We are huge art lovers at Heather & Lay – in fact both John’s wife Jo and their son James are artists so we could think of no event more fitting to sponsor than FORM Falmouth, an annual visual arts festival taking place at The Princess Pavilion this weekend, 20-22 September. Today we are interviewing Vicki from Inspire Makers and Ann from Morgans Gallery, who put this entire festival together. Without further ado, over to Vicki and Ann…
Tell us all about FORM Falmouth, what it is and when it is:
FORM Falmouth is an art festival at The Princess Pavilion that is in its third year. It is taking place on Friday 20th September 2-8pm, Saturday 21st 10am - 5pm and Sunday 22nd 10am – 4pm but that is only the main event, there is so much more! There will be around 90 exhibitors. Painters, ceramicists, printmakers, jewellers, woodworkers and sculptors, musicians, food vendors, a lot happens outside in the garden area. It is a lovely outside venue with The Garden Room and the theatre – it’s such a fabulous space.
This is a not-for-profit event; we completely subsidise FORM Falmouth with our time and energy, and we are dependent on sponsorship from companies like Heather & Lay to help us put it on. It’s free entry, which is great for the artists and it’s accessible for local people and incredibly inclusive. Bring the kids, the dogs – everyone is welcome!
On Saturday there are 2 events at the main pavilion – an urban sketch event – run by Urban Sketchers, Penryn. It’s free so people can spend the day sketching with them en plein air. Then there is a community printmaking project funded by Feast Cornwall. This year, John Howard Printmaking Studios are bringing an image of a John Dyer painting. People will have the opportunity to etch a plate, and they will print it and create a collage and exhibit the two side by side.
Alongside this, we promote anything happening in the town. We link with The Poly, and we promote what’s going on with Falmouth Art Gallery. We also run a school’s project. We pay with the funding for artists to go into all 5 primary schools in Falmouth and produce a project with year 5 or 6 students, then it goes on display in 5-6 key shops in Falmouth. This is something fabulous for young children to show their parents. On Sunday there are free children’s workshops, where they can make a fairy wand in the afternoon or enjoy Mobile Making with beach plastic in the morning.
There are events on at The Poly as well – Drink and Draw Burlesque on Saturday night, The Colour Room art film with scriptwriter Q&A and the members exhibition all taking place.
This means you can spend the whole weekend doing art related things, mooching around, listening to some music, having a drink and buying a piece of art.
We would love to know a bit about you both and why you created this:
We set our own art galleries up 4 years ago. We met and chatted about how much we loved Falmouth and how to promote art in our area. People often think of St Ives, Newlyn etc. they don’t associate Falmouth with that art scene, but the tradition is here, and the arts school originated in Falmouth. FORM Falmouth started small, but it’s grown really big. We are now in our third year, so many people are applying to take part, sadly we have a restricted number due to the venue, but we have managed to extend it with a marquee. Each year the footfall grows – we welcomed over 5,000 visitors last year. Our aim is to highlight art and design in Falmouth - we’ve had good publicity including Homes and Antiques and Elle Decoration magazine. We want to encourage external visitors to come from out of county. We have been supported by Falmouth BID under an umbrella called Falmouth Creates.
Vicki – I run Inspire Makers at the top of the high street – it’s at the affordable end of entry price into buying handmade. I sell art but mainly 3D jewellery and ceramics. I also have a little exhibition gallery out the back, where I hold monthly exhibitions for local artists and workshops on making jewellery. I only promote Cornish talent. I was a buying director before this, and I now support 60 micro artisan businesses. I give them an opportunity to sell in my shop.
Ann – my focus is fine art - I run Morgans and have a lot of years in the art and design industry. My husband had an architect’s firm, my background was art and design education, and my daughter is a painter also. Morgans is a lovely gallery highlighting art and design, predominantly paintings but also ceramic and sculpture work, not to mention some fabulous journals. It is also highlighting local talent as we both try to promote Cornish talent. I look closely at students coming out of the university and give them a chance – I feature a lot of established artists but also emerging talent.
What sort of exhibitors will there be?
It’s around approximately 60% print illustration and paintings. That’s important to us as there’s lots of craft fairs but the Cornish community of makers is very strong. Artists don’t have so many places to exhibit. Art, print and illustration are the key focus areas then the rest involves a fine art influence in their art, glass, jewellery or ceramics. It’s a brilliant place for artists to network as well, there will be 90 of them in attendance. It’s also a place for other galleries to pick up on these artists, not just for locals who often purchase commissions after the event. It’s not just about sales on the day. These artists remain on our website for the whole year and they also have to have a strong connection to Cornwall to exhibit.
We would love to know more about the Young Creatives Art Trail
This is where we involve all 5 primary schools in Falmouth – 200 year 5 and 6 children who participated in art workshops. We raised the extra money to be able to do this a second time. 4 of the artists that have been into school are also exhibiting. We will be putting the children’s artwork in the windows of key shops – Seasalt, Cream, Willow and Stone, Oggies, Trago Mills, and The Cornish store. There is information about the artist as well as the work. It’s brilliant for children to hear from these artists - it’s exciting and it encourages those kids to ask their parents to come to FORM Falmouth and to create conversations in the classroom around art.
Can you tell us a bit about your sponsors?
Of course! Our overall sponsor is Falmouth BID. The Town Council and FEAST supported the schools project, Heather & Lay of course, FEAST sponsor the printing project and we both sponsor the event as well – Morgans and Inspire Makers. We are so grateful for our sponsors as sponsorship really is key to our sustainability.
How can people get more involved with Form Falmouth?
They can contact us, we often get emails about wanting to get involved. We would love more help and more sponsorship. It’s not-for-profit so every penny we get in gets spent on the festival. Sponsorship for the lighting or the school’s project would be a massive help. The sustainability of the festival hinges on sponsorship. We particularly need no-win, no-fee support on funding applications – it has to be voluntary. We keep the event affordable for the artists. We don’t want to charge more or introduce an entry fee as we are mindful that it’s such a community event. We never want it to become too elitist.
We would love people to give their time to help us run it – help managing the website, funding applications, crowdfunding, marketing. We are open to any suggestions. We are ok for this weekend, but we could use on the weekend volunteers for future years. We open the applications in the spring for those who want to apply for next year. There is a set period of time to apply as we are so oversubscribed. Follow us on Instagram and be aware of the deadlines coming up.
Thank you so much to Vicki and Ann, what an interesting interview. We cannot wait to visit the event this weekend and support FORM Falmouth. For those who are interested in finding out more about the event, you can explore all the events and the artists on the website: https://formfalmouth.com/ or follow FORM Falmouth on Instagram @formfalmouth
Photo credit John Hersey Studio
