The Arts Society Cavendish Art Class
Monday 27 October 2025
At the end of October 2025, Joan Matthews arranged a fantastic Art Study Day attended by about 20 members. The day was led by well-known local artist Pam Smart.
Whilst studying graphic design at University Pam won the Royal Society of Arts Student Design Award, which included a work placement in the design department at John Lewis in London and a travel bursary to explore arts and crafts in India! After travelling India Pam trained as a specialist teacher of art and design, working at schools in Manchester, Stafford and Chesterfield, completing her 24 year career as Head of Art at Chapel High School in Derbyshire.
Pam is now a full-time artist working from her home studio in Buxton. She is a member of the highly regarded Peak District Artisans and High Peak Artists and exhibits regularly with both groups. She had the honour of representing Buxton in a European touring art exhibition where eight of her paintings were selected and exhibited in Germany, France and Belgium and London.
We had a lot of fun adding texture and colour to the original designs, with enormous support and guidance from Pam.
The art card used was of the highest quality, and Pam had prepared each sheet with a basic colour scheme, which we were able to follow to our own choice. For example, some sheets were in shades of peach and yellow, allowing the student to create a personal interpretation of the subject.
Everyone had their own ideas of how their individual work should look and Pam used all her skills as an experienced teacher to encourage and assist in the development of our work.
Each member created a very personal interpretation of their chosen image. Some of these are shown here. They are not named, but each person who joined the day, will recognise their own work.
At the end of the day, Pam provided mounts for us to display our work.
We rarely have study days that involve us in being creative and this was exactly what we wanted after the long hot summer without the Arts Society. It was the most enjoyable day, and every member felt they had achieved something worthwhile.
Our thanks to Joan for organising the event and to Pam for being such a patient and enthusiastic tutor.
Sylvia Mckenzie
Willow Arts
Justine Burgess of West Wales Willows.
Tuesday 5 December 2023
This was a day of two parts, demonstration and hands on, divided by buffet lunch. It was a very cold day in Buxton, but the Methodist Hall warmed up, till some people even thought it was too warm – perhaps thanks to the many warm layers we had all come in, warned by experience.
Justine presented the history of woven containers, starting with some dated at 10,000 years old, which is an astonishing thought. The survival of these very ancient examples of how people made the containers, needed for food or possessions, from the natural materials around them, depends on the exact physical circumstances of the place where they were left, often found in caves in the Middle East, or hot dry desert places.
The remarkable thing about these very ancient constructions is how delicate and timeless, often almost modern they seem.
Justine explained the different methods used to build them, most following similar methods, and how the different shapes lent themselves to particular uses. In many cases she had re-created such shapes herself, and found them comfortable and practical in use as we could see from the many examples she had brought to show us. These were here to demonstrate the works, but had they been for sale, her stock might have been severely depleted by the end of the day. They were indeed wonderfully attractive as well as clearly useful.
She also told us about the background enterprise of the holding in West Wales where she and her husband have established a willow growing farm, where they now hold the National Collection of willow, an almost endless variety of different colours and properties, and also sizes. The shoots are harvested in January and February, when the leaves are off and the sap dormant – such a time of year for harvesting not for sissies!
There were plentiful pictures as well as her sample baskets to show what different things could be made, and how definitely beautiful they often were.
She showed and explained how she had been able to re-create some particular baskets to be seen in old photographs , notably, for instance, fisher girls’ ‘backpack baskets’ which enabled the carrying of a great weight of fish, which would then be displayed and sold from a more elegant tray-like basket held in front of the body over one arm, leaving the other hand free to take the money.
She told of a touching rescue and reconstruction of a collapsed family heirloom basket, which is now in St Fagan’s folk museum in Wales, but which she then copied, one for the original owner and one for herself, a design which will now nor be lost, as, surely, many must have been.
Sizes and shapes of crafted baskets will have been made according to the materials available, willow and hazel for instance can lend themselves to large items up to and including a coracle, but North American plains Indians use grass.
After lunch, we had the hands-on session, when we all made a willow star (useful Christmas decoration), everything from quite small to maybe 18 inches across, choosing the colour of the willow wands to use. The results were indeed decorative, especially once highlighted with fairy lights.
We all emerged at the end like children from school, with an example to show for our days’ entertainment, very pleased with the interest and pleasure of our rather unusual Arts Society Study Day.
Ursula Birkett