On Wednesday we were so happy to officially open the completed renovation of the Grain Barn here at organicARTS.
Crowdfunding began for this project in September 2018, and raised over £8000 in just over a month. The campaign was fittingly titled ‘But what happens when it rains’ drawing attention to the fact that we had no indoor space to run workshops, projects, or just eat lunch together when the weather was bad. Money donated by kind members of the public enabled us to be eligible for match community funding from both Teignbridge District Council and Exeter City Council.
Work then started in December 2019 on renovating the barn into something that was fit and safe to use. The space had previously been used to store 8000 books as part of a book-cycle project. The books were starting to breakdown and being eaten or used for nesting. We donated usable books and used others to create unique art installations on the farm. The space had been cleared of all rubbish, including a large grain mill that had to be lifted out the window with the aid of a tractor, then the building began! We put in lights and electric, removed a hornets nest, laid a new floor, replaced the staircase, and fitted a new opening window to bring light into the space.
With the building work finished in April 2019 we spent time putting the finishing touches on the space including re fitting the bookshelf’s and moving in some second hand furniture. We have a large table in one room to facilitate workshops, classes or meetings, and the other room is more of a sociable space with a few tables, along with some storage for art materials.
The larger room is also to house artwork, we plan to have art on the walls at all times. At the moment we have artwork by artists who have created work using materials from organicARTS such as willow or clay, and artworks that have been inspired by the local surroundings such as abstract paintings by our trustee Peter Grainger.
We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who supported this project in any way, especially to our trustee Peter Grainger for all your hard work and time spent on making this work. We were very happy to finally see the space being used, and full of smiling people at the opening event! Our first creative workshop in the Grain Barn will be on Monday, and we are planning to start running a self help arts group from the space in the next few months. So keep an eye out for many more creative, artistic, and wonderful things coming from inside our Grain Barn!