Open for Art is an exciting art trail offering you, the public, the opportunity to view artists at work and purchase lovely original artwork for your home. Open 18th May to 2nd June, brochures can be found at local libraries, cafes and community centres or follow the trail on this website.
Open for Art has been over a year in planning involving over 200 Dorset artists and 71 venues covering a wide swathe of South Dorset from Abbotsbury, North and East of Dorchester and Weymouth & Portland.
On Friday 17th, the day before we started our open studios trail, we discovered that many of our signs had been removed. One of our participating artists, Babs Kirby saw this happening and ascertained that the man was from County Highways and the signs were being removed because we lacked the necessary permissions.
Having obtained some financial support from Weymouth Bid and West Dorset District Council and being in partnership with many of the region’s businesses all working in harmony to benefit the area’s economy and culture, it was very distressing for us to feel that we had have been sabotaged by our own Dorset Council officials. This action could have had a catastrophic effect on our visitor numbers and therefore the overall success of the event.
On our behalf DOMVS, one of our sponsors, had obtained permission for the Open for Art signs to be erected throughout this region, so we were both puzzled and angry that so many had been removed. After talks with the Highways team, it appeared that the permission granted had not been passed on to the team removing signs. Happily, Highways returned about 30 of our signs on Wednesday. Now for the mammoth task of putting them back up.
We would like to thank Highways team for their swift action resolving this matter. Now all that is left is for the general public to come and support us and view the vast, varied and delightful range of art created by the artists living amongst you.