Do come in!

Artspring creatives welcome you to their studios

Artists from the Artspring Gallery in Tonbridge will be welcoming visitors into their workspaces for this year’s South East Open Studios and Art In June, which both run from 2nd to 18th June.

The Artspring collective is made up of thirteen talented painters, potters, jewellers, printers and glassworkers and they all love to share their work with visitors and talk about their craft.

Camilla West, for example, is a jeweller who is deeply inspired by the conversations she has with the people who visit her studio. “The thing I love about jewellery,” she says, “is that it is very personal to people. When I make a piece of jewellery and someone buys it because they love it there is a sort of connection between us.”

Hilary Shields also loves to share the glass pieces she makes. “People just love the colours,” she says, “and the way the light shines through it and casts such beautiful coloured shadows. I like the achievement of creating something from nothing – and the fact that people enjoy them, and sometimes like them enough to buy them, is wonderful.”

Each of the creatives at Artspring has their own style, their own medium and their own voice, and they create a myriad of stunning pieces of work. But one thing unites them all – a desire to share their work and to offer a very warm welcome!

The Artspring members are:

For more info visit: www.artspringgallery.co.uk, www.artinjune.org, www.seos-art.org opp from top: Summer in the garden by Colin Anderson; Gill Smith prepares a background for one of her textile paintings; Enamel earrings by Anne McArdle; Marie Pearson’s pots draw upon natural themes; Camilla West models one of her beautiful necklaces. this page from top: Printmaker Claire Longley says “You meet such interesting people” ; Hilary Shields loves the translucence of glass; A print of Whitstable by Antonia Enthoven comes hot off the press. And Alf (not pictured) looks forward to welcoming visitors to her jewellery workshop.

Esther Newnham Brown new life after winter

Spring and summer for me as an artist is my happy time, everything breathes new life after the winter hibernation.

New ideas and even new subjects will fizzle at my brain until I start to work on them; sketchbooks are filled up with different ideas that I will go back to over time, and may not even venture out to a painting until the following winter. Some may be discarded, but generally they will be left, because what works one day will not work another, so everything remains fluid.

The mind of an artist is governed by so many things in life, and it also affects my style, I float between several different styles and mediums, sometimes with success and my hard work pays off with a sale, which is an encouragement to carry on in that style.

I am a member of Horsham Artists and some of my work is on Artists and Illustrators Portfolio. I am fortunate enough to run, with jeweller Alison Crowe, Gallery BN5 in Henfield, www.gallerybn5.co.uk, where I show most of my work. The gallery is open Mon to Sat 10.00 to 2.00. Do pop in and have a look at my work or email esther@gallerybn5.co.uk for enquiries.