New Worthing art show will encourage recycled or found materials

“It's called Art not Landfill, an exhibition taking place on Saturday, August 19,” she explains.

“It's in the first floor of the Guildbourne Centre in a newly refurbished space from 10am to 4pm. It's something that I thought up myself which is an art exhibition with a difference. I have never done anything like this before. I'm just a member of the public that loves anything arty and I just wanted to promote local artists and their work. There are more than 20 artists exhibiting with a huge range of artwork to display. Some have never exhibited anything ever before whereas some have been quietly plugging away. They are all local artists as I wanted to celebrate local talent. I am self-funding the exhibition so neither the exhibitors nor the viewing public need to pay anything. It's meant to inspire, to be fun and to be thought-provoking.”

As Annie says, she wants “the public to go ‘Wow! Look at what can be achieved using materials that so often get thrown away or discarded.’ I also want it to make us aware of the whole recycling issue which encourages reusing materials. It's going to be fascinating and I'm hoping that it will become an annual event involving more and more local talented people.”

Annie explains: “It was a few months ago around March time and I suddenly thought I felt a bit bored and what can I do. I've got a thing in life that the only person that can change things is yourself and so I sat down and I started writing down the things that I wanted to do.”

This was one of them: “I wanted to help put Worthing on the map and I also wanted to do something a little bit different. I thought about recycling and just about what kinds of things we can do.

"The whole recycling thing is all around us and I know that I'm not perfect at recycling. I'm more aware of it now that I am doing this, and I know I will get better but it's just a nice idea to do this now.

“During lockdown I started making butterflies out of soft drinks cans. I use ordinary scissors and I cut them out and I staple them to the trellis.”

It's the kind of recycling that Annie means. “I've got 20-plus exhibitors. I would say that half of them have exhibited before and are fairly well known in the local area and the others are new to it. I just wanted to show what amazing things you can do with things that you would usually chuck away.”

This year the exhibition is just one day: “But I'm hoping to grow it. I'm hoping that year on year it will get bigger and bigger and I would like to have workshops as well on the day and that perhaps it will run for longer. At the moment I'm self-funding it so eventually I'm hoping to be able to fund it in other ways.”

The exhibition is on the first floor of the Guildbourne Centre on Saturday, August 19.