Artist of the Month for October 2011

Herbert Choat

Blandford Museum brings to a close this year’s displays with an exhibition throughout October of the work of Herbert Choat, loaned from his son Richard Choat.

After studying at Portsmouth School of Art in 1928-1933 Herbert Choat's life, like many of his generation, was interrupted by military service during the Second World War. He served in Egypt and the Western desert with the Royal West Africa Frontier Force.

Following this he had a distinguished career in London as a commercial artist in the advertising and print industry. He never lost touch with observing the world around him. This often took the form of easel paintings which he exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and elsewhere.

The Blandford Museum exhibition is a small representation of his work including this painting of Portsmouth naval dockyard painted in 1964.

Artist of the Month for September 2011

All Different All Dorset

A new touring exhibition which celebrates multi-ethnic Dorset through images and stories will be launched at Blandford Museum on the 1st September. The exhibition has been produced as part of an Arts project, All Different, All Dorset, and is supported by Arts Council England and Dorset County Council.

The project was set up by local writer and poet Louisa Adjoa Parker, who is British but has Ghanaian heritage. She has been running the project and holding photography and story-telling workshops across Dorset with photographer Martin Coyne. Louisa set up the project to raise the profile of the increasing black and minority ethnic community in Dorset in a positive way.

Louisa says of the project, "We are here, these are our stories, we are contributing to the community and have every right to belong here. There have been a few incidents of physical racial abuse, but if the community can read our stories and see the beautiful images maybe this fantastic county can move closer to ending racism and discrimination the majority of which comes from ignorance, not hatred. There is a very strong stereotype of what a Dorset person should be, and the fact is that we are all different in many ways."

The exhibition will be at Blandford Museum from Thursday 1st until Tuesday 27th September. Monday – Saturday 10.30am – 4.30pm Admission FREE

The exhibition launch will be on Thursday 1st September 6pm at the museum and anyone with an interest in the arts, stories, photography or learning more about the black and minority ethnic communities of Dorset is welcome to attend.

For details of other locations for the exhibition or to book the exhibition for your venue please email alldifferentalldorset@yahoo.com

Please visit the blog http://alldifferentalldorset.wordpress.com