What have we been doing? What will we be doing ??

Well, Celf-Able have been busy again. Despite the dreadful flooding we have only had to cancel one meeting. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to Machynlleth due to flooding and a land slip.

We also held another very successful ‘Upcycling’ workshop at the Insitute in Llanfair on Saturday 29th Feruary a range of things were up cycled, some provided by us and some items brought by individual participants, involving mosaics, decoupage, glass painting and upholstery!

We have also started a great new relationship with the Enterprise Hub in Newtown and will now be holding our art sessions at the Pryce Jones Building on the third floor sharing their excellent space. There is a lift and it’s very handy for the station too. We start there on Wednesday 25th March and look forward to seeing our members there and also welcoming new members.

We have upcoming excitement when we produce ‘zines with artist , Nicky Arscott. You may ask what ‘zines are – we did! They are hand made magazines using collage, paintings and text either written or printed and stuck in. We gained funding for this from Age Cymru as part of the Gwanwyn Festival and will be thinking about how ageing has affected or will affect us. The project starts in April and will run through to June.

But that’s not all we have two other exciting events in April.

Firstly, we will be holding a fundraiser in Welshpool at the Corn Exchange on Saturday 25th April 11-3. We would love to see you there. We will be holding a raffle, there will be art work for sale along with some of our upcycled products. There will also be a ‘Have-a-go’ table were you can pay to paint your own mug or tile or decorate a bag for life.

There will also be books, bric-a-brac, hand made jewellery and handmade cards for sale along with a refreshments stall. Please come and support us.

Our second event is a visit to Tate modern in Liverpool on 28th April. The National Lottery have given us a grant which will enable us to visit the gallery and take inspiration from the artworks there in order to produce our own pieces for an exhibition.

Talking of exhibitions we have an exhibition on the theme ‘Art Ability ‘ which will be showing at Celf O Gwmpas in Llandrindod Wells in April it will then move to Newtown library the following month. Speaking of library exhibitions we currently have work on display in Llanfair Caereinion Library. We hope you get a chance to see them.

What a year 2019 was!

Well we certainly had an exciting year. We gained a great new patron, Andrew Logan and a new logo.

We also had some exciting activities throughout the year.

We had a name our dragon mascot competition with Billy being the winner.

We also held a great dragon fundraiser at Oriel Davies in Newtown. The venue was given to us by Oriel Davies and refreshment by Newtown Tesco and Morrison’s.

In terms of other fundraising we have had stalls at the Llanfair Carnival, Llanfair Show, Newtown Food Festival and Llanfair Lights. We hope to do the same again in 2020 so it’s a great opportunity to come and meet us.

We had a grant from Tirgwynt wind farms which we used on 4 workshops in Welshpool and Llanfair Caereinion making mandalas, collages, jewellery and copper pictures which were very successful.

We must also thank community foundation wales who have once again supported us with funds for room hire travel and materials and Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn town council for a grant towards materials.

We also held 2 ‘have-a-go’ sessions, run by some of our members, which were great fun, one on up cycling and one on creative writing. They were so successful we are holding another up cycling session in the institute in Llanfair on Saturday 29th February 2020 11 till 3. It would be lovely to see some as many people there as possible, all materials provided for £10 for members £15 non-members.

We have increased our membership to over 50 and it’s only £10 per year which gives cheaper regular sessions,only £3 instead of £5, again all materials and tea/coffee provided.

We are hoping 2020 will be as exciting as we have had a grant from the People’s Post Code Lottery for travel and materials and the National Lottery Community Fund who have given us a grant for a visit to Tate Modern in Liverpool which we hope will inspire our art!

We have also had a grant from Age Cymru, Gwanwyn festival for a series of 5 workshops in each of our locations to produce ”zines’ on the topic of ageing in April, May & June 2020.

We’ll also be holding a fundraiser in Welshpool on 25th April 2020 so come and support us if you can.

Check out our calendar and events page for all our dates. Hoping to see you at one of our groups soon.

Sue Chair Celf-Able

Mosaic Mandalas

Celf-Able would like to thank Tirgwynt Community Foundation for the grant which enabled members of Celf -Able to produce some lovely mandalas on old 78’s under the expert guidance of mosaic artist Terri Sweeney.

The workshop took place at the Ann Holloway Day Care Centre in Welshpool.

It was interesting that from the same materials so many different designs came out.

Next month we’re there again making collage pictures again with the very talented Terri.

Here is a blog from our Voluntary (Un)Co-ordinator Amanda Wells. What has Celf-Able Done For Me? I was one of the four founding members of Celf-Able. We had met on Celf o Gwmpas’ Artists Training and Mentoring Project, and over the period of the project had become friends as well as colleagues. We’d had some adventures together, including trips to Edinburgh, Glasgow and even Finland. So when the project ended we wanted to carry on meeting and we saw the ArtWorks Cymru Learning Groups information and applied. We’ve since had Sharing Together funding from Arts Council of Wales, and have further funding now from Community Fund in Wales and Powys Community Endowment Fund so we’re lucky enough to be able to continue meeting. I somehow fell into the role of voluntary co-ordinator. My memory is terrible and I’m pathologically disorganised, so the idea of me co-ordinating anything is rather amusing! I’ve learned lots of new skills and I do enjoy the co-ordinating, but sometimes I’d rather just sit and do art. As an artist, I’ve tried new activities, including performance. Like others in the group, I’d not done performance before, but I have to say I did get a ‘buzz’ out of it. I really enjoy our meetings as it’s good to work with other people working around you, it creates a very creative vibe. I like to see what other people are doing and share ideas and techniques. The meetings are also a way to dedicate time to art, otherwise I’m doing art at home and it has to compete for time with all the everyday life stuff.

It’s time to start sharing our members stories.

Our first member to be brave enough to share her story is Pamela Clare-Joyce also known as Kelsang Khonchog.

Forty years ago Pamela left a highly toxic marriage and began wandering the country moving from rotten job to rotten job but was much happier if unsettled.

Then hearing a talk on Transendental Meditation her life changed and within weeks she had moved into the community.

Some years later she began to find Buddhism more satisfying and moved to the Lake District where she lived in a Buddhist Centre and took ordination. It was here that she was given her Tibetan name Kelsang Khonchog. The meaning of this name being Fortunate Supreme Jewel and Pamela has now taken this as her artists name.

She then moved to Wales where more opportunities came her way. A friend twisted her arm to take an art course. She recalls thinking

‘Me an artist? Get away! Miss primary school mud puddle?!’

But join the course she did an gives credit and thanks to Oriel Davies Gallery in Newtown for

‘Transforming this gallery hopping art lover who always claimed she was rubbish at art into an artist.’

The course encouraged free experimentation which was fun. This sent Pamela’s mind into overdrive. In no time she was exhibiting regularly and as she says ‘even selling a few!’

Here are some examples of her work

The postcards come rolling in.

We have been so lucky with our call out for postcards for our fundraiser at Oriel Davies on 20th July (1-3;30). They just keep coming.

We had 3 lovely drawings from local Artist Tim Edmunds and a beautiful pastel from Kristoffer Richard Jude. Just thought you might like a sneak peak before they get sealed in their envelopes!

Remember each sealed envelope only costs £5 and you will be the owner of an original artwork. You may even get an Andrew Logan for £5 or perhaps one of these beauties.

Celf-Able’s exciting fundraisers.

Celf-Able will be having a stall at the Llanfair Caereinion carnival on Saturday 15th June 2019. We will have bric a brac, toys, books, jigsaws and jewellery for sale. We will also have our ‘lucky square’ raffle tickets for sale. the tickets are only £5 and you could be lucky enough to own an original or signed print by local artists, Ceridwen Powell, Brian Jones, David Bannister, Linda Jane James, Ann Jeeves and the Rayven Studio to name but a few. Here are some examples;

Linda Jane James

Brian Jones

David Bannister

one of which could be yours if you’re lucky when we make the draw at our second fundraiser at Oriel Davies gallery in Newtown on Saturday 20th July from 1 til 3:30.

Also at oriel Davies we will be holding a ‘secret post card’ raffle. each post card drawn cost £5 and will contain a piece of art work. We have a post card from the internationally renowned artist Andrew Logan who is based in Berriew.