St Mary's June 2021 & August 2022

St Mary’s is a space facilitated by Lorrain Mailer, supported by local professional artists by the kind permission of the Stour Downs Parish. 

It is an inclusive and calm space that seeks to offer an environment to promote self-esteem, wellbeing and empowerment through a number of participating workshops.

Located in a Grade I Norman church dedicated to the arts, in all its forms, St Mary’s seeks to alleviate anxiety, loneliness and the sense of feeling worthless through community activities that explore the nature and diversity of materials with the joy and process of making.

Booking via Eventbrite

3rd August / Stitch Mediation / Deborah Woollard
Creative and spontaneous embroidery that anyone can create. Suitable for beginners and experts alike!
Deborah Woollard is a textile artist.

4th August /Macramé with Molly Newton
Molly is a fine artist who will show you from a few simply knots, how to build and creative your own work.

6th August / Cyanotypes with Jayne Simmonds
A simple way to record nature with natural light to create stunning blue images. Only a beginner last year Jayne is now an acclaimed artist

9th August / Mono Printing with Lorrain Mailer
Expressively create simple shapes, patterns and colours through a single print with Lorrain, a mark making artist and sculptor.

11th & 13th August / Creative Writing with Emma Batten
Hands-Off at St Mary’s is inspired by real events, a creative writing workshop by author Emma Batten.

13th August / Poetry with Jihao Xie
An opportunity to self-express about yourself and your generation in prose with Jinhao, a performative poet.

15th August / Needle Felting with Sheba Pullar
Make a Kola bear with natural local wool from Romney Marsh with Sheba.

18th August / Collage from Rubbings & Painting with Sue Hards
Come with or make rubbings from a multitude of surfaces or experiment to create your own paint samples to create collages and marbling with Sue Hards.

19th August / 3D Recycling with Lorrain Mailer
This is an opportunity to use all those things you have been hording but don't know what to do with, to create fun and endearing objects outdoors to benefit and nurture nature - A Bug Colony.

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June 2021 Lorrain Mailer invited six artists to provide participating workshops and talks for the community along with an installation of her various artworks within the grade I listed Norman church.
 
These events were made possible by the kind support of The Stour Downs Parish
and Folkestone & Hythe District Council.

Dry Clay Modelling / Jane Cordery  Sunday 6 June 1- 3.00pm
Participants will make a sculptural ‘photo frame’ out of dry clay incorporating salt in memory of someone or something lost.  With an exhibition Void – 2020 at The Horsebridge Gallery, Whitstable from 22nd September 2021 participates are welcome.
An opportunity to meet and discuss loss, create a memory, exhibit your achievement and help a charity while getting something back. 
https://janecordery.artweb.com/  Member of Pure ART360

Talk / Katarina Sengstaken  Tuesday 8 June 7- 8.30pm
Kat is an animator, film editor, digital artist and stop motion animator currently based at the University of the Creative Arts in Canterbury.  Kat amalgamates teaching, exhibiting internationally and actively encouraging local wellbeing through participation in the arts.
Recently Kat has completed a residency at the Margate School where she combed the beach for inspirational material.  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/katsengstaken  Tutor at UCA

Talk / Melanie Jordan  Thursday 10 June 7- 8.30pm
A haptic practice with thread-based crafts at its core. Mel's artwork pays attention to the inner tension between the need to nurture and a feeling of entrapment associated with motherhood; that is maternal ambivalence.
Mel has just completed a residency at the Creative Quater, Folkestone where she has started developing a new body of work.
https://www.zealous.co/melaniejordan/project/To-be-Frank-1/  https://www.artymel.co.uk/  Currently doing a PhD

Cyanotype / Katarina Sengstaken  Saturday 12 June 10 – 12.30pm
Using the flora and vegetation growing wild in the graveyard, along with the natural light, participates will magically create blue impressions and patterns like photographic prints on paper.  The mystery of how this is achieved will be explained so once completed you can go home to create even more beautiful images.
Kat is an animator, film editor, digital artist and stop motion animator currently a tutor at UCA in Canterbury and exhibites internationally.  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/katsengstaken 

Talk / Molly Lambourn  Tuesday 15 June 7- 8.30pm
Molly is a Kent based Fine Artist specialising in drawing. Her work has helped her to maintain positive mental wellbeing during personal struggle. Her drawing promotes mindfulness through repetition, producing work that has a beautiful surface with a more complex reality. 
Invited to stay at Jane Austen's home, Molly will entertain us with tales of her residency.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollylambournartist/  https://www.sophiestokes.com/ 
https://mollylambourn.wixsite.com/mollylambournartist   MA Fine Art UCA

Talk / Ellen Kydd & Eleanor Cox  Thursday 17 June 7- 8.30pm
Ellen Kydd (Elle) and Eleanor Cox (El) will present a talk about space and connection. Through a live performance & video, the collaborative artwork connects a felt experience with an individual spatial investigation.  This will be their inaugural public performance and they hope to invite audience participation.
The past year has seen Elle & El work to help found POW! Youth, a ‘younger sister’ to the POW! (Power of Women) based in Margate. This community focused group seeks to actively promote the move towards gender equality, whilst also providing a platform for young voices and artists.
https://www.ellenkydd.com/  Elle: Final year MA Student at UCA  El: Final year BA Student at St Martin's

Everyday Objects / Lorrain Mailer  Saturday 19 June 10 – 12.00pm
Using overlooked everyday materials, to produce sculptural oddities that encourages participates to re-examine disguarded objects.  Through play participates have the opportunity to question the material, its origin, the processes it has gone through and where it will end up, rather like a journey. 
By combining these items through a wrapping process, the participate makes judgements of construction, weight, colour, materiality and by doing so reconsiders the value of things.   
https://www.lorrainmailer.com  Finalist VIA Arts Prize 2020 / Sellindge Church Events Facilitator

Tracing the Cracks / Alison Lees  Sunday 20 June 10 – 12.30pm
A very fluid activity where participates will feel, trace and record cracks and worn lines from the dry earth, trees or even the tiles within the church porch.  This event (subject to weather) will take place outside in the graveyard, so please dress accordingly and bring something to sit on.  From these connections, you will create abstract line or block colour images or smudges of colour from the damp surfaces you encounter. 
This is a journey to reconnect with the natural world and to listen to yourself.
https://www.alileesartist.com/  Currently doing a PhD

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