Talented artists from West Nottinghamshire College have brought the outdoors inside at a local beauty spot’s cafeteria.
Students Kiera Durrant, Lexi Snood, both 18, and Caitlyn Stinson, 17, have spent over 60 hours of their work placement time bringing colour and nature to the walls of Rumbles Café, situated at the Vicar Water Country Park in Clipstone.
The café is one of three which form the Rumbles Catering Project. These centres train and educate young people and adults in Nottinghamshire who are disadvantaged whether by disability, social or economic circumstances.
Rumbles business manager Tamar Roberts contacted the college earlier this year seeking the talents of any upcoming artists who would be willing to produce new wall art onto the café’s freshly painted walls.
That’s when Kiera, Lexi and Caitlyn volunteered their skills from the Extended Diploma in Art and Design Practice Image Making course and met with Tamar to discuss designs, colours and timescales to fit in with their work placement days.
Tamar said: “We really wanted to reflect the beauty, nature and landscape of Vicar Water within the wall art so I gave the girls free reign on the design after fetching the paint colours from B&Q.
“The results are amazing, just fantastic! We’ve had so many visitors coming into the café taking photographs of the art. We put progress photos on our Facebook page and people were even asking if the students were available to hire!”
The outcome is two feature walls within the café, one having a deep blue background, covered with large pink and yellow flowers and two colourful bluetit birds. Another wall has a glittery lilac moon with a butterfly and blue and purple flowers.
Student Kiera Durrant, who will be returning to year two of her course next year, said: “We created a mock-up first, taking a picture of the wall. Then we designed pieces suitable to go on the walls and used a mix of acrylic and bright wall paints. Tamar was very generous and gave us freedom to choose the colours. We’re really proud of the results and this is the fourth mural I’ve painted.”
The students joined Tamar, Rumbles catering manager Andrew Allen, catering assistant Lorraine Peacock, Rumbles beneficiary Lizzy Cooper, kitchen and front of house assistant Lauren Warr and the college’s lead work placement co-ordinator Natalie Senior to look at the finished product. Andrew thanked everyone for their contribution to the mural and presented each student with a £50 Amazon voucher.
Programme area leader for creative arts Anna Tagg said: “Our students have produced excellent independent work alongside successful completion of their courses. They’ve shown initiative and creativity, creating a skilful piece of work which they should be truly proud of.
“This is the sort of vocational experience we encourage all our students to engage with on the course and will stand them in good stead for working in the creative industries in the future.
“Rumbles is a community hub and therefore a brilliant showcase of how art can empower and enrich local communities. Well done to Caitlin, Lexi and Kiera for all their hard work.”
The college’s art technician Alice Evans visited Rumbles a few months ago while the students were still working on the mural. She said: “I was completely blown away! I was especially impressed by the scale of the work, spanning two large walls of the café, and the time they had all invested to achieve this.
“The art team are immensely proud of them – even more so after hearing about the excellent behaviour and dedication they have exhibited throughout the project.”
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(Left to right) – Rumbles business manager Tamar Roberts, Rumbles catering manager Andrew Allen, kitchen and front of house assistant Lauren Warr, catering assistant Lorraine Peacock and Rumbles beneficiary Lizzy Cooper.