Welborne Arts Festival 13 and 14 June

I have been working on Welborne Arts Festival http://www.welborne.org.uk/. This festival in and around the 11th century church and neighbouring village hall, must be one of the most beautiful locations in Norfolk.

This year's theme is The World Around Us featuring a packed programme of top quality visual art, music, literature, performance and children’s activities, which unfolds with the help of Town Crier Tony Nelson (on loan from Sheringham).

Anna Mudeka will be running drumming workshops on both days. I took this photo of Anna, outside the church, on Friday.

Foreign Press Association Paine and Lincoln

We had a Foreign Press Association trip to Norfolk on 12 and 13 May to explore the county's links with Thomas Paine (born in Thetford) http://www.tompaine.org.uk/ and President Abraham Lincoln whose forebears came from Swanton Morely and Hingham.

The photograph shows the group at Hingham Church where we found out about the village's Lincoln Festival to be staged in July.

British Minigolf English Open 10 May - Results

Nick Chitty from Hornsey, north London won the BMGA English Open with a total of 95 in the three rounds played. He set a new course record of 29 with his first round. Chris Harding from Birmingham came second with 97.

Adam Kelly from Cambridge won the special Wroxham Barns trophy for the best local golfer with a score of 113. Our resident sculptor Sue Windley created the trophy. Adam also picked up the best novice award. The prize for the most number of holes in one went to Chris Harding’s son Matthew with 16.

Photographs: Nick Chitty & Sue Windley with Adam Kelly

Voicing Visions - Eighty Leading Norwich Artists and Poets Combine

Norwich Twenty Group’s (N20G) spring exhibition, Voicing Visions, Artists and Poets Collaborate, is a unique and ambitious fusion of Norfolk art and poetry. The exhibition at St Margaret’s Church, St Benedicts Street, Norwich runs from Monday, May 11 to Saturday, May 23, 10am to 6pm daily, free admission.

More than 40 N20G members – painters, sculptors and print makers – have been twinned with local poets, who have written poems inspired by the works of art. Nearly 100 collaborations will be on display at St Margaret’s.

N20G is publishing an accompanying Voicing Visions book, featuring photographs of the artists’ work set alongside their ‘twins’’ poems. The book includes a DVD of the poems read by the poets. The DVD shows an image of each accompanying painting, sculpture or print, as the viewer listens to the poetry on their computer.

The recorded poetry will also be put on MP3 players, to give visitors to the exhibition the option of listening to the poetry as they contemplate the art.

David Holgate, Chairman N20G said: "Voicing Visions is a joyous celebration of the arts. It is very exciting to see another artist’s response to your work. My ‘twin’, Bill Jervis wrote
The Hand, after seeing my sculpture of Mother Julian of Norwich. Bill’s evocative and thoughtful poem reflects on the transience of life and the eternal nature of sculpture."

The piece will endure, linger long time
Connecting our living to eternity

from The Hand, Bill Jervis

"I would like to thank Norwich New Writing Partnership and University of East Anglia, Creative Writing course for their help in securing poetry ‘twins’ for our artists, " added David Holgate. "I would also like to thank the artists and poets for their enthusiasm in bringing this fabulous series of collaborations to life."

David Holgate’s sculpture of Mother Julian (photograph shown) is set in a niche on the west front of Norwich Cathedral. The niche had been empty for 600 years, until he was commissioned to carve Mother Julian as a Millennium project.

Wells Poetry Festival - Poetry-next-the-sea May 8 to 10

Poetry-next-the-Sea is running a packed programme of poetry performances and workshops and art exhibitions for its annual festival in Wells-next-the-Sea, North Norfolk, Friday, May 8 to Sunday, May 10, www.poetry-next-the-sea.com.

Celebrated author, Louis de Bernières, will be introducing and reading some of his favourite poems and Dame Gillian Beer will explain why we cannot do without rhyme.
There will be sessions with East Anglian poets Dean Parkin and Andrea Porter and young Cambridge poets, Ian Cartland, Benjamin Morris and Helen Mort.

Fleur Adcock and Hugo Williams, both winners of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, will be in town, as will Michael Symmons Roberts, poet, dramatist and novelist, and Annie Freud, daughter of Lucian Freud, and a popular live poetry performer. On Sunday morning Meirion Jordan, Kelly Kanayama and Ben Parker, winners of the Norwich Café Writers commission, will read their winning poems.

In a change to the programme, composer Anthony Powers and local writer and poet Irene Noel-Baker will combine with Michael Chance (alto) and James Boyd (guitar) in Lyric Poetry: Where Words and Music Meet at The Maltings, 7pm on Sunday, May 10.

Anthony Powers and Irene Noel-Baker will discuss Mr Powers’ settings of poetry by Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney and Lawrence Durrell, as well as their own collaboration, the song cycle Changing the Story. They will talk about the link between poetry and song – rhyme, rhythm, imagery and phrasing. The evening will feature both words and music to illustrate the discussion.

The festival also includes a series of voice, poetry and art workshops, plus
one-to-one sessions with poet Andrea Porter, and an exhibition of work by festival artist, Gillian Crossley-Holland and sculptor, Graham High.

The winners of Poetry-next-the-Sea’s second open competition will be announced at an Open Floor event at 1 pm on Sunday, May 10, a session at which all local poets are invited to read their work.

Full details of all events and activities are at www.poetry-next-the-sea.com. Brochures can be picked up in local libraries. For further information and ticket bookings contact Susan Marshall tel. 01328 711813, suzy948@btinternet.com. Festival season tickets, for all events except workshops are £36.

Wroxham Barns Trophy Minigolf English Open

Sue Windley, resident sculptor at Wroxham Barns http://www.wroxhambarns.co.uk/ has produced a special trophy for the best local golfer at the Minigolf English Open, to be staged at Wroxham Barns on Sunday, May 10. I am competing, but do not think that I will be troubling the scorers!