The Festival Arts Hub

Over the weekend of 11th and 12th May, The Cookham Parish Centre became the Festival Arts Hub. This was designed to give festival goers opportunities to have taster classes in a variety of artistic activities. The aim of this was to inspire people to have a go and develop their own artistic abilities in a fun and engaging way.

This objective was very much achieved with the help of 3 local professional artists who ran a series of workshops and 72 festival goers took the opportunity to learn new skills in a calm and imaginative environment. They were encouraged to be creative and build on new skills learnt. In 90 minute sessions they received expert demonstrations and guidance and used quality materials to produce their own work to take home.

Some learnt how to prepare clay and make objects based on nature; either choosing to make something sculptural or functional. Others practiced the beautiful art of calligraphy to produce gift tags. A very popular class was that of ‘glass fusion’; people were eager to produce very attractive glass coasters or pictures using little pieces of colour glass. They learnt how to score, cut and nibble each piece of glass to fit their designs and produced fabulous pieces of art.

Extremely positive feedback was received from everyone; they felt they had been inspired and many were keen to know about future courses and classes they could attend in all the activities.

The artists too enjoyed the experience and welcomed the opportunity to share their talents and expertise to enthuse others. They were happy to be included in the festival and would be happy to contribute in the next festival hub.