Famous Hastings painting inspires lockdown community art project

Hastings Museum and Art Gallery is looking for people to get involved with creating a digital artwork piece as part of #HastingsDigitalMuseum.
Badham painting of Hastings SUS-200526-100456001Badham painting of Hastings SUS-200526-100456001
Badham painting of Hastings SUS-200526-100456001

The museum is working with artists, Kate Hulme and Carissa Tanton, to create a piece of community digital art based on Edward Badham’s painting of Hastings, Corner House and the Blue Saloon, painted sometime between 1922 and 1935.

The piece was chosen because it represents everyday life and community, two things which feel are particularly precious at this moment.

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The painting is being divided into squares, a bit like a jigsaw or patchwork quilt and contributors can take a single square and recreate it however they like. This could be a square of knitting, embroidery, oil painting, colouring in, crochet or watercolour. But equally it could be something more surprising, for example an iced cake, a collage of fabric, an arrangement of objects in your home.

Badham art project SUS-200526-100559001Badham art project SUS-200526-100559001
Badham art project SUS-200526-100559001

Contributions from all ages and abilities are welcomed.

Hastings Borough Council Leader Kim Forward, said: “People in our town have come together during this crisis and this sense of community has been very important.

“This is an opportunity for people to join in and create something beautiful which will come to symbolise how we are currently working every day to cope. I look forward to seeing our community’s response when the unique pieces are joined to create something beautiful and unexpected in a Digital Quilt.”

Kate Hulme said: “The idea for the digital quilt came to me when I was creating cross stitch grids with my six-year-old son to send to his friends during lock down.

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“It occurred to me how great it would be to get a lot of people to contribute to a bigger piece of art in whatever way they chose, and to whatever skill level they had. The more I thought about it the more it seemed to represent a sense of community, where our unique strengths and weaknesses come together to create something bigger than we are.”

Cariss Tanton said: “I loved Kate’s idea for creating a quilt from small squares and cannot wait to stitch it all back together. For me the wonderful thing about drawing is it brings a new level of paying attention as one really has to look closely at what’s in front of you.”

To get involved email [email protected]. You have until Friday May 29 to complete your square. The final artwork will be published on Wednesday June 3.