Category Archives: Local artists

Artists’ Open House in our streets

Dulwich Festival is back again soon, and with it the wonderful Artists’ Open House opportunities. It’s thrilling to realise how many artists are now active in our street and just a few steps around the corner. Who knew? Surely we are fortunate to live in such a talented and creative area!

The actual dates for visits are 13-14 May & 20-21 May. A list of all the Open Houses in SE 24  –  and more widely  – is on the festival website.

Open Houses on Fawnbrake …

We can enjoy Open House visits to two artists here on Fawnbrake Avenue

Jorge Sanchez
73 Fawnbrake Avenue

website

Oxley Bank Wood by Jorge Sanchez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Courtenay Kusitor
115B Fawnbrake Avenue

website

Going Out by Courtenay Kusitor

And just a few steps away …

There are several other artists a few minutes away, including …

Camilla Gray
136 Lowden Road

Carola Mathers
4 Ferndene Road

David Whyte
28 Ferndene Road

Chrissy Silver
28 Ferndene Road

Louise Tappin
hosted by Jess Walton & Simon Webb
36 Kestrel Avenue

Elena Blanco
Top Flat, 48 Herne Hill Road

More details about each of these artists (and many others of course) on the Festival website.

Printmakers closing down – and offer bargains

A date for our diaries.

The professional artist printmakers who have been working at the Halfmoon Studio on the Bath Factory Estate, behind Norwood Road, have sadly decided to close down at the end of March. They are inviting people to visit and hunt for bargains in the final days before they leave.

The rising costs of rent, services and energy have made it uneconomic to keep going in their present premises. They aren’t the first, and won’t be the last to walk away from the arches, which for generations have provided unglamorous but functional and affordable accommodation for small businesses which often operate on narrow margins. A recent visit showed several repossession notices from landlords The Arch Company ( a joint venture between Telereal Trillium and Blackstone Property Partners), who bought the UK’s huge estate of railway arches from Network Rail in 2019.

Before working in the railway arches here, and even before that in an old bakery in West Dulwich, they had rented premises behind some shops on Half Moon Lane, hence the name of the business. Their studio houses the classic instruments of printmaking, chiefly the massively heavy etching presses.

One of the printmakers, Karen Keogh, is able to move to other premises in South London.

Susie Perring  will continue to operate from Artichoke Print Workshop in Loughborough Junction, and she can always be contacted via her website ,
by email  and by phone on  07817 762 780.

But the other artist, Sonia Rollo, is retiring from the business.

Susie and Sonia are holding a closing down sale in their studio with many bargains on offer.

Sale at the end of March

The studio will open for this sale on Monday 20 March to Sunday 26 March with many prints and etching ephemera at knockdown prices – a good opportunity to acquire some professional art for our walls. The Studio will be open from 11:30 am– 4:30 pm on those days.

To reach their Studio, you enter the Bath Factory Estate through the main gate on Norwood Road alongside the supermarket/Post Office, then head through the arch under the first railway line and walk about 100 yards to Arch 143.

Do not be dismayed by the squalid appearance of the estate: enjoy this new world!

 

Halfmoon Studio, Arch 143, Bath Factory Estate, via 41 Norwood Road, SE24 9AJ

On the way out you can perhaps sample some noodles!

Artists’ Open House on Fawnbrake Avenue

The Artists’ Open House project, a major element of the annual Dulwich Festival every May, goes from strength to strength. The full programme now has nearly 100 pages! And the area covered reaches from Peckham Rye down to Crystal Palace and from Loughborough Junction across to the fringes of Forest Hill and Sydenham.

 

 

 

This year, we have an open house here on Fawnbrake at number 73 where Alan and Jorge are opening their house to show Jorge’s landscape, portrait and abstract paintings. There is more information about his work on his website www.sanchezart.co.uk

Here, as across the festival, the artists open their houses for visitors on 14–15 May and 21-22 May, normally between 11 am and 6 pm

The website for the whole of this year’s Artists’ Open House programme   can be found here.

Ruskin Park Band Concerts – change of programme

The series of fortnightly band concerts at the Ruskin Park Bandstand will, as announced,  start next Sunday, 4 July, but with a different band  –  The South East London Folk Orchestra.

They play and sing tunes from a variety of folk traditions, deploying a variety of instruments including fiddles, accordions, concertinas, whistles, bodhrans, guitars, mandolins and flutes.

All we need is some fine weather.

 

Hold the front page

A very talented local artist – a blacksmith in fact – features in the cover story of the latest Herne Hill magazine.

Frances Plowden, blacksmith

Very appropriate for #InternationalWomensDay !

See more about Frances Plowden, whose studio is in Loughborough Junction but who lives in Herne Hill, in the magazine (reaching you shortly, if you are members)  and on her website http://francesplowden.org/