £30/35 for just the morning (10 am - 12.45 pm) without lunch.  Please email naddervalley@theartssociety.org with any questions or to register your interest, a confirmation of your place and a request for payment will follow in late October/early November.

This is a two-day online course arranged by the Wessex branch of the Arts Society, taking place on 25 and 27 September 2023.  

Booking details are within the poster.

The Vermeer Course is on line only and is a collaborative initiative with West Mercia area. As you know there is a hugely successful exhibition on Vermeer showing at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam at the moment and our accredited Arts Society Speakers will  deliver four talks which show how  this remarkable artist resonates with us today.

As all Young Arts Coordinators know, it is easier to find primary schools to affiliate a project
with than the secondary schools which are so exam-driven that the curriculum is often not
flexible enough to allow students to benefit from our input. In the Salisbury area the
coordinator last year found it incredibly hard to connect with a school, even with the
promise of money to support their art. So it was with this experience in mind that this year
we turned our focus onto newly graduated artists and offered the chance to support them
to participate in the local Art Trail.
Art trails have been gathering popularity in recent years and are a fun and entertaining way
to discover talent in your area. If you are at all nosey or curious to know what goes on
behind the studio doors of local workshops, these events are a chance to find out, to meet
and talk to craftspeople and artists and maybe buy a piece of original art. The Wylye Valley
has a trail of 73 venues exhibiting a wide range of mediums with the festival running for ten
days. Through the trail organiser, adverts were posted last year to encourage recent
graduates to apply for a £500 grant from The Arts Society Wylye Valley to support the cost
of exhibiting. Our winner, Arabella Chapman is a painter who was born and bred in the
valley and a worthy choice with her exuberant painting. Bella was able to share the
exhibition venue with her mother Rose Eva, a renowned sculptor in the region, which drew
a large crowd to the sunny Open Evening on Friday 28 th April. The exhibition, Divine Bodies,
consisted of a collection of abstract and figurative works on canvas and paper along with 2D
and 3D works by Rose Eva in both the venue and grounds. Our Arts Society were generously
recognised in the WVAT programme with both the AS logo and a write up acknowledging
our contribution.
In one of the final awards made by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 before her death, the
Wylye Valley Art Trail was granted The Queens Award for Voluntary Service (QAVS) last
year.
In grateful thanks, and to mark the coronation of Charles 111, the artists and makers of the
WVAT have assembled a ‘treasure box’ with examples of their work and this will be
presented to the new king. The pieces are reflective of the wonderfully diverse range of art
that can be experienced through open studios, exhibitions and galleries in south west
Wiltshire during this exciting biennial event.
Seeing Bela’s work framed, mounted and hanging was a rewarding experience and we hope
that we have given this talented young artist a small ‘leg up’ at the start of her career.
Pauline Cullis

The Coronation Lunch is now sold out - but we are happy to hold a waiting list.  Please, do not pay online for this event if your name is not already on our list.
If you are not sure whether you are on the Coronation Lunch list, please check with Jane Fawcus before making a payment - see contact details below.

For Members who have signed up but have not yet paid, please confirm your place either by paying online by BACS, or at the next meeting on 19 April.  We are operating a waiting list and would like to re-allocate any unrequired places.

If you would like to come but have not yet signed up, please join the waiting list by contacting Jane Fawcus:  01722 742346 or 07884 431915    janefawcus@hotmail.com

This lecture starts with an examination of evolving attitudes in India (as well as in the UK) towards the British Empire, and towards the buildings which survive as testament to its achievements.

A whistle-stop tour is then made of the very best colonial buildings in Chennai (Madras), Kolkata (Calcutta), Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi and elsewhere.

The final third of the lecture focuses on Bombay, reflecting on the lecturer's experience of having masterminded a British Government backed project to restore that city’s magnificent George Gilbert Scott designed university buildings. The telling of this mid-Victorian building’s story – its design in England, construction, history and, of course, its restoration – provide useful starting points from which to consider the broader historical, cultural and architectural context. Bombay’s economic boom of the 1860s coincided with the high point of the Gothic Revival. Nowhere else in the world can claim to have as magnificent an assemblage of Gothic Revival buildings. Whilst examining the city’s colonial architecture study is made of the carvings of Bombay’s Jeejeebhoy School of Art (see above), whose Architectural Sculpture Department was – for a short time - headed up by John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling. The story of the award winning project to restore the University of Mumbai’s Gothic Revival buildings provides an opportunity to touch upon philosophical approaches to conservation as well as traditional repair techniques. An account is also given of the work undertaken by those who took time away from their respective Cathedral workshops in the Uk to transfer knowledge and skills to their Indian counterparts.

Anthony Peers - A freelance historic buildings' consultant, educated as an Architectural Historian at Manchester University and trained in building conservation at the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, York. After two years with SAVE Britain's Heritage, where he wrote Deserted Bastions, worked with the English Heritage Listing Division on the review of military buildings. In the mid 1990s was employed by the DTI in Bombay, India, setting up and running an innovative project to repair George Gilbert Scott's university buildings and training local architects and craftsmen in conservation techniques and philosophy. From 1998 until 2010, worked as Rodney Melville & Partners' historian, involved with research, analysis, assessment and conservation planning at such sites as The Workhouse, Southwell; Aston Hall, Birmingham; The Royal Institution, London and Cliveden. Published a book on the History of Birmingham Town Hall in 2012, to critical acclaim. Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and Deputy Chairman of the Ancient Monuments Society.

PLEASE NOTE:

The printed cards for 2023 show Special Interest Days taking place on 21 March and 21 November.

The dates remain the same, but the topics have swapped over - thus:

• 21 March 2023 will now be Bank Rolling the Rennaissance.
• 21 November 2023 will now be Antiques Roadshow.

Many apologies for any confusion caused by this switch-around.