ART ON THE JURASSIC COAST
The fifth and highly popular annual Artists of the Jurassic Coast exhibition in St. Peter’s Chapel, Eype near Bridport begins on Saturday September 4th.
The exhibition is open daily between 10.30am and 4.30pm and runs until Sunday October 3rd. This year sees a host of new talent who have not shown at St. Peter’s before and promises to be yet another ‘must see’ event for the hundreds of visitors that are drawn to the lovely Chapel and its splendid hill-top location overlooking the sea and Thorncombe Beacon.
The artists taking part are:
- Julian Bailey,
- Rachel Fenner,
- Rosemarie James,
- John Rabbetts,
- Chris Reynolds,
- Marnie Shaw,
- Colin Willey
- Hugh Woodeson.
The theme of the exhibition’s paintings continues to be the coastal and seascapes of the Jurassic Coast in its many guises – tranquil, stormy, idyllic and picturesque. The paintings reflect this theme as do the beautifully coloured ceramics of Rosemarie James and the sculptures of Rachel Fenner. Symondsbury potter Chris Reynolds adds his own interpretation of coastal life. Started in 2006 the exhibition attracts between 800 and 1000 visitors a year and has provided a good opportunity for the artists to sell their works and for some late summer visitors to take back mementos of their holidays.
Being open on a daily basis the exhibition has also enabled many people to see the interior of St. Peter’s and its splendid stained glass by the Victorian Ecclesiastical glaziers Heaton, Butler and Bayne installed when the Chapel was built in 1865. These are some of the finest examples of that firm’s work in the country. In many cases this has been the first time these visitors have been able to get inside the Chapel which generally remains closed. One of the windows from a slightly later date is designed Henry Holiday, a pre-Raphaelite painter who went on to start his own studio in the late nineteenth century. The visitors have been from all over the world as well as the UK.
St. Peter’s is becoming a very popular venue for painters to show their works. Aside from the Artists of the Jurassic Coast exhibition started by the Art Centre’s Director Mark Culme-Seymour in 2006 a number of one-man shows take place during the year. Stephen Bishop, an up and coming and very popular artist, living in Poole, has successfully exhibited during the past three Dorset Arts Weeks as well as in intervening years. Earlier this year Bridport artists Andrew Leppard and John Rabbetts held a joint exhibition. This was followed by a weekend arts exhibition featuring twelve local artists organised by photographer Sally Davies and in July Anthony Dover, another Bridport artist held his first major exhibition in the Chapel.
Since taking on the responsibility of running the Centre in 2004 Mark Culme-Seymour has been keen to encourage a greater use of the building by the local community and artists. He played a key role with the Bridport Arts Centre in starting the Bridport Literary Festival in 2005 when St. Peter’s became the prime venue for celebrated national, international and local writers. The sixth Bridport Literary Festival takes place in November this year but in the meantime the Eype Centre for the Arts started its own biannual literary festivals in April and October 2009. These continue this year.
In the visual arts the idea of combining local artists with the Jurassic Coast seemed a logical idea and quickly became established in the West Dorset arts calendar. West Dorset has a wealth of artistic talent. Many of these started their artistic lives in the Symondsbury School of Art run by Mark Culme-Seymour’s wife Ann Barnes during the 1980’s and ’90. Many went on to settle in West Dorset and have at the same time become established in the wider national artistic community.