From 20 June to 28 July, visitors can see 'Colourful Women, Colourful Voices' on our cafe wall, a collection of pictures by four of Rowan's artists. Kate Romano visited Rowan arts centre to find out more.
Adam is chatting animatedly as he works. He’s chiselling away at a large piece of wood, explaining the process to me, where his ideas come from, and what the finished piece will look like. He’s making a small totem pole with butterflies, and explains that it's a memorial for his mother. There will also be one for his father, with a pint, a pool table, a microphone and a deck of cards. ‘It’s hard to believe that Adam never said a word when he first started here’ says the woodwork tutor, as Adam darts around, testing out positions for carved objects and flicking through sketch books of his designs.
Adam is one of the students at Rowan, an arts centre and forest school for adults with learning disabilities. Tucked away in a leafy residential street in North East Cambridge, Rowan’s current premises is a former Kodak Factory with a Victorian facade, blending in with the bay windows and high gables of the neighbouring houses. Inside, the centre retains the open plan spaciousness, natural light and contemporary edge associated with industrial spaces, but exudes warmth, joyfulness and a positive can-do attitude to learning and the arts. The woodworking room is one of many creative studios; there are workshops for textiles, printing, mixed media, ceramics, music and drama. There’s an attractive little shop selling pottery, prints and cards, all made by Rowan students. In one of the rooms are some large black and white photographs of the artists. It's all done very thoughtfully and lovingly with a deep sense of fully justified pride.
Rowan was founded in 1984 as a safe, creative and enriching environment where the arts are used as a tool to bring people together and tackle social exclusion. Run by a small team of office staff plus art tutors, they nurture around 90 students who visit the centre regularly, turning their hand to whatever art form interests them. Students are mentored in small groups and staff often notice a very high degree of intuition and natural feel for materials. ‘The level of coordination is often really impressive’ says operations manager, Luce Moelans. ‘A lot of the students here struggle with verbal communication, but you can express yourself and have a connection by feel and touch and by making mistakes, and you can say something at the end without words’.
All around are brightly coloured prints and collages; ceramics with funfairs and animals; textiles with pockets, birds, clothing and found objects; vividly dyed fabrics and embroidered ferns, painted wooden people and carefully observed pencil sketches of local buildings. As a body of work, it suggests a playful approach to processes and materials. It’s hard not to smile at the beguiling simplicity of some of the pieces, whilst others reveal a highly distinctive and expressive way of depicting the world, with figures rendered in a strange and singular manner. I comment on how liberating it all feels, free from the weight of history and intellectualism often associated with contemporary art. ‘I guess that comes from the fact that all the conventional ways of training artists are closed to these students’ says Luce.
Much of the artwork has a personal story behind it. I’m shown a wonderful wooden scale model of a static caravan, made by Andrew. ‘He owns the caravan’ explains Gordon MacKenzie, Rowan’s student support manager. ‘It's on a site in Cromer. He bought it with his sister, who is his carer, when his parents passed away. He loves this caravan so much and he started making this model of it about 10 years ago. He would build it up, then take it apart again, sand it all back, and start again. It felt like he was scared of it ending somehow, as if the end would be the end of his caravan dream. It’s such a special time for him, going to the caravan and looking out to sea, and I wonder if making the model extended his time in the caravan when he wasn’t physically there’.
Zoe has just finished painting and the room is nearly tidy. She makes abstract drawings and paintings, brightly coloured and densely patterned. ‘Zoe hardly ever uses words… she’s just not interested’ says Luce. ‘And the pressure to use words really only comes from the outside world who want to ‘get into the secrets’ of someone's mind. But when you see Zoe paint, you see something very physical and gestural; she works fast and she uses her hands and she absolutely knows what she's doing. She always hides her name somewhere in her work - that's intentional’. Zoe is one of four students whose work was selected by Rowan for the cafe wall exhibition. ‘All four of the artists we chose struggle to communicate verbally’ explains Gordon, ‘but colour flows from them in a way that words don’t… they create their own eloquent, joyful worlds, with patchworks of colour and dancing gestural lines. This collaboration with Stapleford Granary gives us a chance to tell people about Rowan’s work, but more importantly, it's an opportunity to lift up our artists and connect them with the outside world’.
Zoe Evans
Zoe is a prolific maker, mainly producing gestural abstract line drawings which often include her name. In the past year she has started working on a larger scale, layering bright colours of paint and different patterns. As an autistic woman, Zoe speaks very little; instead, she expresses herself through colour, lines, and sounds, working fast and intuitively.
Gemma French
Gemma fills her pages with psychedelic vortices of colour. In some works, this is overlayed with a web of line drawings. Within the seemingly arbitrary abstractions, Gemma tells us of her personal stories and memories. The titles give us a clue which adds another layer to the viewing experience. Gemma says, 'drawing takes me on an adventure'.
Indra Katvars
Indra has only been exploring her artistic practice for just over a year but has already developed a strong style. Filling the support with squares of colour, she creates mesmerising landscapes which pull the viewer in like a treasure map, or cobblestoned streets seen from above. Indra says, 'I use colour to make people happy'.
Julia Kelly
Julia’s vibrant, expressionistic figures are inspired by her love of the forest, her friends, and animals. Unexpected motifs, such as one-eyed figures, recur throughout her works which play with space and form. She often works quickly and loosely with crayons, but this collection of works highlights her skills in watercolour.
www.rowanhumberstone.org.uk