The final instalment of Abigail's 2011 Art Trail Diary

It is such a shame that the E17 Art Trail has come to an end, but we saw so much last weekend that my feet probably wouldn’t have been able to walk much further anyway! I can’t list everything that we saw as there was so much! But here are some of my highlights.

Reciprocity: This was on at my school and was work by staff and students. I know some of the girls whose work was shown and it was really good! I think that it’s a shame that the paintings were only shown in the art trail for four hours as not many people will have been able to see it.

Tears of Blood: These were really unusual, pictures of huge cats in gorgeous landscapes with blood tears running down their faces. I loved them!

Kitty Brown: Kitty had tweeted my mum and said that she had cake at her exhibition, so we made sure we went and saw her photos which were really good. I liked the way that she had made things that should be ugly look beautiful.

Crochet & Knitting Inspirations: We almost missed this! I am so glad we didn’t, Ingrid and Janina have made some beautiful things. My mum bought a bracelet and we are going to meet up with them to make me a little skirt as everything was too big for me. They had hairclips and tops, dresses and even Christmas decorations!

WOOF!: I had been looking forward to seeing this for ages. Fabien’s pictures were brilliant – some of the expressions on the dog’s faces were really funny. And some of the owner’s expressions were funny too! Even better, his dog, Toastie, is so cute, and I got to play with her.

Ceramics by Steve, Paintings by Emma: I loved all of Steve’s pots and vases – and my mum bought one of them too. He also had some beautiful photos up which I wasn’t expecting to see. Lots of beautiful landscapes from deserts and other far-away places. Emma’s paintings were great because I am really excited about the Olympics being in London next year. She had put together a paper on what all the different rings are supposed to mean, and this was also included in her paintings. I hadn’t realised that they were meant to mean anything, so this was really clever.

A People’s History of The EMD / Granada Cinema: We went to see this in Daisy’s Café. It was very interesting to hear everyone’s stories about how beautiful the cinema used to be and hear their memories. There were some photos that made me wish that I had been able to see the cinema ‘in the old days’. It has made me realise just how important it is that we get our cinema back.

Taking Part by Image17: We went along to Chestnuts House when Mark Burton was showing people around. He told us more about all the photos which made them all seem so much more interesting. I loved the handball pictures and the ones of the table tennis.

Paekakariki Press: I have no idea how to pronounce this, but it was very interesting. The letter printing workshop is just behind my house and I never knew it was there! The man showing us was very friendly and even printed my name for me. It is amazing to think that everything used to have to be printed like this – it must have taken hours to print anything at all!

There is so much that we saw in so many different places – I got to see a whole lot of Walthamstow that I have never seen before. I am really looking forward to next year’s now and a chance to see some of the artists that we didn’t manage to get around this time.


I hope I might have a chance to blog again then too!


You can read Abigail's other posts here.