Artweeks

For the last few years we at the Gatehouse have been doing on a Wednesday night at 5.00-7.00. It has been very therapeutic, you can see al your pain, worries and frustration fall away from you. Before I came to Oxford, the creativity that God gave me did not have any avenues of expression. But places like the Gatehouse and the ACT art group and other places in Oxford you can do the art and express yourself. As an artist we have been it artweeks before. But this year Andrew had the idea of going around all the art sites or as many as I could.

So on the 9 May (Saturday) I set off on my journey . . . One of the first art sites I went to was the Bartlemas Chapel (Joanna Gilmour and Wendy Hughes) their art was textiles. I have been looking for that place for a few years now. But with the artweeks site I found it.

As I went around the art sites they were very varied like: ceramics, pottery, furniture, wood, glass, mosaic, jewellery, metalwork, mixed media, painting, drawing, paper, papier mache, photography, digital art, printmaking, etching, sculpture, installations, engraving, textiles, group exhibitions and non-selling exhibitions. I bought a map of Oxford and I was a bit rusty in using it.

One of the art sites was in the Prince of Wales pub in Iffley. The weather was very hot, so when I went into the pub I asked for a bottle of water. I went to pay for it and the barman said, “If you’re doing that it’s on the house (for free).” In all I visited 45 art sites. I enjoyed it very much but my feet were a bit sore and it was nice to sit down sometimes.

I had to cut short the art site visits because I had a chest infection. I would really like to thank Setareh and Paul and the rest of the people who help at the art class and Andrew. I am really looking forward to going to as many art sites as I can next year, God willing.

Shaun Quirk

Shaun's sponsorship page is on justgiving

You can see a selection of work from the artgroup on
flickr