Here today…

With the blink of an eye and it’s all over again. It seems to me that the Rochford Art Trail - and perhaps this is a characteristic of all Art Trails - is a low-key event. It doesn’t have much fanfare and is the product of artists (some of whom work like mad to produce work for the Trail, and others just draw from their vast reserves of work) and shopkeepers who (perhaps) stoically tolerate the event, and the event organiser who probably works harder than everyone else put together. What things have struck us this year? (Incidentally the works of art down the side are some of our quick-glance personal favourites from this year. We could add loads more!)

What’s the point?

It used to be said that one of the reasons for the Trail was to get people into the shops so that viewers would also experience (and buy from) each shop displaying art items, but the truth seems to be that when shops are involved the art is mostly in the shop window. There are exceptions and I always have a certain sympathy for the regulars of Odells who have to suffer people leading over their coffee to peer at paintings on the wall, or the ladies under their hair nets in Ellis’s, similarly suffering the odd extrovert coming into a ladies hairdressers to view a painting at the back. But I suppose it is still the thing of getting people through the front door in the hope that they will return on some other occasion, this time with an open purse.  Of course places like the hotel and the hospital must simply work on the basis of ‘come and take note that we’re here’ (and they both have the  best display areas). If you are not a ‘pub person’ - and there are people like that - it takes a measure of courage to wander into the Marlborough Head, or the Grey Goose, or even Golf Club and not order anything from the bar.

But maybe this seems all too practical and mundane; perhaps the key purpose of an Art Trail is, as one particular website puts it, they “are another way in which artists collaborate to enhance visitor experience,” so if you are visiting Rochford in this fortnight (by design or by accident?) It could be that the Trail will have enhanced your visit.  Not if you are casually visiting and don’t know anything about the Art Trail because, as I have commented on another article elsewhere on Rochford Life, it becomes patently obvious that still a large number of residents don’t know about it and even if they spot the balloons or the large numbers or red notices, many seem to show little interest. “But I’m not interested in art,” they might protest, which may be a shame in the eyes of some of us, but is just a fact of life.

I don’t know if the Council still put out encouraging statistics (“somebody came from Cheltenham to see the Trail”) but you may gather we have a slightly cynical outlook on this. Having covered the Trail for the last four years, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that we do the Art Trail for the following reasons:

1. Others have them, so why shouldn’t we?

2. Some people (maybe a minority, but so what) really enjoy the Trail (that includes us).

3. It gives artists an opportunity to be encouraged

4. It allows local shops and businesses to be involved in a community activity

5. It just may be that the Trail catches someone who previously had no interest in art but now is an enthusiast  because of what they saw

6. Maybe, just maybe, it does attract people to Rochford.

And so…

We would like to thank the organisers, the artists and the shopkeepers etc. for doing it. Personally, we think it takes a lot of courage to put your wares on display because not only is ‘beauty in the eye of the beholder”, but so is art, and as we talk with various artists on the Trail we have noted again and again this slight air of, “well, I’m not very good but….” and we look at their work and think, “Well, I couldn’t do that, so in our book you are pretty good whatever you produce!” A final thought: what a shame that it only lasts for two weeks. We understand the reasons for that but what a shame nevertheless.  See you next year.

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