The professionals’ view of the world

Jul 1 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

Emma Pinch meets the talented amateurs who turned to art as an escape from their busy working lives

IT MUST be one of the most illustrious amateur art groups in the country. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, appropriately enough in the year Liverpool bears the title Capital of Culture, The Hope Art group positively groans with titles and qualifications.

For three hours every week, the doctors, chemists, lecturers, clerics and ex-mayors shrug off the trappings of office, pick up a paintbrush and get their fingers dirty.

Among its members are playwright Willy Russell, Cllr Pam Clein, emeritus organist of Liverpool cathedral, Noel Rawsthorne – and a certain teacher named Gillian Gibbons.

At the hub of the group is retired Liverpool Hope senior art lecturer Peter Moore. A member of the Liverpool arts scene since 1968, he studied lithography alongside John Lennon at the School of Art group in Hope Street, and has taught since 1968.

At his retirement party 10 years ago, over strawberries and Champagne, he was asked to swap organ tuition for art lessons by Dr Rawsthorne, and a course for fellow “golden oldies” was born.

The “fairly formally taught” course, Teaching The Eye To See, has been a learning curve for both sides. “Trying to satisfy the their needs is pretty terrifying,” admits Moore. “They bring the inquiry of the scientist, the affinity of the musician, the balance of the teacher and the creative breadth of the author. I try to bluff my way through.”

It has proved endlessly fascinating for his eager pupils, however, and places on the three-hour Wednesday course are hotly sought after – once they join, they tend not to leave.

Earlier this month, they put on a retrospective exhibition at Cornerstones Hope University, and here they tell the Daily Post about their artworks.

Dr Noel Rawsthorne is organist Emeritus of Liverpool Cathedral, where he played from 1955-1980. He lives in Heswall.

“MY FATHER was a Liverpool Dock Board Engineer and we lived on the waterfront at Waterloo Dock, so the first 12 years of my life centred around the Liverpool Docks – hence my love for water, docks and moorings.

“This was in St Mary’s, in the Scilly Isles, where I was playing at a wedding, in pen and watercolours. It can be stark out there with loads of lovely sky. When I painted this, it was early in the year, March or April, and early evening. What I wanted to get across was the tranquillity of it. A total lack of stress.”

His background helps him.

“I played the organ at Liverpool Cathedral with both hands and feet on the pedal boards, tickling about with stops and keeping an eye on the conductor. It’s very similar with painting. You need to have a technique.”

Art fills an artistic gap. He has CDs and LPs of his own music and they suffice – he admits he doesn’t even listen to them very much. “Too much like hard work,” he remarks.

Now he appreciates beauty in detail. “One of the exercises when we started was to find 20 greens,” he explains. “When I look in my garden now, I see yellow green, brown green, mint green. It can be quite spiritual.”

emma.pinch@dailypost.co.uk