History of Otter Vale Art Society by Jacqueline Ward

 

Otter Vale Art Society started quite a while before the formal constitution and rules were established.

Grahan and I joined the Ottery Medical Practise in Sept 1963 . For the first 6 months we rented a property from Dorothy White (?) . A skilled watercolourist who was visiting her daughter in America . Dorothy had a group of friends who formed a core of like minded artists . At that time West Hill was expanding with many properties selling off parts of their gardens for development . So much so that the practise number which was only around 11000 when we arrived and by the time Graham retired in 1995 had risen to 17000 . These newcomers were young , fit and eager to explore hobbies in retirement . There were – school teachers , bankers , accountants , architects etc all with time o their hands and wanting an out for their artistry . They happily busied themselves with fronting the society with rules and all the legal requirements needed to start .

Ray Balkwill was very helpful at this time and gave a lot of professional guidance . Early meetings were held at the Kings School . I remember an initial sale of work to raise funds where I bought 2 watercolours off Dorothy which are still 0n the walls of my sitting room . One of the founder members marked her 100th birthday last year . Others not quite as old are still around . Before long the Society was up and tunning with Chairman , Treasurer and committee in place – the first president was a practising artist , Greg Davies who now lives in France .

The original logo was designed by the man who masterminded the construction of the screens for the exhibition . This was moved to the new logo at the start of the new century . The annual exhibition became a regular feature in the late 1970’s / The fist one held in the old infants school , now Ottertots Nursery , then in the old Boys school ( now Ottery Larder) , but until last year its home has been the Institute and that is where the meeting have been held until recently . Membership increased steadily and had to be capped at 150 due to fire regulations at the Institute, so had to be limited to people living in the EX11 postcode area .

Covid hit us hard as it has every club but the committee have embraced the new technology and we enjoyed online demonstrations and even an online exhibition . The society has survived with a core of enthusiastic , skilled and hard working committee members who are keeping the ship afloat . With other societies struggling to survive we have seen a resurgence of interest in our activities and have a vibrant membership , the more active members enjoying a weekly practise painting session which is in addition to monthly demonstrations and regular workshops . An annual exhibition was held for the first time last year at Kennaway House . again well supported by our loyal public from Ottery St Mary and district and now being appreciated by a wider audience of holiday makers.