Arts Trail Day 3

 

Day Two of Saltaire Arts Trail was sadly marred by awful weather, very wet all day. Happily, I had other plans so I gave it a miss. Day Three was dry, though overcast, so at least the visitors didn't get drenched and the venues didn't have to contend with dripping coats, brollies and wet shoes. 

There was a Makers' Fair in the Victoria Hall, but I didn't explore that. They tend to be much the same year on year, and so much art and craft can be overwhelming, I find. I didn't want to be tempted into buying anything either and, if you're not on the lookout for a purchase, it never seems so meaningful. There seemed to be plenty of visitors though and I spotted lots of folk coming away with bags and boxes of goodies. 

I was more interested in the photography exhibition in Salts Mill's roof space, which was showing work by members of Leeds Photographic Society. There were some attractive images, though mostly in the familiar style of 'camera club competition' entries. I enjoyed the landscapes and some of the creative images.

Nina Hunter, an artist, illustrator and art teacher who lives in Saltaire, opened the Saltaire Art Gallery on Victoria Road a few years ago. She also founded the Saltaire Art School. The gallery seems to have evolved and is now 'Nina Hunter Gallery and Collectors Lounge', where she shows her own work and some carefully considered collaborations with other artists. Much of her work celebrates the feminine and mythology. I like the softness and mystery that she creates, which is at the same time quite powerful. 

Her current exhibition is 'Elysium' - 'a paradise of myth, imagination, and beauty... a world of paintings, embroidery, floral arrangements, and sound that celebrates the boundless possibilities of creativity.'

I loved her own painting in the window, though there were too many reflections (and writing on the window) to show it off well. I could quite happily live with that one on my wall!

In the room at the back, a sunny, yellow, expressive abstract by Clare Ninham sat rather nicely above the Victorian fireplace. 

The Gallery's basement had a series of paintings by Oliver Walton: 'The Common Place'. Deliberately counterpointing the other exhibition, these were precise depictions of 'the poetry of everyday spaces' - the kind of subject you more often find explored through photography than paint. NOT the kind of thing I'd hang on my walls but thought-provoking nevertheless, and it was interesting to see our local environment depicted in this way. 

Arts Trail Day 1

Saltaire Arts Trail traditionally spans the early May Bank Holiday weekend, seeing many of the houses in the village transformed into mini art galleries on the 'Open Village' circuit, with various exhibitions in the larger venues.  

One of the bigger houses on Albert Road belongs to David Starley, a well-known artist who also runs the Bingley Gallery. He was exhibiting his own paintings, plus various displays from other artists. There were some lovely turned wood pieces from Mike Bentley and ceramics by Kath Bonson. I also enjoyed the display of older paintings of the local area, which David collects and sells through his gallery. They included these watercolour miniatures (below) by John Butterfield (1913-1997).

The Wash House Gardens held colourful digital art by Ellie Hawkes, some printed on translucent perspex discs.  

In the grounds of the United Reformed Church, Luke Thompson was demonstrating some live painting in oils. 

Saltaire Arts Trail 2025 #2

There was art in greenhouses (paintings above by Saltaire-based artist Ian Burdall) and in windows. Those below are by Murniah Skinner, her mostly local landscapes distilled into simplified images of form and colour. 

Salts Mews had Ellie Hawkes' acrylic banners printed with colourful floral photos, hanging in the garden

and equally colourful, abstracted representations of local scenes and buildings, an interesting 'take' on the traditional craft of marquetry by Emily J Parkin. (You might recognise Bingley's Five Rise Locks, below left.)

The art I saw was all beautiful and of very high quality. It's a privilege to live locally and have all this going on on my doorstep. I often wish I was wealthy enough to be a true art collector; there were plenty of pieces to covet. 

Saltaire Arts Trail 2025 #1

Saltaire Arts Trail is an annual event, held over the three day late May bank holiday weekend. It's when many Saltaire residents open their homes and gardens as mini art galleries, so that you can wander all around the village and see some truly creative work. 

Usually I feel excited by it, but this year I only dipped into it briefly. With Bradford being UK City of Culture 2025, there is a huge amount of creative stuff going on locally, so much so that I feel almost satiated with it. The weather didn't help either! The wonderful, long, dry, sunny spell suddenly broke, bringing rain and strong winds - bad timing just when it was our schools' half term break.  

I did, however, explore the large Makers' Fair in Victoria Hall and some of the outdoor exhibits. I enjoyed the work of students from Bradford School of Art (degree in Textiles Practice), tasked with creating an original textile piece based on a second-hand men's shirt.  Jasmin Lindo-Clarke referenced her Jamaican parents' immigration to the UK in the 1960s, using motifs and labels. 'You made my collar white' (above) represents the blue-collar work her parents undertook to enable her to have a white-collar career. Another student had decorated a shirt with various symbols and words about what makes them happy (below).

Julia Batley had embroidered tiny books with 'shirt labels', narrating the names and lives of students at Huddersfield Mechanics Institute in 1872. Exquisite. 

Outside the Victoria Hall, a rather wind-blown tent just about sheltered exhibits by Saltaire Art School associates, with artist Peter Wood giving a live painting demonstration. 

 

Connections

Bradford School of Art had an outdoor exhibition in the grounds of Saltaire's church as part of the Arts Trail, and I was impressed by the quality and innovation of the pieces. Students from the Foundation Degree (FdA) Textiles Practice took the theme of 'Connections - People and Place' to explore what gives people a sense of connection to place, through home, work and play. 

Jane Blackburn had taken inspiration from maps of the area to produce various household items - aprons, teatowels - that I would think could be commercially very successful. 

Liz Buckles had created 'Magic in the Air' - a series of textile panels celebrating some of the small, everyday things that help connect us to our community and environment. She had made them into storyboards for children and, at intervals during the day, children were invited to come and engage with the storytelling. Charming. 

 

Diana Spoors had been inspired by photos and stories of Salts Mill's workers' centenary trip by train to Blackpool in 1953, and had created a vibrant deckchair to celebrate a day at the seaside. 

Päivi Raine had used Salts mausoleum as the base for 'Unseen', her cyanotype on fabric, reflecting that the ordinary millworkers, many of them women, have no statues, mausoleums or streets named in their honour, despite being indispensable to the success of the mills - the vital cogs of the textile industry both here in the past and currently in many places around the world. 

Lost mills and memories

Also in Salts Mill's roof space, as part of the Arts Trail, two textile pieces pay homage to the history of our textile mills and their workforce. There is currently a focus on collecting the memories of Bradford's older mill workers, to map the area's heritage and acknowledge its diverse communities.

The one shown above and below was called 'Layering Cultures' by Alison Walsh, representing the voices of the many migrant workers who came to work in our mills in the 20th century. She has created a multi-layered bolt of cloth incorporating pieces from clothing worn by millworkers, combining hand and machine stitching and text. I don't know that you can read it but one of the lines of text says: 'And I remember there was snow all over'.

The other piece: 'A Cloth for the Lost Mills' by Hannah Lamb and Hannah Robson, is a large, finely woven and printed cloth, inspired by site visits to some of the lost or derelict textile mills in the area. It references the skill and dexterity of the workers and motifs from some of the mill buildings. Once created, they took the cloth to some of the lost mill sites and it was photographed by Carolyn Mendelsohn. 

People Powered

During the Arts Trail, printers were working in the roof space in Salts Mill. They have a base in Saltaire where they have The People Powered Press, the biggest letterpress printing press in the world, which they use for printing large scale letterpress works, in collaboration with numerous community groups, schools, artists and writers. They have also devised a flexible, modular type system called Brico, consisting of four shapes that can be used to design letters in unique styles. Visitors were having a go at designing and then inking up and printing letters, albeit on a smaller printing machine. 

Some displays in the huge roof space showed words that had been designed and printed by various community groups. 

'Home, safety, freedom' was a powerful statement created by members of BIASAN (Bradford Immigration and Asylum Support Network), who were reflecting on what their home in Bradford means to them. It was displayed in Bradford's City Park in 2022. 

'I have heard the ice cracking' was taken from the work of children at Saltaire Primary School, writing poems about their concerns and hopes for our environment and planet. 

 

Artists in situ

One of Saltaire Arts Trail's particular 'selling points' is the opportunity to visit some of the houses within the village that open their doors as mini art galleries. Sometimes they have 'artists in residence' actually working. The talented David Starley can usually be found immersed in a new painting. No prizes for identifying the subject of his current piece - yes, I'm pretty sure that's Bolton Abbey. 

In another garden, the environmental artist Winston Plowes was carefully constructing an intricate 'land art' pattern from seeds and stems. You may remember I tracked down the remains of a mandala he did in Hirst Woods last year ( HERE) .

Having a breather

Thankfully the weather was pretty good for this year's Saltaire Arts Trail and it was nice to see people exploring the exhibitions, the Makers' Fair and the Open Houses, and relaxing in the gardens of the Victoria Hall. There were fewer Open Houses this year and it all felt (to me) more manageable and less overwhelming. It's much better to be able to take your time to appreciate the artwork on display, rather than rushing from one place to the next, trying to see everything. 

The Saltaire Art Gallery is a recent addition to our main street. It has been opened by artist and art teacher Nina Hunter, as a base for her Art School, where she runs workshops, and as a gallery for her own work and that of other artists.  Next door, the queue for coffee, sandwiches and burgers at Digin's Hut was quite long. I've never had food from there but it always seems popular. 

Craft for Climate

Over 200 volunteers (from the local WI [Women's Institute] and various other groups) knitted a display to highlight climate change. Each scarf represents a year between 1853 (when Saltaire was founded) and 2023, from left to right and the colour signifies the average temperature in Bradford for that year. Shown in this way, it is very clear to see the warming trend and the soaring temperatures of the last few years.

Local schools had been involved too. The poster below was made by pupils from Saltaire Primary School. 

I made close-up images of the scarves around my own year of birth (cool - although the year after appears to have bucked the trend), that of my daughter (warmer) and those of my granddaughters (even warmer). The difference is plain to see and I find it shocking that we have been (are still being!) so slow to wake up to the damage we are doing to our planet. 

Arts Trail

Spring Bank Holiday weekend is traditionally the time for the annual Saltaire Arts Trail, now back after a few years of Covid disruption. This year the weather is ideal - warm, dry and sunny. Yesterday I was out and about exploring, though there's too much to see in one day and so it's nice to live locally and be able to opt in and out of it. 

A number of the village houses are opened as art galleries, in some cases displaying work by the house's resident and often hosting other artists' work too. The quality and variety of what's on offer is stunning. I wish I had more walls and deeper pockets to be able to invest in some beautiful pieces. Mostly I make do with buying a few cards to support the artists, though in the past I have bought one or two small artworks and scupltures and some jewellery. 

The Victoria Hall acts as the hub and also hosts a large Maker's Fair, with a variety of arts and crafts for sale, all of them high-end in terms of quality.

Local schools and colleges get involved. Bradford School of Art had taken over the Wash House Gardens. Students from the Foundation Degree in Textiles Practice showed some imaginative pieces exploring the theme of 'habitat' and what that might mean to different, people, animals and plants. 

Because of the lovely weather, there were a lot of people around the village and many of them eventually made their way down to the green spaces of the canal and the park. The queue at the ice-cream boat never let up. 

The Arts Trail continues today (Sunday) and Monday. Whether the good weather holds remains to be seen!