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Hot on the heels of the Leigh Art Trail, we decided to take the plunge and show our large-scale, timetable-inspired images, from Installation at the Station, at the Southend Art Trail too.

In contrast to Leigh’s more arty, community vibe, the Southend Art Trail seemed a bit more impersonal. Whereas artists are often encouraged to hang out at their LAT venues, the Southend Trail didn’t really demand that – after all the work was on show for a whole month. But ultimately all this left us with some questions…

About Southend Art Trail

Southend Art Trail is a free event that provides a democratic platform for local artists, using the High Street to exhibit their work. …From artists who have never shown before to seasoned exhibitors, around 40 artists will be displaying amazing artwork in town centre businesses. – Visit Southend

The Royal Hotel

Our venue was the plush Royal Hotel, overlooking the Estuary, the pier and Adventure Island. In contrast to the tall, white walls of the waiting room the hotel walls here were packed with vintage-inspired, quirky prints.

Fortunately for us, SEVEN’s eclectic style and the wide range of themes already featured on the walls of the restaurant and bar, meant that after some careful scouting we were able to find the perfect place in which to showcase each piece.

Final Destination?

As tempting as it might have been to hang around the Royal Hotel bar, those who tried it didn’t find it all that fruitful. So unfortunately, we didn’t get to find out what people thought about our timetable-themed show. Which left us wondering.

Did Southend Art Trail visitors find us without a trail sign to help them? Once, inside did people even know the difference between our SEVEN creations and the pub images? Did it matter? Who knows!? But one of Kerry’s pieces went walkies, so someone surely liked them…

One of the great things about being part of a creative group, like SEVEN, is sharing the very different artworks we each create, despite beginning with similar materials or themes. Which is why, for Leigh Art Trail 2018 we found ourselves in the waiting room at Leigh-on-Sea railway station grappling with vintage timetables and command strips…

Installation at the Station

Yep, in addition to our usual sketchbook work, for LAT 2018 we also created large-scale images using vintage train timetables as our prompt.

Dubbed the Installation at Leigh Station (Amanda thought of that!) the exhibition explored how a single creative starting point could develop into seven unique and unexpected destinations.

Each one of us took two timetables – arrival and departure – and did our individual thing. From Kerry’s fun and frivolous Ladies in Waiting to Juliet’s evacuee-inspired pieces, the results couldn’t have been more diverse.

A real departure from our book format, the large-scale poster-style images we created for the waiting room were mounted around the tall, white space, allowing visitors to view the resulting images in an altogether different way.

Exploring Estuarine

In contrast, our creative sketchbook show at Planet Leasing kept to the A5 concertina style, which meant Trailers could get up close and have a good look at our explorations.

Estuarine: a word which sums up the ever shifting nature of the local coastline, part sea, part river, part land.

SEVEN Take On the Secret Auction

In other news, SEVEN’s reputation for getting stuff done saw us get a bit more involved behind the scenes at Leigh Art Trail. This year, in addition to our creative sketchbooks and the Installation at the Station, we also helped organise the Secret Auction.

As a non-profit organisation Leigh Art Trail largely relies on members fees, commissions and proceeds from events like the Secret Auction to raise money and ensure the event happens. And that’s without even mentioning all the volunteers who donate their time (and much more) to the Trail – which just goes to show the power of groups, eh!?