It was a damp and dreary Mendip morning in March when we arranged to visit Shepton Mallet to meet the team at the Art Bank. You know, one of those monochrome weather days, where you feel like the rain has just washed away the last dregs of any colour. We found the building, the old HSBC bank on the High Street; a formidable stone facade befitting its previous use. We let ourselves in - and we knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore!
Wonderfully collaged life-size mannequins, artworks made from discarded children’s toys and a tree growing through the middle of the room, we entered a wonderland of creativity and imagination. The place was buzzing with activity and chatter.
“Fridays are our busy day!” We were greeted warmly by Lucy, one of the Art Bank directors, and were shortly joined by co-directors Dimi and James. While one of the regulars tinkled on the ivories of an upright piano in the corner of the room, we slumped down on a slightly battered sofa, to hear about the Art Bank venture.
The Art Bank is home to the Rubbish Art Project and the Art Bank Cafe and Bar; it welcomes people of all ages and walks of life and goes out of its way to celebrate diversity and inclusivity. It started through a chance meeting of two like minded souls at the Glastonbury Festival.
After working in London for a number of years, Lucy Smith had returned to her native Somerset where, in 2005, she started working for the Glastonbury Festival, first in the press office and then as a co-ordinator of the festival’s green initiatives. She was involved in everything from helping with the introduction of compost toilets to running environmental campaigns aimed at festival goers, including programming and commissioning environmental messaging around the stages.
Her commitment to consumer waste reduction and her firm belief in creativity as a catalyst for social cohesion prompted her to set up the Rubbish Art Project as a creative hub in Shepton Mallet.
It was either a fortunate stroke of serendipity or the fabled magic of Glastonbury when Lucy met Dimitris Koutroumpasat the Festival and they came up with the idea of the Art Bank. Originally from Athens, but resident in the UK for more than 15 years and Somerset for 6, Dimitris is an artist with a passion for collage, photography and the power of nature.
His friend and creative collaborator, James Barker, is the third member of the team. Following a career in international marketing and recruitment in the higher education sector, James became a full-time carer for his parents. Recognising the difficulties faced by people in similar situations, James secured grant funding to run a series of creative writing workshops for carers. He then followed this up with writing courses for people over 6o and disabled adults. For his own part James is about to finish his Phd in Creative Writing and has worked with Dimitris on a book and a performance piece highlighting some of the issues that carers experience.
About five years ago the trio started the Art Bank, sharing their range of skills, knowledge and lived experiences with the communities in and around Shepton, aiming to operate a venue where people of all backgrounds, abilities and ages could come together to learn new skills, interact as a community, enjoy all aspects of the arts and have some fun! They now run a regular programme of arts activities and entertainment, and it’s a mark of their success to see how well it has developed as a integral part of the local cultural landscape.
The cafe is open from 10am most days (closed Tuesdays and Sundays), serves a range of vegetarian and vegan food and local sourced produce. It’s licensed from midday and operates as a bar at the end of the week when there’s an entertaining and diverse programme of live music, theatre, comedy, spoken word and open mic events. During the day there’s a whole range of creative activities from watercolour painting and family signing sessions to knitting and crochet. All costs are kept low so there are no barriers to participation, anyone wanting to lead a workshop is offered space for free in the cafe and on Friday mornings the stage is given over to local artists and craftspeople as a commission-free marketplace for their work. The space is a melting pot for creative collaborations, there’s a clear “Art for All” approach, the programme appealing to as broad a range of people as possible and are always open to feedback and new ideas about different activities and events.
With a strong belief that creativity is key to the health and well-being of a community, Art Bank works with local GP services, schools, local councils and a number of charities in delivering projects that support vulnerable people; on Mondays they run art and well-being sessions for adults with learning differences and people with dementia and memory loss enjoy “Love to Move” sessions on Tuesdays .
Projects are not limited to the Art Bank itself, the group was successful in achieving funding from the National Lottery Platinum Jubilee Fund to involve the community in creating a giant living sculpture celebrating Community Spirit. The annual “Sheptopoly” event transforms the town centre into an interactive board game; now in its third year the event brings people together to learn about and celebrate some of the different cultures that make up the town’s population, with an interactive programme of music, performance, food and games. This year’s gathering included Romanian dances, Filipino games, painting for Ukraine, learning about the Greeks' contributions, deciphering the Korean alphabet, brushing up knowledge of Poland, playing "bella" bingo - Italian style and enjoying music from all around the world.
With its history of wool, cloth and silk production and later brewing and England’s oldest prison, Shepton Mallet has always been recognised as a working town. Like many similar places, it has suffered neglect and, some would say, bad planning decisions. A development in the 1970s attempted to regenerate the town centre with new retail properties and a state of the art theatre complex. Like many asset based cultural regeneration projects it has struggled to really engage with the community and the theatre is currently empty and faces an uncertain future. In its favour, however, the town is now attracting quite a diverse population. Housing prices are relatively low for the area so people who can’t afford to live in nearby Wells or Bruton look to Shepton Mallet as an option.
For cultural regeneration to work it needs to be embedded in the community. Lucy, Dimitris and James have a passion for people and the arts; they understand how culture and creativity can help to energise and galvanise a community and improve both the social and economic health of their town. With initiatives like the Art Bank Shepton can face a bright future!
www.artbank.org.uk