One of my aims for 2018 is to make some more creative friends and to become more involved with local events in and around Hastings & St Leonards on Sea. We moved here in July last year and with me working from home and Ollie working up in London during the week, we haven't had the opportunity to meet many people here. I am lucky to have lots of friends doing various amazing jobs that I am very proud of but I don't know anyone trying to make a living from their art (despite going to art college!) I always feel a little jealous when I see people on Instagram doing exhibitions or art fairs together, when I'm stuck at home on my own. There are so many amazing creative people in St Leonards and Hastings, that's one of the reasons I wanted to move here. It got me thinking that maybe a lot of them are like me, working alone in home studios with nobody to bounce ideas off or share the ups and downs of freelance life with.
Tovah enjoying Tim King's exhibition at Trinity7 Gallery (Hastings)
I have met such a lovely supportive community on Instagram (despite Algorithms trying to ruin it for us) that it got me thinking that it would be great to extend that positivity to where I live. Myself and Ollie have wanted to do a project together for quite a while now so setting up Creative Hastings seemed like an obvious step forward! Our main aim is to showcase and bring together the creative talent in our local area as well as sharing the exciting and inspiring things that would be of interest to those creatives.
Gus Cummins at the Jerwood Gallery (Hastings)
Eventually, we would like to arrange weekly/monthly meet ups (over a coffee or a few pints!) and ultimately, our dream would be to run our own shop/open studio here, where I could paint, put on exhibitions, have a space for meet ups and maybe even run workshops. I am also planning to dedicate blog posts to talking about artists work (maybe even interviews?!) and review exhibitions etc in more detail.
You can follow Creative Hastings on Instagram and Twitter. If would like to submit your work or you have an event or exhibition that you think may be of interest to us, feel free to email us at : Creativehastingsuk@gmail.com
If you would like to find out a little more about Finnley or Ollies artwork you can follow them on Instagram. Ollie is @opdrawing and Finnley is @finnleyelliottpawtraits