I spent a lovely afternoon with my friend, Dana Brass, The Towner Gallery team and members of the public printing this friendship poster in Manor Gardens in Eastbourne one sunny afternoon in 2018. The words were collected at The Towner Gallery studio space; visitors were asked to write what friendship meant to them on a postcard and hang it in their friendship tree.
We celebrated the 30th anniversary of HFS on 22nd September 2018 by welcoming over 1,000 people to Thriftfest at the Hastings Centre.
Thrift Fest gathered the local groups, clubs and organisations that are helping people live active, rich, creative, fulfilled lives without costing the earth to provide a day of activities for local families.
We are really grateful to all the groups and organisations that got involved, the Hastings Centre and Kings Church, and all the people who came along and took part on the day.
I teamed up with my friend, Andrew Scrase from Make-ready studio, to do a screen printing taster with members of the public...
The Government has stopped funding essential furniture for people who have been homeless, suffered domestic violence or a crisis such as a fire. Some families that are destitute can get small charity grants towards starting a home, others simply have to go without. Local not for profit charity, HFS, is asking people to help fund essential furniture for local households in need.
As part of my job working for Hastings Furniture Service I attended the Sustainability on Sea fair on the Stade with Debbie, our Marketing Officer, and my friend Andrew Scrase from Makeready-Studio to launch the SponsorASofa project. Barbara, one of our lovely customers at the Bexhill shop kindly made us over 60 cushion covers from bits of old fabric which members of the public then printed up and took home for a donation to the project.
The two core messages are Everyone Deserves a Comfy Sofa and Fight Furniture Poverty... something HFS has been doing for over 30 years. If you want to find out more about the project or to make a donation go to hfs.org.uk
*photo credits Debbie Thomas
Happy 2020! Welcome to a brand new year of activism and bridge building. I saw a tweet just before the New Year from @foodbankmum (now known as @Milly_caspaces) on twitter, she wrote a list of commitments and advice to other people struggling to make ends meet... and let's face it that's millions of people in the UK. There are 37,000 children living in poverty in Sussex alone. Anyway, it read like a manifesto... proactive and proud! I got inspired and this emerged. It's a small thing, but it's what I do. Let's spread some hope and kindness.
You can follow her on twitter here. I hope to work more with @foodbankmum (now @Milly_caspaces) in the future. She now advocates for people struggling against injustice in the system, grows her own food and upcycles furniture. She's awesome.
Bring it on!
I've run many adult workshop over the years, mostly in my studio in Hastings.
For this series of workshops I had to transport my heavy portable press and all my wood type to the DLWP's studio.
It's a great venue and I had a lot of fun with some very lovely people.
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It was a pleasure to work with this group of queer youngsters at Ditchling Museum today. It was part of a project to give a voice to marginalised young people in Sussex.
