In a week when uncertainty over the future of Rye Creative Centre is once again in the headlines, Rye News continues to feature some its artists. The Centre is due to be demolished as part of the housing development planned for the Freda Gardham old school site.
This week: Luke Hannam.
I moved into Rye Creative Centre in September 2015, well to be precise into the disused indoor swimming pool at the back of the building. It was an exciting step up from the garden shed where I had been for a number of years.
At the time I shared the space with the Charity ARRC which delivered various services for local people with learning differences. It was the first time since moving to the area in 2011 that I actually felt part of the community of Rye. This feeling of community has remained with me, it reverberates throughout everything the centre does and stands for – it not just in Rye but a vital component of what Rye is.
As a full-time professional painter I arrive every day at the centre pretty much at the same time 10:30 / 11:00 following a short drive along the Udimore Road from Brede where I live. It’s a pretty drive with sea on my right and the sublime Tillingham valley on my left, as Rye comes into view my mind is exploding with stories and compositions for painting. Parking the car outside the studio I head to my studio and, following a quick wave from Jenny Edbrooke and her wonderful studio residents, my day gets off to great start.
I love the reclaimed, or should say, repurposed aspect of the Creative Centre, it feels inventive, creative almost like a painting in itself! An old school transformed into a vibrant studio complex with over 30 artists using the space to explore the world and share their experiences with each other and the wider community. Artists have always reclaimed spaces like this, it’s a tradition and in so doing have raised their value on every level. It may seem quite a stretch to make such a connection but Greenwich Village was once a run down area of New York but artists in the 1950s and 60s moved in and it’s hnow one of the most expensive districts in the city.
Artists can seem odd but they are cultivators, enrichers and when they get to work turn the soil into gold. In some ways artists are victims of their own success by being able to do this as they can lose the very thing they have played a central role in creating, needless to say this shouldn’t happen and artists should be congratulated for their ability to reimagine a space and raise its value.
The ideas that underpin what we have at Rye Creative Centre are not easy to re-create: a magical mix of vision, ingenuity, tenacity and a shared belief. When such things appear in the world they signify life itself, like a coral reef or a poppy.
Image Credits: Luke Hannam .