Although running A Little Bazaar often involved standing on the street in winter brandishing a sandwich board, and hiking all over London in search of new sellers and venues, it was truly marvellous to be able to rummage through vintage bits and bobs and call it work.

However, whilst my London market was still no more than an idea, Rook Lane was already running a very successful vintage and retro market of its own…

Rook Lane Retro has now been up and running for three years, and has hosted some phenomenal experts in vintage clothing and homewares.  The chapel is the perfect place for a vintage market, as the architecture itself seems to transport visitors back in time.

After a brief break during 2011, Rook Lane will be returning for 2012 and promises to be bigger and better than ever.  Up here on the hill we are lucky to have the space for a range of stallholders dealing in vintage clothing and homewares, retro fabrics, and vintage inspired original designs.  We will also be serving high-tea in the cafe, and will offer prizes for the best dressed vintage visitors.

The Return of Rook Lane Retro is set to be bigger and better than ever.

Our dates for 2012 are:

Saturday 22nd September

Saturday 8th December

If you are a vintage stallholder, designer, artisan or general horder of collectibles who thinks they might like a stall at the next Rook Lane Retro Markets, please get in touch with me for more deatails.

claire@rooklanearts.org.uk

May, on the other hand, is more likely to be feast for the mind as Rook Lane hosts a series of compelling talks and seminars from Generation Next, a festival of ideas

organised by the Interalia Centre.  The Interalia Centre believes in challenging the boundaries between art and science, nature and philosophy, education and environment, to provide thought-provoking events and discussions about the future of our planet.

Rook Lane is a treasure for locals and out-of-towners alike.  The wonderful team of Rook Lane volunteers inform me that the reason for this is the dynamic and exciting programme of events hosted at the chapel.    The upcoming Generation Next Festival is such an event, and is set to draw in a slightly different crowd than usual, as well as Rook Lane regulars.   I’m excited about meeting visitors to the chapel who may not have been before, and am looking forward to seeing prominent speakers and thinkers from across the country.

Generation Next has certainly caused a buzz around Frome, and the Interalia Centre are offering a prelude to the festival this Thursday with a talk from Professor Nicholas Humphrey.  “Soul Dust – The Magic of Consciousness” will compel audiences to challenge their perception  of consciousness, and think differently about the connection between mind and body .

May at Rook Lane will also see an extensive new collection of photography, two eclectic Teatime concerts, and an exhibition of contemporary mixed media art.  Something for everyone – or anyone who needs an excuse to dodge the belated April showers….

If you are interested in volunteering opportunities at Rook Lane Arts Trust, please get in touch with me

claire@rooklanearts.org.uk

Although I have been half-living in Frome for two years, working here reveals the town in a new light.  I am, very quickly, getting to know new people, places and organisations, and I’ve been made to feel welcome by everyone I’ve met.

So far, I have witnessed the extensive and successful Spring Exhibition from the Frome Art Society, which came down last week. At the end of this week I will oversee the installation of the new show from Artists 303, which opens on Friday evening.

Over the coming weeks Rook Lane is hosting a concert by Karine Polwart, talks by Generation Next,  the Mayor of Frome’s Charity Ball and the Western Counties Photographic exhibition.  Not to mention evenings of  film, teatime concerts and  fair few weddings.

I’m greatly looking forward to seeing the chapel transform from music venue into art gallery, from lecture theatre into cinema.

This is quite a special place to work…

Artist Caroline Isgar and author Michele Roberts initially displayed The Secret Staircase exhibition in London’s Foundling Museum. They used tokens that had been left with babies by their mothers, which are displayed in the museum, as the initial inspiration – then began examining the mother/daughter relationship.

As well as the tokens, Caroline used mythology, folklore and fairy tales to inspire illustrations laden with animals and cutlery, doodles and writing exercises. Michele re-wrote traditional nursery rhymes and produced first-person narratives – from the daughter’s perspective, as she addresses her mother.

They worked together at every stage of the process – aiding and advising each other – so that the literature and visual art became seamlessly merged.

Below are a handful of photographs taken by Richard Ridout – private-view-photographer-extraordinaire…

John Payne immerses himself in the short stories:

Revellers huddle around the woodcut table, designed by Caroline, as she discusses the original elm refectory table at the Foundling Museum, the source of her inspiration, which had been carved into by foundlings. The table acts as a wonderful centre piece for the exhibition – and all evening people where gathered around it – as if at a dinner party:

Close-up of table:

Michele explains the contents of the old school desks – sketches, floral paper, handwritten notes, buttons…

The artist’s book:

Three ladies transfixed by the humorous, sinister, emotive accounts:

Author Michele Roberts and artist Caroline Isgar will be transporting their exhibition: The Secret Staircase to Frome next week. It was inspired by tokens discovered at the Foundling Museum, London, that were left with babies by mothers so that that they could recognise them later on.

Roberts has re-written nursery rhymes, exploring a daughter’s feelings towards her mother, and has also produced first-person narrative prose. Isgar has created beautiful, touching art work – featuring familiar imagery from nursery rhymes, myths and fairy stories – enchanting, yet sometimes sinister.

The exhibition will open on Thursday 8 March 6-9pm. Come along to meet the artists and view the art work.

It will then be open daily from 10am – 4pm until Sunday 18 March.

In today’s Guardian – he’s been given 4 stars. Read the review here.

As well as Josh Arcoleo, there will be the Castalian String Quartet, country singer Hank Wangford, Australian band FLAP! and lots of other exciting acts – spanning the genres…

Having spent a thoroughly enjoyable year working for the Rook Lane Arts Trust – I will be leaving my job as Arts Coordinator at the end of March. The Trust are looking to appoint a new Coordinator…

Job Description

Rook Lane Arts Coordinator

Based at Rook Lane Chapel, Bath Street, Frome, BA11 1DN

Reports to Chairman of the Trustees

Job Purpose Summary: to maintain and develop the innovative programme of art and cultural events that take place at Rook Lane Chapel.

Key Responsibilities

Managing all aspects of events, exhibitions and wedding hire –

- Overseeing the hanging and taking down of exhibitions
- Liaising with artists, performers and hirers
- Taking bookings online, over the phone and in person for event and wedding hires
- Organising volunteers to work at events (with the help of our Volunteer Coordinator)
- Stocking the bar and setting it up for events (supplying bar float, laying out table clothes, glasses)
- Setting up the chapel for events – chairs, stage

Press and Marketing -

- Promoting the chapel as a space for hire
- Organising monthly advertising
- Sending out listings and details of events to local and regional press
- Maintaining the Rook Lane Arts and Rook Lane Weddings blogs (built into RLAT website), the Facebook page and the Twitter account
- Writing and emailing out monthly e-zine newsletter
- Collating information for, and organising design of, tri-monthly (seasonal) brochure, distributing around Frome venues
- Designing monthly poster for bottom of drive (using front cover from brochure)
- Collecting and filing press clippings

Admin tasks

- Using RLAT’s booking procedure
- Compiling the agenda for trustees’ meetings, and attending the bi-monthly meetings
- Managing budget, petty cash, invoices and banking, accounts – using Quickbooks
- Opening and responding to post

Personality and Job Skills -

Self-driven, with a positive outlook, and an appreciation and enjoyment of the arts – you will be a natural forward planner who is reliable and comfortable in dealing with the public and business colleagues, sufficiently flexible to be able to work some evenings and weekends, and to understand basic business finance. You must be an excellent face-to-face and telephone communicator.

Computer skills -

Must be adept in use of MS Office 2000 or later, particularly Excel and Word, and ideally Access or similar database to basic level, Internet and email, able to use social media sites.

Salary -

This will be a part time post, with flexible working hours, based on core working hours at Rook Lane of 27.5 hours per week, for a salary of up to £14,500 per annum

Applications -

The Trustees are expecting a CV and a written application of no more than 2 sides of A4, setting out why the position would be suitable for them and how they could take a positive role in the development of Rook Lane Arts.

Applications to be sent to: mailbox@rooklanearts.org.uk by the 24th February 2012

As we’re approaching Valentine’s Day, Lucian Freud’s Girl with Roses seems rather apt:

Queen of the self-portraits:

I went to the Francis Bacon exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery – a while back – and was quite disturbed by his portraits. Nonetheless – they evoked a reaction, and that is, I believe, what matters…

I only recently happened upon Paul Wright – though it initially was his landscapes, not portraits, that struck something with me. He’s a magician with the oils…

LOVE Modigliano:

Sarah Lucas – Self Portrait:

To celebrate International Women’s Day 2012, artist Caroline Isgar and author Michèle Roberts will transport their exhibition/installation ‘The Secret Staircase’ to Rook Lane Chapel in Frome, Somerset.

On Thursday 8 March, 6-9pm, the exhibition will open – exploring mother-child separation. Roberts (winner of W. H. Smith Literary award, shortlisted for Booker) has produced the prose and Isgar (artist and printmaker) has created the visual artwork.

They were initially inspired by tokens discovered at the Foundling Museum, in London – identifying tags, rings, plaques, coins etc. Seeing the tiny tokens that women had left with their babies, in order to be able to recognise them later on – and knowing that they were eventually taken away by the authorities – was deeply distressing.

Roberts said: ‘It is heart-breaking to recognise the tokens as symbols of identity that are simultaneously symbols of loss.’

Out of the symbols of mothers losing their babies, they began to play with the idea of a daughter losing her mother and using tokens in the same way, to identify the lost mother.

The artist and author worked together at every stage of the process, Isgar creating the visual components for the exhibition – comprising of a woodcut block, a woodcut print, a printed text and an artist’s book – and Roberts writing first person narrative accounts, from the perspective of the daughter – and re-writing traditional nursery rhymes.

The prose is emotionally charged, picking apart the role of mother and treading fearlessly over the taboo feelings of envy and insecurity that are often rife in the mother-daughter relationship. In one section, Roberts writes:

‘For a long time I believed that my life was necessarily at your expense; that my freedom killed you. Now I don’t.’

Underneath the daughter’s direct speech runs a series of rewritten nursery rhymes, which express all that the daughter does not dare openly say:

‘Roses are red violets are blue ignore the child who cries boo-hoo’

Isgar has produced beautiful, emotive artwork. The images in the installation are enchanting but also slightly haunting – suggesting folklore, legends and myths, domestic artefacts and children’s writing exercises.

These images have been printed as an unusually large-scale woodcut (1 x 3 metres). The form of the woodcut block itself is a table, inspired by the elm refectory table at the Foundling Museum.

Isgar says: ‘Most fairy stories/rhymes have a sinister edge, which Michele has used brilliantly in her writing. The visual side, depicting archetypal images of the fox, baying dogs, a screeching owl – set against the domestic imagery and learning exercises, emphasises the imagination of the child escaping the mundane domestic life. The sinister edge particularly reflects the feelings of fear and insecurity one can experience as a child in a mother/ daughter relationship’.

The exhibition will run until Sunday 18 March 2012. Open daily 10am – 4pm. Michèle Roberts will offer a writing workshop on Friday 9 March, 2-4pm, at Rook Lane Chapel. Please contact annie@rooklanearts.org.uk for more details.

The Angel of the First Poem of 2011

Preface
The Angel of the First Poem of 2011, also known as the Angel of the Chariot of Fire, was not a happy angel.
Any mission to Planet Earth was risky.
He knew that.
He had prepared himself.
He had visited the heavenly library, recently saved by the Heavenly Father’s intervention against the demands of the Archangelic Divine Resource Reduction Committee.
He had read The Magus and now knew by heart the Considerations of Thursday at the West
He murmured them to himself as he mounted his chariot:
‘I beseech thee, most heavenly father, that this day I may perfectly understand and accomplish my petition, work and labour’.
‘The perfume of Thursday is saffron’, he whispered.

1.
A gilded angel sloshing through the mud
Sniffing nervously the air before him –
Saffron? Betrayal?
The future holds little of attraction
The wings stretched out behind him, half-folded,
Seem to the follower, the acolyte,
Hands of enormous, infinite pity.

2.
Surely the angel has chosen the wrong technology,
Wheels that stick and slither and hold. Why does he not fly?
What is preventing him? He does not want to be here
It feels wrong – this rubbish tip of the spiral galaxy

Our weight, my weight, holding him back,
Tarnishing his golden head and wings.

3.
Said the angel to the Man
‘Will you kindly give me a push?’
Said the Man to the angel
‘Get off and push it yourself, you
Fancy little wimp.’

The angel was not amused
Shook his wings in righteous anger.

4.
But somewhere, distant, very distant
He scents the spring, a crocus perhaps
Or maybe he’s just screwing up his
Nose in wrathful heavenly disgust.

A gilded angel sloshing through the mud
Sniffing nervously the air before him –
Saffron? Salvation?