Over the weekend of July 6 and 7, we held our biennial primary school art exhibition. Hitchin ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ was the biggest exhibition we have ever organised with over 900 pieces of artwork on display from six primary schools - the church was literally a a wash with colour and creativity!
The Hitchin Hearts theme arises because of the huge affection that local people feel for our town, and so we invited children to produce a picture of somewhere that they loved. In assemblies to launch the project, we said we weren't just looking for the iconic view of Hitchin, although we were glad our sister church St Mary's did feature so prominently. What we really wanted was to give the children the opportunity to share somewhere personally cherished, whether a feature of our town centre, a local landscape or landmark, or even a detail that might have been missed if we didn't have our eyes open to appreciate our town.
Rather than just offering the option of doing a piece, one school went rather further and gave two full days of the timetable to create their designs, under the guidance of a local art teacher and in the style of distinct continental artist Hundertwasser. Despite only having copies of the artwork so the school could retain the originals for a more permanent display, the colours are particularly vibrant, especially when combined to create a 300 picture wall running the length of the church!
It was a wonderful event enjoyed by several hundred people as well as our Sunday congregation who had to fit around the artwork panels in order to see the screen! There was something special about being able to celebrate and worship, surrounded by a representations of happy memories and love for our wonderful town.
Whilst we cherish Hitchin, it is becoming ever clearer that we are struggling to cherish our planet, and it was perhaps no coincidence that we also chose to share our Ecobricks project off over the weekend. The pollution of our water and land worldwide is becoming increasingly evident so we invited people to commit to a more sustainable way of life. Ecobricks are 2litre bottles packed with non-recyclable plastics like wrappers, bags and film - find out more - but are a simple and effective way to reduce our impact on the environment. Come along to One Fine Day and see our Ecobricks display there.
We were greatly encouraged by the number of individuals and families who stayed for a chat and refreshments as well as those contributed to our 150 Psalms project, drop by the church to find out more on that! Positive feedback always motivates us as a church to organise such events, and whilst we cannot say for definite there will be an exhibition in 2021, we'd like to hope there will be.
Finally for those who missed the exhibition, come along to One Fine Day on Saturday 20 July from 10am to see a small selection of the artwork panels. We's like to thank all those who came along and hope you enjoyed the exhibition - for more of our WRBC150 events, click here.
