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Celebrate West Wight

Since Victorian times the West Wight landscape has attracted and inspired great artists. We intend to continue this tradition by helping a new generation to celebrate and interpret the landscape through the creative arts. Click on the links below to see how we are working with local people to achieve this.

May Day Jouvray

Pebble People

The Lifeboats of Brook, Brighstone and Atherfield

A Celebration of William Henry Long

Island Voices

Creek and Coast

Kings Manor Farm through the Seasons

May Day Jouvray - On Saturday 1 May 2010 at 5.30am Fort Vicitoria Country Park was brought to life like never before. The day started Theatrical performance incorporating spectacular carnival costumes, samba music and traditional English folk music and dancing. 

At 9.30am, a colourful spring-themed parade will saw over 200 local children dance their way from the fort and  to Yarmouth town centre where Isle of Wight Morris dancers and the Isle of Wight Cloggies welcomed their arrival with a performance in the town square. Visitors were then able to take part in the open-air barn dance until 12.30pm.

The new event was made possible by the fantastic staff of the Island's unique Carnival Learning Centre who worked with local schools and community groups to ensure the day was a success.

Pebble People of Freshwater Bay - This was a community art project that culminated in a beach picnic and construction of a family of 'pebble people' in Freshwater Bay. More than 100 people enjoyed helping local artist Penny Rushton and her team with the work over a weekend of glorious July weather. The family comprised a life sized pebble mother, father, two children and a pet dog.

We had hoped that the sculptures would stay in place until September. However, given the wear and tear of standing on a shingly beach exposed to the elements and the churning sea that started eroding the wire frame, the family were forced to end their beach vacation a couple of weeks early.

The family didn't leave until many people had taken pictures of them and submitted them to our Pebble People photo competition. Winners will be announced here soon and an exhibtion of entries will be shown at Dimbola Lodge in October 2010.

The Lifeboats of Brook, Brighstone and Atherfield - People in the parish of Brighstone along with the local lifeboat community are developing proposals for a new memorial to commemorate the bravery of those who have manned the lifeboats on the treacherous Back of the Wight coastline.

The plan is to commission a relief sculpted in bronze to capture the bravery of the men and women who served in the lifeboats in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The relief will be set in stone and located in the courtyard of Seely Hall, Brook

A celebration of William Henry Long - W.H. Long was born to a Calbourne farming family in 1839. By his death in 1896, as witnessed by his Times obituary, he had established himself as a writer and antiquarian of national repute. Nowadays, however, his work is largely forgotten.

The aim of this project is to rekindle interest in the work of W.H. Long and, most specifically, in the collection of traditional folk songs that appear in the appendix to his 1886 Dictionary of Isle of Wight Dialect. This collection of songs is of considerable local and national importance, predating as it does, the foundation of the English Folk Dance & Song Society - and the ‘boom’ in folk song collecting that ensued - by some twelve years.

The project is being led by Island based folk trio The Dollymops.

Island Voices - To celebrate the centenary of the Poetry Society the IOW Stanza held an open poetry competition for works stimulated by the Island and its wonderful heritage, land and seascapes. More than 500 entries were received and prizes were awarded by Gillina Allnut at a ceremony held at Quay Arts Newport in 2009.

The publication of Island Voices is the culmination of the competition and includes a selection of the best entries. Copies are available to buy by contacting us on 01983 759779.

Creek and Coast - Writer Lydia Fulleylove and photographer Dick Davis worked with users of the Avenues Support Centre in Freshwater to capture the essence of the beautiful West Wight landscape in new poems and prose.

Lydia and Dick led six short walks during July and August 2009 at sites including the Newtown Nature Reserve, Totland Bay and Norton Spit. Those taking part listened to writing inspired by the landscape and were encouraged to pen their own poetry.

A series of postcards have been created to celebrate each walk. These are available to purchase by contacting the WWLP on 01983 759779.

Kings Manor Farm through the Seasons - The project is funded jointly by WWLP and Arts Council England. It is set on the Kings Manor estate which completely surrounds the tidal River Yar estuary on the west of the Isle of Wight. It provides one of the most exciting environmental habitats in southern England with an extraordinary range of bio-diversity. The owners have preserved the estuary in its natural state for 40 years, treating the tidal area as a wild life sanctuary and running the organic farm as a sustainable operation.

The combined arts activities follow the passage of a year, responding to the changing activities on the farm and the transformation of the landscape through the seasons, re-connecting the community groups with the rural landscape, wild life and cultural aspects of farming.

Participants include two mental health support groups, Drawing Ahead and High Tide Poets, and two groups of children from Shalfleet and Yarmouth Primary Schools. They take part in a series of combined arts workshops through the year on the farm and estuary area led by artist Colin Riches and writer Lydia Fulleylove