Ruscombe Green: site08: a glorious celebration of Stroud's creativity

Sunday saw the launch of site 08 Festival and Open Studios - all this month there will be celebrations of art from exhibitions to billboards, talks to artists opening their homes.

I love it - and strongly recommend it to others to explore all this huge creative outflowing in the Stroud Valleys - a glorious celebration of creativity!

Anyhow the photos here are from Sunday night's preview evening - at the Stroud Valleys Artspace we were treated to a roof top angel dancing, a cafe stacked with cakes and more plus loads of great art, textiles and more....

In the Artspace favories include Liz Lippiatt's glorious textiles (see pic) and Maggie Smith's abstract paintings. It was also good to meet Anna Usbourne of Chalford Donkey's fame and see her works looking at how objects relate to architecture.

In the Sub Rooms there was also the opening preview evening - too busy with people there to really appreciate some of the wonders - but must mention two favorites...

This photo of Middle Street garage is a total delight - a surreal wonder - and I am kicking myself for not getting the artists details - I lived for a year in this road just up from the garage and love this piece - see it! UPDATE: It was Henri Kyriacou and you can see more of her great work here:
http://henrikyriacou.com/

The other big fav this year is this piece by Charlotte McLaughlin - haven't liked some of her other pieces but this one (left) is great - love the movement.

Anthony Hodges pics are also great - and like the one used for the programme this year - but also Julia Christies' silver birches and autumn leaves (the one being looked at in the photo left) - wonderful....hey I could write lots more but will cover one more artist in a separate blog in a wee while...for now I will just urge folk to go and see - a huge huge thank you to the organisers - I am looking forward to seeing lots more over coming month.