Saskia Huning - Painter

I am opening my house for the art trail and showing wall paintings that I have created over the last two years. 

These include my own abstract and repeating designs and a recreation of a 1953 mural, 'Winter' which was originally painted by Fred Millet at St Crispin's school in Wokingham as part of a set of three, painted when the school was built. I use the walls of my house as a canvas for sampling for projects I might be working on and for developing my own work. At the last Art trail two years ago I had completed one wall in the sitting room. Now my wall paintings extend all the way up the stairs and the sitting room is becoming more colourful.

This last weekend I completed another painting in the front room and next weekend I plan to make a start on a cast and carved plaster fireplace surround that is in the design stage. There should be much work in progress to view at the Art Trail.

Could you tell us about an an artist that  particularly inspires you?
My favorite artist of the moment is Eric Ravilious.

How does inhabiting a community like Walthamstow help your practice?  

I have lived in Walthamstow for over 20 years now and exhibited in the art trail for the last five years. I find it really inspiring that there are so many people who make one welcome over the Art Trail weeks and show their works of art. There are so many people creating really interesting and different things, it's a hive of activity. I have met really interesting and lovely people on each art trail and it makes Walthamstow a very inclusive and interesting place to live.

What are you most looking forward to during the E17 Art Trail this year? 
This year I am looking forward to meeting new people who are interested in creative goings on and also to visiting as many venues and exhibitions as possible. When one is exhibiting sometimes it is difficult to get around to see other peoples work. I will be planning my route for my free Saturdays.

Listing no.143 in the guide: Click here for more information on how to see Saskia's work

The World In Walthamstow

The World in Walthamstow is a celebration of E17 diversity and is collecting photographs from across the borough. Each photo will contain someone Canon Steven Saxby has met here from one of 205 nationalities. With 125 so far, missing nations can be found at www.walthamstowmigrantsaction.org.uk/8.html. 

The hope is to find people to represent as many as possible of each of the 204 nations forming part of the World in London series and to exhibit the photographs during the E17 Art Trail.

Contact stevensaxby@btinternet.com to join in. All welcome to view the photos at St Barnabas Church, E17 8JZ during the Art Trail.

Algeria - Waled and Me

Australia - Tony

Barbados - Elaine and me

Brazil - Aline and me

Bulgaria - Sabina

Ghana - Samuel (left)

Japan - Mariko

Solomon Islands - Oliver

United Arab Emirates - Ronny

United Kingdom - Me and Stella

To all involved artists and event organisers...

To give a preview of what will be happening during the E17 Art Trail we like to get the blog going before the preview night with artist/ participant interviews. These will allow an insight into your work or event, build enthusiasm beforehand and help ensure a great turnout. 

Please see the questions below and send your answers to E17ArtTrail@gmail.com with the subject "Blog Interview Answers". Feel free to leave any out that you would prefer not to answer. 

Many thanks. I look forward to reading them. 

Could you tell us about the work you will be showing during this year's E17 Art Trail?

How have you been preparing for this year's trail? 

Could you tell us about an an artist/ artwork that  particularly inspires you? 

How does inhabiting a community like Walthamstow help your practice?  

Either

Do you have a personal highlight from the past 9 years of the E17 Art Trail? 

Or 

What are you most looking forward to during the E17 Art Trail this year ? 

Welcome to the E17 Art Trail 2014 Blog

As you may know, this May/June the tenth E17 Art Trail will be held. Since it began  it has supported and enabled artists, event organisers and businesses across Walthamstow and beyond. This year it is bigger than ever, with over 4,000 artists involved. A series of mini-trails will make it more digestible and enable you either to get to know your surrounding streets better (and the talent within) or to explore new areas of the borough.

The E17 Art Trail 2014 will run from 31 May – 15 June, however, be sure not to miss the Preview evening on Thursday 29 May see here to select which event you will attend.

This blog, kindly sponsored by Valerie Grove, will attempt (with your help) to cover as many as possible of the happenings taking place over the two weeks of the Art Trail including exhibitions, open houses, walking tours, poetry readings and food-related events. To whet your appetites beforehand, there will be a series of mini artist/participant interviews, giving a glimpse of what to expect so that you can start putting together your short-list (see the My Trail online feature for help with this). This year, the blog will be run by myself, Alice Spawls and Natasha Blok (who will cover the foodie events) and you can contact us at E17ArtTrail@gmail.com

Get involved

Please remember that the blog is here for you to comment, document your own Art Trail experiences and submit your own reviews (young writers and photographers especially encouraged). To get involved, please e-mail E17ArtTrail@gmail.com

Amy Wevill

E17 Art Trail 2014 Blogger

Art Trail 2014 - Bloggers Update

Here we go.... we have our bloggers for this year's Trail!  Given the enormity of the task we actually have three bloggers this year. Amy Wevill and Alice Spawls will be covering the arty, the crafty, the wordy, the performances and events while Natasha Blok will be dedicating herself to the food trail.

This year the blog will also have a mini team of very much appreciated volunteers who will be sent out on Art Trail missions by Amy and Alice so that we can reach more parts of the Trail than is otherwise humanly possible. As usual we are also inviting you all to send in your own guest reviews, comments, images and stories.

The bloggers will introduce themselves very soon and will also post up the 2014 Art Trail questionnaire for previews, preparations and advance publicity for your shows and events.

So watch this space....

WANTED - ART TRAIL BLOGGER 2014

WANTED - BLOGGER FOR E17 ART TRAIL

http://e17arttrail.blogspot.co.uk/

We are looking for this year's E17 Art Trail blogger.

The format is simple - in the lead up to the Trail you will create a short questionnaire to submit to participating artists and post their responses and images onto the blog. During the Art Trail itself your mission is to visit, photograph and review as much of the Trail as possible and then format and post  text, images, video and links daily onto the blog. You will also be coordinating, editing and posting reviews and images from a variety of guest and volunteer writers.  So as well as being the blogger you also have to be the curator, the editor and the administrator.  This means you will need a lot of time free from other responsibilities for the duration of the Trail.  

Whoever takes on this multi-skilled creative exercise has an opportunity to put their unique style into the project and have a permanent online record of their part in the ongoing and awesome E17 Art Trail. We can't pay much but this year we have managed to raise six hundred pounds for you!

Please look carefully at the blog to get a sense of what is required and what you could do with it. Then if you are interested please get in touch briefly detailing your experience and why you would like to do this project. 

E17arttrail@gmail.com

Thank you  

E17 Art Trail Summer Show - 2013

As a lot of people will know the Art Trail is having a break this year before returning in full for 2014 (more about that below).  

It was obviously inconceivable that a whole year could go by without something E17 Art Trailish to feed the stow arts massive hence this year's E17 Art Trail SUMMER SHOW which opened last night. 

Taking the format from the famous Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the E17 Art Trail in collaboration with Penny Fielding Gallery and Interiors hosted its first salon style exhibition. Penny has been a huge supporter of the E17 Art Trail since it started nine years ago coinciding with the opening of her shop on Orford Road. This new initiative will help raise funds to support the administration of the next E17 Art Trail, which will celebrate its 10th birthday in 2014.

The opening last night was as packed with hot people as the walls were with cool art. There are an incredible total of 105 artworks representing 75 artists (I think.. recount possibly needed!) and covering the whole range of styles, mediums and sensibilities. There is humour, drama, sadness, beauty, being, nothingness, pain, pleasure, politics and peculiarity. There's a lot of other stuff as well not necessarily beginning with 'p'.

It was fantastic to see all of this work by E17 artists assembled in one place. For Art Trail veterans it really was the trail at a glance with a lot of work by artists who have been involved in this amazing community event since its inception. Just like each successive Art Trail, however, there were also a lot of new faces or should that be new canvases, photographs, sculptures and textiles. 

It isn't possible to go through each and every piece and it was so packed it was also impossible to photograph the artwork anyway but here are a load of very haphazard pics for flavour! Anyone who wants to send me better pics to post up please use the email address on the right.

 

The only problem last night was that there had not been enough time to get the information into place so it was tricky working out which piece was by which artist. The 'map' of the walls was great but really needed the artists names listed numerically on the same page rather than having to cross reference with the separate catalogue. However, now that massive job of getting everything up on the walls has been done so brilliantly there might be a bit of time for the other stuff. SO.... Get Down There! The show is on until August 25th and even if you were at the opening I must insist on a second visit to appreciate the work in a moment quieter than the celebratory buzz of such a great opening night.

The E17 Art Trail will be back 30 May - 15 June 2014. The dates have been moved from the traditional time in September to enable the Trail to better support the huge and growing network of participating artists and organisations. As we speak the Trail team are busy developing exciting plans for 2014.

See you all then!