The Wotton Window Wanderland

On 7th February Wotton-Under-Edge launched the 3-day Wotton Window Wanderland – an art trail of 143 windows decorated by local residents and businesses across the town.

Barnwood Trust was invited to come along to see the opening, and we spoke with Martin Clarke, former director of Under the Edge Arts in Wotton, and Nicky Hill, local artist and business owner.

View the video here or read the full transcript below:

Nicky: I think it’s amazing, it’s brought the community together, it’s just bringing art out in the windows of the town. It’s great, and when I walk my dogs, I see random windows popping up. You don’t have to be great at art either it’s just nice to get involved, it’s nice to see the colours lighting up just like they wanted, to cheer everyone up in February.

Martin: There is a big community spirit in Wotton I think there’s probably an untapped demand for community events. For a town of five and a half thousand to get 143 registered households and businesses that have decorated their windows, it’s great, but the potential is greater still and it’s making people think now about other community events that we could do as a collective.

The Barnwood Trust kindly supported us with the Small Sparks grant. It gave us scope to involve the whole community at a time of year that for a lot of people can be depressing and this was a way in which we could get community involvement at minimum cost. In fact right from the start we decided to make it a free event, this is something that everybody can enjoy and participate in, and improve their lives. Okay it’s only three days, but what we’re doing it we may encourage people to get involved in other community activities, volunteering here at the arts centre, it may encourage them to take up some more formal sort of art, painting or drawing, or they may just want to carry on doing their windows through the year. How about that?

I’m very keen, and Rob’s very keen, that we get the local villages and towns that surround Wotton to do their own Wanderland trails. We’d like to just be one of a cluster that does it every year. But that’s not our prime aim, our prime aim is to do it for the good of people and families and make people feel happy at a rather dismal time of year.

Look out for Wotton Window Wanderland 2021 on February 5, 6, 7 and 8.

For more information contact: wottonwindowwanderland@gmail.com

Small Sparks

The Small Sparks grant helps fund start-up costs or equipment so that you can do things together with people where you live. This could be gardening tools to grow vegetables together, books or games to get a new club started, knitting needles, musical instruments or something else for a group you are already a part of.

Read more about the Small Sparks grant by visiting our grants pages here