Herefordshire has an amazing and varied range of arts and cultural activities to offer: from psych-folk nights to poetry groups, literary festivals to pop-up exhibitions, film festivals to creatives galore. Locals often remark that because there are no quick and easy ways to get to the larger, more obvious cultural centres (like Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester or London) they must make their own culture – and this is no bad thing. This page features arts activities with links to heritage and the county, and, in some cases, connects nationally and internationally.
Based in Herefordshire for nearly 50 years, Glenn Storhaug, through Five Seasons Press, has been creating affordable poetry books and collectible editions featuring an impressive range of poets, including Frances Horovitz, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Stevenson and Wendell Berry. This intimate portrait by Hereford-based filmmakers, Catcher Media (makers of Chewing The Cud and Stories From the Hop Yards ) celebrates Glenn’s work as he talks about the poets he has collaborated with and the books he has created.
The film has been very well-received in public screenings at the Ledbury Poetry Festival (where it received its world premiere), Hereford and the Hay Winter festival (which it sold out three times!). Rick Goldsmith, the film’s director, introduced the film and once it had finished, he and Glenn opened up to questions from the audience. Funded by the Beaumont Trust and The Elmley Foundation.
The short video interviews presented below were commissioned from Catcher Media by the Hereford College of Art as part of their celebrations to commemorate 170 years. They represent a wide range of experiences but what they have in common is the inspiration that studying art gave each person, and how it influenced their life and career. Each film focuses on the interviewee’s time at HCA and how these different people never forgot their creative education as they made their way in the world: some set up successful businesses while others carried on their art practice.
Judy Giles first attended the college in the late 1950s when it was on Castle Green, while Shona Warnes attended the newly-built Folly Lane building in the early 1970s. Anthony ‘Murf’ Murphy also attended Folly Lane, but nearly thirty years after Shona had done, in 1998-2000, and the last of the four, Mark Houghton, has been an art tutor on two campus’, Folly Lane and College Road, from the late 1990s to the present-day.
Each film is approximately five minutes long, so presents a small taste of their HCA experiences. We hope you enjoy these films, as much as we enjoyed making them and meeting the people that feature within them. Subtitles can be accessed by pressing the ‘CC’ button on the player. NB: The image of Castle Green (above) is from one of Judy Giles’ art college sketchbooks.
