Cathy's Art Diary

Fabulous new venue in Lewes for the Charleston Trust. I was lucky enough to be invited to the opening party for the venue and it was fascinating to hear how the building had been turned round from old council offices to a great arts space in just 12 weeks. The council still own the building but it includes gallery space curated by Charleston, an outpost of their shop and a café from their wonderful caterers Caccia and Tails. There are ambitious plans to use the space for educational events. There is also going to be a mini bus running between this space, branded Charleston in Lewes, to the house (Charleston in Firle) and the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne. A great new project and I wish it well. It will be good to go and visit at a quieter time to get a clearer view of how it will work. Party night was more about getting your glass of fizz and meeting people.    

Eclectic art festival around Lewes showing work by local artists and craftspeople. Sadly we didn’t have a lot of time to go round many places this year so we concentrated on Glynde and Isfield as we were driving through! First stop was Stitching Post and Friends the core of which was a patchwork company selling materials and classes which was joined by other textile artists. It turned out we had been at a drinks party the night before with the owner so that was a happy reunion. In Glynde we started at Glynde Place where there was a series of fun installations in the house by Isobel Smith which mainly consisted of cuddly toys turned inside out and restuffed. They weren’t as creepy as they sound! I also loved two houses made of tea bags. We also popped into the forge to say hello as I had bought a piece by the blacksmith, Thomas Gontar, and to see what new pieces he had. He was joined by shoemaker Thomas Murphy. Closed 26 September 2021

Charming exhibition on Lewes High Street of pictures of the town from 1860-1960 taken by generations of the Reeves family. I thought this was such a novel idea! Pictures of the High Street were places in light boxes in shop and business windows either in the place where the picture was taken or of the view you could see from that spot. They were lovely clear images and it was fascinating to see how the street had changed, or in most cases not changed. Even better the E.Reeves photographic studio was open the weekend I went. It’s been in the same family for four generations and they still use the Victorian studio at the back of the shop. It was fascinating to see what a studio looked like and to realise it obviously worked as they were still using it now. You could see the same chairs in the studio as in a lot of the Victorian portraits on show. Closes 29 September 2019