Staithes Art Festival

Staithes is small town, maybe a large village, about 10 miles North of Whitby. They have an annual festival of arts and heritage. This takes a distinctive form as events and exhibitions are largely in individual houses throughout the town .Although an artistic centre the event drew in artists from miles around.

We travelled by bus with Martin and family. This necessitated a short walk from the main road into the town. We soon encountered the first of 90 exhibitions in guesthouses on the edge of the town. These largely featured the stylised animals produced by welding together waste bits of steel. The components were often gearwheels and the like taken from scrap cars. This type of work was thoroughly original and intriguing when it first appeared maybe 10 years ago. It has now become a cliché with little originality- it now almost a mass produced art form. We didn’t waste much time before moving on.

Part of the festival were buskers at intervals. The first we came across was a young man playing an alto saxophone. He was playing jazz classics; “Birdland” when we were nearby. He was extremely good, clearly a very talented young man who seemed to be only a teenager. I’m sorry to say he set a standard unmatched by other buskers on the trail. By the harbour were presumably the pick of the crop with timed sessions. It was “Jinski” when we passed who I thought very ordinary, compensating with volume instead of talent.

Staithes has a very steep hill down to a harbour side. There was so much on show it was quite impossible to see everything. I very soon got visual indigestion. I find when visiting galleries that after the first dozen pictures I start to glaze over.

It wasn’t just art of all sorts on display. There was “John” the last traditional sailing coble. I’m always surprised that there are so many esoteric interest groups and this craft was on its trailer courtesy of the Coble and Keelboat society.

Annette was keen to see any new ideas and hopes to draw inspiration from a demonstration of monoprinting. As far as I can gather this involves the one off printing of natural objects by inking them and then applying to paper. Another exhibition which impressed showed giclee prints. As far as I can see this meant a larger range of inks by inkjet printing on archive quality paper.

One demonstration which was quite interesting in its own way was someone weaving the netting on a lobster pot. This came just at the right time for us as we sheltered from a shower. As Annette remarked the weaving with its gentle repetition reminded her of the potters wheel shown in breaks in early TV. This shows her age as this dates to the 50’s. It was all simple stuff but the precision was clearly the result of long experience. This demonstration was part of one of the permanent galleries cum shops in Staithes..

By this time everywhere was so crowded it was difficult to see much that was on display. Because Staithes is on a steep hill the old houses are very individual with a footpath passing the front door of one but immediately above a steep drop into the courtyard of another. To one side of the town is a very steep sided ravine where a small river runs down to the sea. A footbridge crosses at the foot of the ravine where we went in search of refreshment; predictably all the little cafes were packed with massive queues. The lifeboat was drawn up along with it’s massive tractor. There is a very slowly shelving harbour so at low tide the sea retreats some distance.

We gave up by the lifeboat station and trudged back up the hill. Towards the top was a small café which had space for all six of us. Ellen elected to have cake but the massive slice was just too much for her. It was very nice to sit and rest awhile before we queued for the return bus.