The twelve day Art and Music Festival will be a feast for artists! The Festival is a celebration of the talent that exists across the community and features many new events for 2009. More than twenty local artists will be participating in the popular Artists Open Studios. The Festival is also planning Art Workshops on clay modelling, charcoal drawings, drawing from a live model, and embroidery. There will be a Demonstration by Howard Birchmoor of landscape painting in acrylic, with sound amplification and enhanced viewing via projector screen. Local artists are also invited to a painting day in the beautiful riverside gardens of the Odney Club, in the company of Cookham Arts Club.
Art Exhibitions featuring the work of Frederick Walker and Ralph Thompson will also be the subject of two talks. The first by Jean Hedger explores the life and work of Frederick Walker a great artist who died young and is buried in Cookham Churchyard. The times he spent in the village and the paintings he produced in and around Cookham are little known to the residents of today. Jean's talk will expand on the works which will be shown in Fred Walker's Cookham, one of the exhibitions in the festival.
The exhibition Animal Magic: the paintings of Cookham Dean artist Ralph Thompson provides a rare opportunity to see a large number of original paintings by the famous painter, Ralph Thompson, friend of Stanley Spencer and illustrator of books by Gerald Durrell. Ralph also appeared on a series of BBC television programmes demonstrating his remarkable skills as a painter of animals. His work is the subject of the second talk called An Extremely Rare Creature which was Gerald Durrell's opinion of a good animal artist and the special tribute he paid to the distinguished animal artist, Ralph Thompson. Wyn Reilly, Ralph's stepson and close friend, will talk about his life and work, assisted by Ralph's artist friend, Chris Tyrrell. There will be plenty of time for questions, discussion and contributions from people who knew him.
There will also be a talk on Stanley Spencer by Unity Spencer, as well as a guided walk around Spencer’s Cookham.
If you thought embroidery was cross stitch and tablecloths, you will be amazed at the art and creativity of the Windsor & Maidenhead Branch of the Embroiderers Guild. Their work will feature in a special exhibition throughout the Festival.
A Sculpture Garden featuring twenty five sculptures by leading sculptors, in the gardens of the Odney Club will be a highlight of the Festival.. This new event , by kind permission of the Odney Club, is being curated by Bridget Fraser of the Barn Galleries, Henley on Thames. The Sculpture Garden will feature a collection of twenty five outstanding sculptures from leading local sculptors and others, including Lydia Karpinska, the late Ken Court and Eunice Goodman. Festival visitors will be able to follow the trail under the ancient cedar trees, across the gracious lawns and discover sculptures hidden in the herbaceous borders.
Bridget Fraser said” It is a great pleasure for me to be curating the first ever Sculpture Garden for the Cookham Festival. For me, it is like a homecoming. I lived in Cookham – the Dean, the Rise, the Dean again – from 1972 until 1986. It was in Cookham that my children spent their early years and, like me, forged some of their firmest friendships. Cookham is a community like no other and it is an honour and a pleasure to be associated with the Cookham Festival, to celebrate all that is so vibrant, so wonderful and so welcoming: everything that is Cookham. Some of the sculptors’ names you will recognise, others will be new to you. Enjoy it all as you explore the perfect grounds of the Odney Club. Beautiful gardens, amazing sculpture: what a treat in store.”
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