When we moved into The Old School Room in 2011 it came with a very tired looking Village Noticeboard and we have always planned to replace it. Finally ten years later, here it is.

We are planning for the OSR Projects Noticeboard to be our outdoor ‘gallery’ and to kick things off we will be celebrating local creativity, inviting our local communitity to present artworks that have been made over the last year during the Covid 19 pandemic.

NOTICEBOARD 01

The Road to Malia – Artist Chris Burr

765w x 615h. Oil paint and oil pastel. 

“The painting was worked up earlier in 2020 from a sketch I made during our last holiday in the sun”

Now retired from the Royal Mail Chris spends a lot of his time painting in his garden studio. Chris was a Volunteer Steward at Od Arts Festival 2018 and will be back to help us again later this year.

NOTICEBOARD 02

Welly boot and street light, 2020. Artist – Ella Kearvell
Created on an iPad with drawing software, Procreate.

“It depicts two views within one artwork- a stile near Wickets Beer road and a distant street light, a view I had become familiar with after self isolating for two weeks at my uni accommodation.”

Ella is a member of the Od Arts Festival committee and was also a Volunteer Steward for the festival in 2018. Ella is now in her second year currently studying Costume And Performance Design at Arts University Bournemouth.

https://www.instagram.com/ellakearvell/

NOTICEBOARD 03

Dear Mum – Photograph by Joy Kearney

My personal creative project since the autumn lockdown has been to read through all the airletters I wrote to my Mum when I was at boarding school. She lovingly kept all my letters from 1964 to 1969.
One day I attached a few of the airletters to the weeping cherry in my garden which is where my mother’s ashes are buried.

Joy volunteered for Od Arts Festival in 2018.

NOTICEBOARD 04

Beth House is a member of the Od Arts Festival committee. Beth is now in her second year currently studying Photography at Arts University Bournemouth.
“For this project I wanted to see how the unconventional placement of food affected a portrait to create a mocking / playful tone using mixed media.” – Beth

https://www.instagram.com/bethartblogg/

 

NOTICEBOARD 05

Spell Books, 2020 – Photograph by Alex Bickerton Taken by medium format, Rolleicord
“I’m also still very much on the learning curve as far as using the camera and printing the negatives. I’m no artist, I just like messing around with cameras.” – Alex

Alex is a member of Od Arts Festival committee and was also a Volunteer Steward for the festival in 2018 and 2021.

https://www.instagram.com/alexbphotographs/

 

NOTICEBOARD 06

Spring 2020 unfolded as a spell of restriction, separation and for some, unprecedented solitariness. But March, April and May of that year were also a time of extraordinary blue skies here in the UK. In South Somerset, far from urban confinement, lockdown presented a scaling down of our worlds, a chance to examine microcosms, infinite other realms within the garden or neighbourhood. I found a microscope in the cupboard, not used for years, and embarked on travels into small objects collected outside.

Gathering circular images with a camera, and reprinting them via the sun immediately suggested bubbles. Now working with monochromatic blue images reflecting prevailing moods, the sky, our vital health service lights, water, cleansing, bluebell woods, celestial skies, eternity and the universe. Currently still experimenting with these orbs, connecting bubble worlds from mysterious microscopic forms, our own human realms, both real and from extra-vivid dreams, up to the globes of deep space. Chalk, lapis lazuli and Egyptian blue are the main colours on the palette as such visions continue to emerge, now that 2021 brings further confinement.
Jenny Mellings – Artist

Jenny was a Volunteer Steward Od Arts Festival 2021.

https://www.instagram.com/jjmoeuvres/