A project promoting historical Barton upon Humber has received funding worth £66,000 over the next two years.
The money, awarded by Arts Council England’s Museum resilience fund, will see the town’s history move into the modern era and create an enhanced visitor experience, professional marketing, digital presence, and greater exposure to the outside world.
Liz Bennet, of The Ropewalk Museum, said the successful application had been a partnership with the Wilderspin National School supported by the Barton Tourism Partnership.
“We all believe that what we have to offer in Barton is a valuable visitor experience. This project will put us on the map through increased web presence, greater connectivity through Wikipedia, a more accessible interactive interpretation of the whole town and will raise our profile and make us ready to benefit from national interest in our neighbour’s Hull City of Culture 2017,” she explained.
One aspect of the successful bid is to appoint a Wikipedian in residence for six months to make sure that Barton upon Humber is referenced and linked on line to as many resources as possible.
“For example if you were to look up the Samaritans you would then find that the founder, the late Prebendary Dr Chad Varah CH CBE, was from Barton and then from there it would link to Barton, the house where he lived and its history.” Liz continued
Other aspects of the project include the development of a mobile app so the history of any of the town’s numerous noteworthy buildings can be accessed including details about its construction and any other interesting facts and employing a heritage marketing professional part time for a year to develop a marketing strategy and audience development plan for Barton’s heritage sites individually and as a whole.
Other aspects would include revising and updating the town’s popular shrink map and developing a circular trail that links all three museums via buildings of interest.
“As far as we are aware we think that this holistic approach to interpret the history of the whole town is an unusual and new approach to developing the viability and resilience of museums,” Liz added.
Sarah Maxfield, Area Director, North, Arts Council England, said: ‘“Our Museums resilience fund supports museums by enabling them to become more sustainable and robust, whatever their size, and helping them to offer improved experiences for both audiences and artists. I’m delighted that 27 museums across the North have been awarded a total of £3.7 million in this round and look forward to seeing the results of this funding in the future. The Arts Council’s aim is to achieve great art and culture for everyone – the North has some fantastic museums across the area which between them reach thousands of visitors each year therefore greatly supporting us in our mission. ”
The annual exhibition by The Ropewalk Studio artists. Featuring work by:
David Alcock
Sally Beaumont
Emily Connor
Debbie Grice
Richard Hatfield
Gill Hobson
Judith Land
Darren Langton
Tim Needham
Julie Oxenforth
Michael Scrimshaw
Shirley Trumble
Keith Woodcock
The Ropewalk’s popular Christmas Art Market will showcase the work of more than 40 makers and artists.
Taking place over the weekend of Saturday December 7 and Sunday December 8 those makers and artists selected to take part will be selling original handmade gifts, cards and artwork (more…)
Helen Martino would describe her work as being ‘sometimes serious and sometimes playful’. For many years Helen worked as a functional potter, making batches of domestic pots on a wheel. Now she sees herself as more of a maker in clay, hand building each piece individually by using soft and flexible sheets of clay. These sheets of clay are freely cut, curved and sometimes twisted, this is how Helen is able to create different perspectives and distortion within her work. The surface is painted with slip, underglaze pigment and resists. Depending on the piece silver and gold lustre may also be incorporated.
Helen is fascinated by body language and how this can be communicated. She observes Mogul and Persian miniatures and admires how they are able to tell a story within one image. These artworks often show a significant event within the life span of a person or family. Helen’s sculptures are also intimate like the miniature and show a single event that can be applied to the past, future and present, allowing the viewer to determine the story of each artwork.
Working in Cambridge, Helen exhibits widely across the UK and is the founder member of Cambridge Open Studios. She will be exhibiting in the Box Gallery in November.
Yorkshire born and bred, Eleanor Tomlinson is a traditional artist and illustrator based in East Yorkshire. Inspired by the beautiful Yorkshire countryside she has grown up amongst, Eleanor predominantly works in ink and watercolour to specialise in capturing and celebrating UK wildlife and the local countryside. Eleanor’s distinctive style using ink and watercolour, combines traditional, well-loved subjects with a contemporary, illustrative twist. Her use and composition of contrasting white space brings a narrative and sense of movement and energy to her pieces. Eleanor’s artworks have also been developed into a wide range of cards, stationery, limited edition prints and homeware collections alongside her original pieces which are being sold in an array of independent shops and galleries across the UK.
LAND, SEA AND SKY
The theme for this exhibition ‘Land, Sea, and Sky’ was chosen because its wide-ranging associations might be interpreted in many different ways, and in part because the theme was seen to have some relevance to the location of The Ropewalk Gallery. No size limit was imposed and artists were invited to respond to the theme in as wide a way as possible, to be as traditional or as innovative as they wished both in process and format. The final selection includes three dimensional and large format pieces as well as more conventional prints.
Printmakers Council was founded in 1965 by a group of prominent printmakers to raise the profile of printmaking as an art form and to provide an exhibition society for members. For over fifty years PmC has continued to pursue these aims through a rolling programme of exhibitions, lectures and practical workshops.
Two new exhibitions with links to northern Lincolnshire are opening this Saturday (Sept 14) at The Ropewalk arts centre in Barton upon Humber.
In the Artspace is Re-Tellings, a solo exhibition by Grimsby based artist Sue Stone whose work is inspired by people, place and time. (more…)
