Arts & Crafts Group Day Trip to York

13.10.2022

 

On 16th September, instead of running the arts and crafts group, we took a group of carers from the arts and crafts group and were joined by some of the people from the men’s and young carers group.

 

Some clients had not met or talked to each other before, but the journey, gallery and café stops enabled chat and discussion between people who probably would have no reason to mix or talk to each other.

 

We took a full minibus of 14 driven by Bilal and headed off to the Art gallery in York.

 

We had intended initially to go to the Great North Art Show in Ripon Cathedral, but the Cathedral was in mourning for the late Queen.

 

Instead, we chose to go back to York Art Gallery, where we’d had such a lovely trip last year. We agreed that if we could fit in the Great North Art Show before it closed and the bad weather set in, we would. 

 

It was a beautifully sunny day – as we drove into York. When we arrived, the exhibitions were free to enter, so some of the group headed off to explore York while some of us went into the exhibitions.

 

We saw a different set of 19th Century Japanese Prints from “The Floating World” to those we saw at the gallery visit last year. They are rotated every six months to enable them all to be shown and so that they do not suffer from too much exposure as they are old and quite delicate. 

 

It was interesting to see the influence on European art in the same period and how they influenced all the major artists from Sargent to Van Gogh, Picasso and many of the French Impressionists.

 

Another feature of the York gallery is the large collection of weird and wonderful ceramics displayed. From old ceramics to more modern pieces, large monsters and strange ceramic animals or fish? It’s debatable. There was also the collection of a potter with letters and journals as well as the pieces he’d made.

 

The major exhibition in the main gallery was that of African Women potters – here there were 2 or 3 rooms of lovely large beautifully made urns, pots, vases and cooking vessels, some old and some new. All with wonderful inscribed patterns and symbols in rich dark glazes.

For modern art lovers, there was the Encaustic Awards exhibition, in the side gallery. 

 

After absorbing and discussing the wonderful images from the gallery, we strolled to a local coffee shop to get refreshments, bumping into others from the minibus and joining up with them.

 

A lovely trip was had by all and everyone said they’d thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and would really like to go on the trip to Ripon if we can organise it before the exhibition ends.