Carole Hughes
Artist Carole Hughes will have a range of her fauve-inspired art for sale at the Cambridge Garden Festival.
A trio of Cambridge-based artists working across three very different genres are preparing feverishly for the 2019 Rotary Cambridge Garden Festival later this month.
Artist Carole Hughes is adding to the collection of colourful works she will showcase, while Dot and Barry Harding – fresh from an extended holiday – are busy playing catch-up in their areas of patchwork art and woodwork. All three will display and sell their artwork on the day as well as showcase their spring gardens.
The addition of two ‘Art in the Garden’ sites to the festival programme is new this year. They are included in a total of 11 display gardens in and around Cambridge.
Carole Hughes’ garden has the Mediterranean feel that inspires much of her art. It is filled with bold, bright colours and textures that transform across the seasons. Carole started painting in 1994; her works have been exhibited extensively and she has a wide international following. Her fauve-inspired style reflects scenes from her travels across Europe – musicians, landscapes, simple village or café and street scenes. She plans to display and sell a range of canvases, art gift books, place mats and coasters.
A festival ‘special’ will be the opportunity for ticketholders to go into a draw through Heritage Gallery for one of Carole’s canvases. The gallery regularly exhibits her art.
“Anyone wearing a festival wristband, and who goes into Heritage Gallery on the day, will go into the draw for a painting I will have on display there,” she said.
Dot and Barry Harding will display and sell their patchwork and woodworked items at the festival.
Dot and Barry Harding toil together on creating special areas in their garden but have separate working areas for their art. Dot’s patchworking studio is where she makes beautiful quilts – some have won awards – and a range of patchwork items. Many will be on display and for sale on November 24, including unusual bowl holders, sewing caddies, little bags and striking framed patchwork images.
“Some of the pieces I had prepared before going away have all gone, so I’m busy making more for the festival,” said Dot.
Barry’s workshop is always a hive of activity; it is where he crafts a host of items to order, including many for Hobbiton. The work he will have on display and for sale at the garden festival will primarily cover garden art items – totem poles and ‘glass totems’, tui feeders, wooden prickly pears with coloured glass as leaves, and more.
Not wanting festival-goers to be put off by thoughts of transporting some of the larger items, Barry and Dot said they were prepared to do free deliveries of sold items to anywhere within a 50km radius of Cambridge.
Tickets (which include maps) for the November 24 2019 Rotary Cambridge Garden Festival are selling fast. They are available from Amber Garden Centre, Cambridge Jewellers, or online at www.cgf.nz. An online newsletter and blog available at the same address features information on the gardens going on display and on the event sponsors.
