Cutting edge

Notting Hill Arts Club’s craft night

Above: photography by Ollie Woods

I’m covered in glue, surrounded by old newspapers and sticky-back plastic and in front of me is a blank sheet of sugar paper just waiting to be turned into a work of art. No, this isn’t nursery (unless I’m a truly gifted child) – this is the Notting Hill Arts Club’s craft night which takes place every other month.
I’ve done the knitting circles that meet in pubs and they’re fun but if you drop a few stitches – or meetings – you soon begin to feel a little out of the loop. This craft night really appealed to my inner child and looking at their MySpace site, to many others’ too.
You need to get to the club early to be in with a chance of getting your free craft pack (£7 entry fee), I picked mine up at the door in a candy-striped paper bag with a sticker promising ‘duck surprise’. Unfortunately, there were no mallards making merry inside, but lots of sparkly sequins and other bits and pieces to inspire. We were asked to make collages of our nightmares using the materials in the bag along with some old newspapers and magazines provided in the centre of the room (a tip: you’ll find tabloids are best for nightmare inspiration) and so, with a vodka and coke in one hand, I set to work cutting out random words and trying not to nudge the man next to me.
The mix of people was the biggest surprise of all although I’d already been told by organisers Galia Derant and Serena Wilson that it really did attract all ages of people. Three guys propped up the bar with muscles bursting through their sports tops and as they swigged pints and smoked, they dotted glitter glue and torn out faces onto paper. In other corners of the basement, women huddled around creating more mess than a mother and baby cooking class ever could. Not that it wasn’t encouraged. Galia said that they chose the venue for to its relaxed attitude to their crafty mess and for the fact that they could combine their love of music (“not genre specific – just quirky”) with their love of crafts, which was conceived during drunken nights spent creating material animals and turning their back on traditional art. As an art student, Gallia felt despondent and thought, “if this is art, I don’t want to know”. These crafty rebels, armed with scissors, paper and glue, are encouraging the rest of London to get involved too.
Lori Wiechec, who lives in Ladbroke Grove, told me: “I do this to escape from my computer – to do something a bit creative really.” Some boys I spoke to said they had come after being told by other friends that it was pretty cool.
Arts Club director David McHugh took me to look at the queue early in the night and it looked like the post office queue on pension day. He said that sometimes the night proved so popular that people had to be
turned away.
A recent craft supplement by The Guardian branded the night the Most Popular and while they weren’t wrong, I couldn’t help thinking that it was possibly the best too. Unless you know otherwise? And if you do, let me know – I’ll be there with sequins on.

Clare Kelly

Notting Hill Arts Club
21 Notting Hill Gate W11
020 7460 4459
www.nottinghillartsclub.com
www.myspace.com/craftnight