Our society endorses the Arts Society ethos to provide children and young people with exciting opportunities to get involved in creative arts activities. Our work with young people builds a lasting enthusiasm for the arts and an awareness of arts heritage and its conservation.
Arts Volunteering and the South Bucks Hospice Patient Positivity Art group.
Our second project was supporting the South Bucks Hospice Patient Positivity Art group. The Hospice provides day care for anyone living with a life limiting condition.
The aim of the Art group is to enable it’s participants the freedom to express themselves through watercolours in whatever way they choose. Their is no instruction but the facilitator provides the materials, encouragement and ideas.The group also provides gentle and supportive conversation and sense of community. It was privileged to meet with members of the group and it was very uplifting to hear how much the group meant to them and how grateful they were for our funding.
The project our society contributed to ,was entitled “The Coronation “ it enabled the facilitator to purchase materials and frames to exhibit the the finished paintings. These were on display at a tea party to celebrate the King’s Coronation, to which myself and chairman were able to attend. Please click here to view some of the other art works.As you will see there is real talent and for most they had not painted since school days !
Princes Risborough Rotary Club Schools Art Competition
Unfortunately, during COVID Arts Volunteering activities necessarily had to be suspended but we are delighted to announce that we have now completed our first of our post-pandemic project.
We partnered with The Princes Risborough Rotary Club to support their Schools Art Competition in which children from local schools were invited to submit paintings and drawings on the theme of Our Green Planet.
Despite the pressures on schools to catch up after the pandemic, eight primary schools were involved. Submissions were invited from both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, and in each school 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners were selected in both categories together with highly commended acknowledgements for two other entries. In addition, and overall winner in each Key Stage was also chosen.
The Chair and Arts Volunteering Representative from our committee were delighted to be involved in the judging process, together with the Rotary Club judge.
The competition culminated in a Day Exhibition of the winning entries in St Mary’s Hall in the heart of Princes Risborough. The Chair and the AV Representative attended and were happy to meet a number of the winners together with their families. In total, almost 200 members of the public came through the doors to view the work of the children, providing a great opportunity to celebrate their creativity and to promote the work of our Society. This first step in the revitalised programme has been a very satisfying experience for all involved and the results can be seen in the images, here.
Hughenden Primary School Mosaic project
The Arts Society West Wycombe has just completed another exciting Young Arts project, this time working with Hughenden Primary School to create a mosaic that will be displayed in its newly added reception area. The school’s good fortune is to have an expert mosaic artist on its staff, so Heather Kittler was the obvious person to lead the project, producing the original design and overseeing the construction of the mosaic.. The design was based on the school’s colourful logo and all the pupils in the school made a contribution to this artwork. In addition, each child was encouraged create a design on a printed paper matrix, then construct it with tesserae on their own small wooden tile. Some of the designs were themed to a school project on Coasts and others were geometric or based on pure imagination, often resulting in a riot of colour. The finished tiles will decorate the corridors in the school.
Our society funded the materials used on the mosaics and provided a cohort of volunteers to assist in workshops that ran every afternoon for a week at the beginning of June. The children really enjoyed themselves and each of our volunteers received a special letter, written by pupils at the school, to thank them for their help.
For more pictures click here
Summer Drama Workshop for Young Carers Bucks
Following the success of the Drama Workshop project in April, Young Carers Bucks were eager to provide more sessions for younger children during the summer holidays. West Wycombe therefore teamed up with our neighbouring Vale of Aylesbury Society and also obtained a grant from the Patricia Fay Memorial Fund to be able to sponsor another series of workshops for a group of 8 to 10 year old young carers based in Aylesbury.
Once again, Georgia Bowers led the workshops and provided imaginative and creative tasks for the participants to help build, confidence, communication and acting skills. The children were encouraged to write stories and dramatise them, using props that they created out of recycled materials. Whereas the older children attending the previous workshop wanted to communicate what it was like to be a young carer in their drama, the younger children chose to create an escapist pirate adventure.
Laura Troll from Young Carers Bucks said that all the children had really enjoyed the Drama Workshop and. “Seeing the difference in the focus of the young carers from the beginning of the project to the end just goes to show how worthwhile it is to them
For more pictures click here
My Golden Moment Competition
To celebrate The Arts Society Golden Jubilee this year, Chiltern Hills & Wyvern Area launched its' My Golden Moment Competition, inviting schoolchildren throughout the area to interpret the title in any art form using any medium. Two schools from the West Wycombe area participated and we are very pleased to announce that they were extremely successful in fielding several prizewinning entries.
Annabel Reed, from Naphill and Walters Ash School, won first prize in the 5-10 year old category with her impressive Piano Performance painting. Another pupil from the school, Thomas Waterton, received a commendation for his entry, The Goal. Princes Risbsorugh School students, also fared very well. Will Chapman’s exquisitely painted Golden Eagle won first prize and Joy Hatfield’s characterful Golden Girl won second prize in the 11-16 age group. Heather Piare was also highly commended for her portrait of John Nash in the 17 - 25 age group.
An exhibition of all the entries in the My Golden Moment Competition is at the Bucks County Museum, Aylesbury from 17th March to 14th April 2018.
Click here to view some of the pictures