Smalltown and Dullbridge Town Council’s Town Unimprovements Committee will tonight discuss a proposal put forward to create further panels of artwork for Smalltown Sea Front.
Ffart – the Fund For Art, which works with communities to offer opportunities to participate and engage with the Creative arts, heritage and cultural activities, previously worked with Smalltown and Dullbridge Town Council on a series of three wildlife mosaic panels which were funded with money from the Chernobyl-by-Sea Slush Fund.
Ffart claim that they have received very positive feedback about the installation and that “many people are asking us about the possibility of doing more’. However, Ffart has not been clear on who these many people are, and they could well be members of Ffart looking for something to do, or members of the artist’s family. Certainly, no one has contacted the SomersetClive office to ask for more money to be spent on wall art.
None-the-less, Ffart has taken it upon themselves to contactl the artist, Anastasia Kandinsky, to ask her to come up with ideas for a further series of panels and she has come up with two proposals, which will net her a good sum of money.
The first proposal is to continue the existing theme of local flora and fauna visible from Smalltown Sea Front and Anastasia has supplied an ‘artist’s impression’ of the three new panels she is proposing.
The second proposal would be to explore a historical based set of three panels – with two possible ideas put forward.
Option one would be to portray important Smalltown people through the years. Although, apart from Former Mayor of Smalltown and Dullbridge, His Royal Highness, Lord Admiral Emperor Nelson Jones, First Duke of Smalltown MBE, OBE and Knight of the Living Dead, anyone local would be hard pressed to name any important Smalltown people.
The second option would be a set of three murals focusing on storms and floods, including shipwrecks, as both Ffart and the artist have noticed that the ‘Boredom Project’ has secured huge grants based on a play dedicated to a pile of old wood on Bream beach, with Ffart confirming that ‘this seems a big part of local history‘. Sadly for the artist every other ship sailing in the vicinity has managed to evade the rocks and icebergs for which Smalltown is so well known.
The cost of these options is estimated to be around £24,000 for each set of three, with artist fees and materials costing around £20,000.
Ffart suggests that one or both of the history themed panels would be the easiest to obtain grant funding, as these could attract cash from the Lottery Fund for Culture and Heritage. However, both Ffart and Smalltown and Dullbridge Town Council would also need to stump up some cash in matched funding.
Unfortunately, Ffart feel that obtaining grant funding to continue the existing nature theme would be practically impossible, unless SaD Town Council pay for it themselves. When first installed residents of Smalltown were assured that further mosaic panels could be added to the existing trio at a later date, and it was assumed that these would be a continuation of the theme which would show some joined-up thinking for once.
However, this now looks increasingly unlikely and once again Smalltown will have to follow the cheapest route, leaving the Seafront art installation looking as if it were cobbled together by a committee charged with designing a horse but instead coming up with a camel.