Works of art await in minster

Artwork will fill Southwell Minster from tomorrow as part of events to mark the building’s 900th anniversary.

Southwell Artists, a group of professional and semi-professional artists, are exhibiting until July 4.

The pieces include drawings and paintings of the minster by Mrs Christine Measures, who did the work while sitting high in the walkways above the north and south transepts.

Mrs Measures, of Westhorpe, felt lucky to use the vantage points, not normally open to the public.

“I’ve spent quite a lot of time up there often during evensong or during organ practice and choir practice. It is motivating and you are aware very much of space,” she said.

“You get a wonderful sense of spirituality up there and because I’ve been doing it during evensong it’s been almost like taking part in it while being moved to be doing things at the same time.

“What I’ve been trying to do is indicate scale and sense of space. When I’m in the church I love looking up at the roof and it’s been wonderful being up there and looking down.”

Mrs Measures is one of 13 members of Southwell Artists contributing more than 100 pieces of work, some specially created for the exhibition.

They include watercolours, oils, pastel drawings, photographs and printmaking.

Mrs Measures has been working on her ten feltpen drawings and seven paintings since January.

“In the 44 years I’ve lived here I’ve mostly been doing very detailed pictures of the minster and when I was told about this exhibition I thought I’ll look at the Norman parts of the church,” she said.

Her husband, Mr David Measures, also a member of Southwell Artists, is contributing 33 paintings to the exhibition.

They depict the changing scenery at Cressbrook Dale, Derbyshire, over the course of a year and will hang in the Chapter House.

The exhibition also features work by Mr Peter Cartwright, of Westgate, whose pieces include a large 12ft by 5ft graphite drawing, created specially for the exhibition.

He said: “My work is abstract and this series has got a lot to do with the themes of time and memory and things I experience and sense as time moves on.

“It isn’t what I put in the work but what other people see in it. I’m interested in the ambiguity of it as well.

“I don’t like the details of the piece to have any descriptive element in them so hopefully people make there own readings as they look at them, and I particularly like the way children respond to the work.”

Other exhibition contributors are: Mr David Willetts, Mrs Maggie Milner, Mr Stuart Blackwood and Deborah Sweeney, all of Westhorpe, Mrs Jill Langford, Mrs Heather Cartwright and Mrs Marianne McPhie, all of Westgate, Mrs Norma Blamey, of Westhorpe House, and Mr Derek Sprawson, of Dudley Doy Road, Southwell.