Art On Your Doorstep – The Delivery Diaries
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| Preparing ceramic tiles for painting at the Art Cafe |
Art Cafe: Cake for the soul!
The British summer is as reliable as Big Ben – just as the kids start their holidays, the weather has got wetter. Fortunately, the rain has driven quite the crowd to join us today for Art Café – a cosy arts activity session especially for older people. The group meet monthly, here in our Snug at Rural Arts, where tea and cake are never too far from the paint brushes and pottery wheels.
With us today are a mixture of familiar faces from last month’s café, as well as new starters. That’s the great thing about Art Café – anyone over 75 can drop in and out as they please. You can be a dab hand or try something new, and the Rural Arts team are on hand to help. Poppy, who’s leading the session today, explains “we’ve chosen activities that are easy to pick up, so anyone arriving a bit later or who needs to skip a session can still join in”.
Today the group are doing tile painting, and the idea is for all the tiles to be put up in the Rural Arts kitchen, in a space near the till. Poppy shares that the tiles already in the kitchen were made over 25 years ago, “so it’s nice to create something new to mark our anniversary”. Having asked the group what sort of activities they’d like to do, the plan for next month is to try macramé.
The atmosphere in the snug is social and fun – I get the impression that it almost doesn’t matter what the activity is, this is just a great way to catch up with friends, try something new, and keep out of the rain.
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| Looking for inspiration: participants exploring ideas for their ceramic tiles. |
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| The finished tiles after they’ve been fired in the kiln. |
If you or anyone you know would like to take part in Art Café, join us at 10.30am on the last Thursday of the month here at Rural Arts, The Courthouse, Westgate, Thirsk, YO7 1QS. For more information about Art Café and our Art On Your Doorstep service for people aged 75+, call us on 01845 526 536 or email sue@ruralarts.org
