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EDITS Artweeks
Words by Esther Lafferty,
Festival Director
Oxfordshire Artweeks
Oxfordshire Artweeks is the country’s flagship ‘open studios’ event,
now in its fourth decade, a visual arts festival that celebrates the
creative talent of Oxford and Oxfordshire artists throughout May
(3rd-26th), and it’s a brilliant opportunity to see new pieces of art
and work in progress and even find a treasure to take home with you.
Throughout the whole month, the county’s
artists and craftspeople throw open the doors
to their studios, homes and a wealth of other
interesting venues and welcome visitors in
to see the way they work, the materials they
work with and to hear about why they work
the ways they do, whether that’s with paint
or clay, wood or metal, glass or textiles. You
might even get the chance to have a go
yourself.
From the 3rd May, Artweeks bursts into life
in South Oxfordshire: venture first into the
towns along the Thames where, in Henley,
you can find Gallery Singular, ‘The World’s
Smallest Art Gallery’ nestled along Friday
Street (numbers 2-4; venue 55) showing
flowing figurative sculptures by art therapist
Trisha Crocker beneath townscapes and
period buildings by Camilla Dowse; bespoke
contemporary furniture by Philip Koomen
(venue 54: Checkendon) described by BBC
Homes and Antiques magazine as ‘one
of the finest craftsmen in wood in Britain
today’; and wooden fish and birds exhibited
amongst textiles and pottery in a garden
studio alongside Ewelme’s fifteenth century
church (venues 57-59).
In Goring-on-Thames, a garden studio
comes alive with butterflies by printmaker
Camilla Sopwith (venue 49), just around
the corner from quirky pottery by Sarah
Rushbrooke (venue 50) and an exhibition of
still life, landscape and ‘odd ideas’ (venue
51: Ann Spencer). And over at North Stoke,
you can enjoy local landscape photography
from a book of The Chilterns by keen local
walker John Scourse capturing the changing
seasons (venue 52).
Follow the river to Dorchester-on-Thames
where delicate jewellery inspired by Faberge
eggs graces The White Hart Hotel (venue 77:
Geraldine McKean). And over in Abingdon
where The Jewellery and Silver Society
of Oxford (JASSO) invite you to see their