Art and Craft Annual Day Ditton, Sept 2012

Six  of us (among around 400) had a wonderful day with first class speakers

 First Lee Ault brought with her a trunk full of genuine clothes from 1920's 1930's - Her full collection had been gathered within her family from the 1700's.  She drew out underwear, night wear, day wear, evening wear -  each a work of art,  and explained when and how it was used.  The Photo above shows a swimming costume for that era.  - all in one and the height of fashion in 1930.   Lee is a Costume historian a well as general secretary of the International Dickens Fellowship and lives in Kent.

 Then Stoney Parsons spoke about her life as an Architectural Glass Artist.  She showed us that Glass is an exciting and contemporary art form.  She showed examples of her work  in glass which exploits its colour and light. Probably the nearest example is in the Pilgrims Hospice in Ashford.   Here we see a kingfisher.  She  holds dayschools in stained glass, and  free painting and some of us hope to go to her studio to join in.   We will all think differently about stained glass in future.

In the afternoon Curtis Tappenden 'entertained' us-  he is an illustrator and designer and has worked for the Daily Mail for 20 years both as an illustrator and a writer, he is an author, a roller skater (not demonstrated) and poet.  From the start it was a performance that jumped out at us, he acted his poems, with arms,  legs  and body as well as his mouth -  he showed us the many kinds of art he had produced  and the people he had drawn inspiration from.  He must have been exhausted when he had finished

Three inspiring speakers all on one programme  - we were so lucky to have been there.

On display were the various bags that members had made for the 

Silver Salver Competition in the last year.  

Margaret Weaver of Hollingbourne entered one (below)  and was pleased to receive 19 marks out of 20 - not good enough however to win a prize, but was quite pleased with the remarks made by the judge.

The overall winner was this fabulous creation  (below) (try clicking once, on the picture to get it larger)

the standard of which was way above anything else on display. 

A very good day