Dear Members,

Too popular!
All three of the talks in our Spring programme were generally reckoned to be particularly good ones, and all attracted audiences to reflect that. Unfortunately, however, glitches in the system meant that we didn’t ask our members to book for the joint NMAS/NCAS talk by Nick Thornton, while the Castle and EAAF did request bookings in their publicity for it. It was certainly a squash to fit people in, and I’ve heard tales that some people were unfortunately unable to get in. Apologies to all of you: next time there’s a joint talk we’ll double-check the arrangements.

Peter Baldwin
Many members also enjoyed an extra event this spring: a talk by Peter Baldwin to accompany his wonderful retrospective at Gallery 1821. We’re increasingly using our email system to send members invitations to private views and relatively short-notice events like this. If you’re not receiving the notifications, that’s because we don’t have your email in our system. Email me on susan@curranpublishing.com and I’ll ensure that you’re added.

Goodbye to Julia and Penny
It’s been very useful for your committee over the last year or so to have support from our part-time administrator, Julia Martin. Sadly Julia has now left us, and we’re actively looking for a replacement. We hadn’t appointed one at the time of writing, however, so for now I will act as your contact for membership and other queries. I’m not always in the UK, so I’m most reliably contacted by email, on susan@curranpublishing.com.

We’re also sorry to have said goodbye to Penny Sexton, who has represented Norwich Castle Museum on our committee since last July. Penny’s been a vibrant presence at the Castle, where she played a major part in setting up A Gentle Nest of Artists, and a very active member of the NCAS committee too. We’re hoping to replace her with a new Castle representative in the very near future.

Photo-ID
Our major contribution to CAN09 is Photo-ID, a Wellcome Trust funded exhibition that will show the work of ten international artists commissioned to work in the general area of identity. The photographers were up in Norwich on Thursday 26 February with Paul Grace at Norwich University College of the Arts for a one-day practical and discussion workshop for their undergraduate and masters students specialising in photography.

The final show will be in The Forum throughout August 2009 and much more information and news about the show can be found on the website at www.photo-id.org.uk. Your invitation to the opening will be in our next newsletter!

Request for stewards
Once again we are looking for volunteers to join the rota of stewards for the Photo-ID exhibition. We are looking for two stewards at each morning and afternoon session from 1 to 30 August. The feedback from NCAS members who volunteered as stewards for the Making Faces exhibition in 2006 and for the Members’ Exhibition last year was very positive. We know how much our volunteers enjoyed the buzz of the Forum with its tremendous throughput of people, and the experience of meeting other stewards and participating in a major art event in the City. Now is your chance to volunteer for Photo-ID. If you would like to be included, please email Liz Edwards on liz.edwards@virgin.net giving your telephone number and a general idea of your availability in August. Liz or her colleagues Diana Bulman or Nairne Plourviez will contact you nearer the time. Thank you.

ArtWorks
Chris Heuvel and Robert Short, who run the ArtWorks collection of NCAS-owned works for loan to public places (which includes anywhere with public access, including office foyers, health centres, schools and the like) have put in a great deal of work over the last few months sorting out the collection, and with help from other committee members, drawing up a specimen contract for us to use with borrowers. The next step is to increase the level of loans from the collection - and reduce the pressure on space at the Heuvels’ where works not currently on loan are stored. If you know of a organization which would be interested in taking one of our works on loan – you can view them on our website – please get in touch with either Chris (01603 660711; chris.heuvel@LSIarchitects.co.uk) or Robert (01063 626667; shadowbooks@hotmail.com).

Open Studios and other exhibitions
We haven’t scheduled an NCAS event this year in connection with Norfolk Open Studios (which take place from 16 to 31 May) but I’m sure many of you will be looking forward to visiting studios while the event takes place – though not, I hope, too many of you on 23 May, when we’ve organized an NCAS coach trip to Hoglands for you. If you’re looking for company to head out into the county to look at studios, do get in touch and I’ll see if I can put you in touch with others with similar plans.

Other events of which you may already be aware include the Troika 7 ‘small art’ open exhibition at Dragon Hall, also 16–31 May (www.troika-arts.net), At the same time – clearly destined to be a busy one for art lovers – there is an art show in St Andrew’s Church, Cotton, Suffolk, featuring Ken Howard RA, who will be giving a lecture on Sunday 24 May (see www.onesuffolk.co.uk/cottonpc/ or phone 01449 781047).

Looking further ahead, Salthouse 09, Salt of the Earth is being curated this year by Simon Martin from the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester (which NCAS visited not long ago), and runs from 2 July to 2 August. And of course our own Photo-ID is just one part of CAN 09, which will include a raft of art exhibitions and events across Norwich. Sadly, however, there’s no exhibition this year at Narborough Hall.

Paris in the autumn?
We’re looking at putting together an NCAS trip to Paris in the autumn. In the light of the problems we had with transport for our proposed Dutch trip last year – and the disappointment from many who applied to go – the plan this time is to invite you to make your own way to Paris, where we’ll meet up to visit galleries (and possibly studios) and for meals. We’ll try to include in the programme some less-visited locations – not just the Musée d’Orsay–Beaubourg circuit – and would particularly welcome information from those with contacts or ideas: artists or collectors who might be open to visits from a group of us, favourite restaurants, and favourite hotels too – our own standard choice most likely won’t suit everyone. Robert Short (shadowbooks@hotmail.com) and I are the contact people for this.

Public sculpture
Discussions have been proceeding over several months now with the Norwich Society with a view to mounting a joint project to commission some contemporary sculpture for Norwich. We hope to be launching this shortly: all those with email addresses on our system will be kept up to date with developments. (And there’ll be more information in our next newsletter, of course.)

And in July...
We’re delighted that Lord and Lady Walpole have agreed to host our AGM at Wolterton Hall this year. We’ll send out full details in late June or early July, in good time for the meeting on 19 July.

Susan Curran, NCAS chair