Enough to See and the WLFF Festival Finale

The Enough to See project started with 10 Creatives: 5 Poets Laureate writing to the theme & 5 artists at Yew Trees Artist Studios then producing work inspired by our poems.

I am aware that the poems here and elsewhere in this post can’t be seen clearly here, this was intentional as we are now busy producing an anthology of art and words to celebrate Enough to See and copies of these will be available soon.

ENOUGH TO SEE… Artwork by the five Yew Trees Artists who earlier this year responded in very different ways to the theme ‘Enough to see… but not enough to see by’.

Clockwise from top left:

Richard Nicholls, Susan Birth, Jane Arthur, Jennifer Ng, Dan Holden.

This project is sponsored by The Arts Society Worcester.

The Arts Society Worcester

Worcestershire Lit Fest & Fringe

#enoughtosee — at The Gallery at Bevere.

The artist who chose to work with Aperture was Jennifer Ng. You can read all about our first meeting (after we had both created) in a piece I wrote here – Enough to See Beyond the Commission. She produces Contemporary Chinese Painting and works in Chinese ink and watercolour to create stories without words. Her artwork is acute and perfect. Her studio displays exquisite artwork and magical sketches, it shines with light and possibility.

The 5 Artists responses to our poetry.

This collection of images by Yew Trees Studio, spectacular though it is, does not do justice to the incredible artwork created by the artists in response to our poems. You cannot sense the enormity of these works (and I don’t just mean the scale).

Jennifer Ng’s piece is at the bottom and it runs almost the entire wall of her studio, it’s clever conception reflects how when we walk with others neither person sees the same thing. You can walk up and down the concertinaed artwork and see it entirely differently, an understory – which in turn reflected the inkling that there was a much deeper subtext in ‘Aperture’, one I talked to Jennifer about when we first met at Easter and a conversation I repeated with artists who had been inspired to use my poem as their starting point.

Richard Nicholls produced an A4 ezine/pamphlet of artwork which was gorgeous.

Jane Arthur – Textile Artist responding to Suz Winspear’s poem. © Kevin Brooke

The Worcestershire LitFest & Fringe Festival Finale Event and the whole Enough to See event at Bevere Gardens was a fantastic way to finish the festival week. Lots of visitors throughout the day, poetry readings, presentation and readings for the competition winners, insight from the sponsors, an incredible gallery of artwork and poetry, drinks, celebrations, music, a harpist, a violinist and in the evening a band, a bar and a buffet! It was the sort of event you never want to leave.

This was a fantastic county competition for Art & Poetry with abundant entries and lots of judges deliberation. The exhibition featured high quality art entries (how the winners were ever decided is beyond me) and the poetry was exhibited in the Bevere Gallery cafe and beyond.

‘ENOUGH TO SEE’ SHOWCASE – The Prize-winning Art and Writing

Prizewinning Artworks:

1st ‘Woven Apertures’ by Sally Cartwright

2nd ‘Transpired’ by Charli Farquharson

3rd ‘Light as a Dragonfly’ by Sylvie Millen

Prizewinning Poems:

1st ‘Reflect’ by Rachel Porter

2nd ‘Age related macular degeneration’ by Angela Lanyon

3rd ‘Observations following his confinement’ by Brian Comber

The event was opened by Deputy Mayor Councillor Mel Alcott.

Each part of the programme was spaced out to allow gallery time and mingling in between. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to meet artists and poets who were inspired by our work. More on that later.

The celebration started with readings from poets who entered the Enough to See competition. There were more readers than I have photos for. I had to work and missed the very start of the event. I did catch up with some of the competition poets afterwards and it was a delight to hear how much this competition meant to them and how happy they were to discover such a supportive writing community. Worcestershire LitFest & Fringe has always supported the unsung as well as established creatives.

Harpist Jen Scarrott entered music in the Enough to See competition.

Charli Farquharson entered poetry and art, her artwork ‘Transpired’ won 2nd place.

Kathy Gee’s entry was a captivating Poetry Film and the debate between art and/or poetry was born!

These were followed by a Reading from the Competition Winners. Martin Driscoll introduced the readings. As Former Worcestershire Poets Laureate Suz Winspear and I read our commissioned poems, followed by the winners: 1st Prize Rachel Porter, 2nd Prize Angela Lanyon, 3rd Prize Brian Comber.

Later on came the Presentations and Prize Giving for winning poets and artists. These were introduced by Susan Birth and presented by Maggie Keeble (Chair of The Arts Society Worcester- sponsors of the event) and Mark Robbins (WLFF).

Maggie Keeble presenting the winning artists: 3rd ‘Light as a Dragonfly’ by Sylvie Millen, 2nd ‘Transpired’ by Charli Farquharson and 1st ‘Woven Apertures’ by Sally Cartwright.

The poetry prizes presented by Mark Robbins (WLFF) to: 3rd Prize Brian Comber, 2nd Prize Angela Lanyon and 1st Prize Rachel Porter.

There were so many art entries that Yew Trees Artist Studios & Bevere Gallery released a list of Highly Commended:

‘ENOUGH TO SEE’ SHOWCASE – HIGHLY COMMENDED

There were quite a few more artworks in the competition than written submissions. So on the Artwork side, as well as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners, 5 ‘Highly Commended’ pieces were selected by Bevere Gallery and Yew Trees Artist Studios, clockwise from top left:

‘Looking Enough to See’ by Juliet May

‘Waiting’ by Gillian Swan

‘Awaiting’ by Nashmin Riazi

‘Fathomage’ by Heather Mason

‘It’s Just a Mouse’ by Gary Williams

The Gallery At Bevere

The Arts Society Worcester

Worcestershire Lit Fest & Fringe

#enoughtosee

In the afternoon I was able to take another look around the exhibition and had the pleasure of seeing artwork inspired by all the poems. I didn’t seek out the artworks inspired by Aperture straight away, as I like to approach an exhibition space by space and then when I came across an area displaying artwork inspired by Aperture, I felt the tingle, that special moment of seeing it in real life.

The three dimensional real artworks were so different to the jpegs shared on social media – which are fabulous but can never capture the texture, colour or scale in true glory.

I have always loved art & galleries, so I was in my element. It was lovely to see lots of friends at the event as well as catching up with my artist, Jennifer Ng, talking to artists, meeting new people and securing some future projects. I actually feel a lot of my family would have enjoyed it, currently the plan is to collaborate again next year, so I may have a chance to take a carload of us.

‘ENOUGH TO SEE’ SHOWCASE

INSPIRATIONS – The poem ‘Aperture’ by former Worcestershire Poet Laureate Nina Lewis was the inspiration behind THREE*! artworks in our exhibition: ‘Flight’ by Alison Griffin, ‘Burning Sky’ by Krisztina Cazes and ‘Like Ribbons through the Sky’ by Cherrie Mansfield.

Nina Lewis is one of the Directors of Worcestershire Litfest & Fringe.

*I actually inspired a 4th artwork – I met the artist, Katie Beasley who took just one word: luminosity to create her artwork: Luminosity Revealed – which was clever sculptural art which did indeed reveal light, depending on the angle of the display. Parts of the sculpture were designed to look completely different.

I met some of the artists responsible for artwork inspired by my poem. Katie Beasley took just one word. How magical a seed can be in the hand of a creative. And Krisztina spoke at length with me about her vase, the difference in one side to the other, the hint of light and the understory of my poem. It was great to meet them both.

Krisztina Cazes & her artwork Burning Sky.

The Exhibition was magnificent, captured here in a collection of photographs shared by Yew Trees Studio Artists. It spanned the entire site and visiting the 5 artists studios in the Bevere Gallery and Yew Trees was akin to visiting Santa in a Grotto as a toddler (if you enjoyed that sort of experience). It was fascinating also to watch many of them at work and to talk to them about their process.

Pictured above Susan Birth’s studio and artwork featuring Suz Winspear’s poem from a previous project and below inside Jennifer Ng’s studio. A vast wonderland of ink.

From here I ventured back out to the Foyer area and …

discovered this – which was a delightful moment – seeing an artist using a work produced by an artist who used your poem as a starting point, this was another great aspect of this project. The web of inspiration or ripples on water. Beautiful.

From Yew Trees I ventured over to Bevere Gallery to see more of the exhibition. This time I was with friends and we were on the hunt for the winning artworks. This is where I found Alison Griffin’s Flight. I didn’t take many photos as my mobile is about a decade out of date and offers half of that in pixels. I have borrowed these photos from Bevere Gallery, Visit Worcestershire and Birmingham Live to give you a flavour of the space we all happily inhabited for the day.

I also ventured upstairs to visit Richard Nicholls and Jane Arthur in their studios. It was lovely to speak to them and watch them work on their current projects for a while. Richard’s looked thoroughly captivating. Jane’s studio also housed Kathy Gee’s Poetry Film and Suz Winspear’s commissioned poem and artwork.