Helmsley DFAS is a member of the North East Area NADFAS.
We do not have a waiting list. Our membership is at present around 150. Our lectures take place on
the first Monday of January, February, March, April, May, June, July, October and November staring
at 7.30pm. They are held in the auditorium of Helmsley Arts Centre, Meeting House Court,
Helmsley.YO62 5DW. Complimentary coffee is available from 7pm.
The cost of annual membership is £45 for the nine lectures. The charge per lecture for non-members
is £10.
Contact Membership Secretary: Rowena Godfrey 01439 770617
Our programme for 2015:
5th January– The Great Twelve: An Introduction to the Senior Livery Companies of the City of London, their
Medieval Origins and their Role in Modern Society
Fenella Billington has a Masters Degree in Art History from Manchester University and she is a lecturer for the
University of Liverpool’s Continuing EducationProgramme for Adults.Today there are 103 Livery Companies in
the City, direct descendants of the medieval trade guilds. As a Liverywoman of the Worshipful Company of
Skinners of London, she will be able to bring a personal insight into this fascinating subject.
2nd February – The Story of the Restoration of Barholm Castle, a Late Medieval Galloway Laird’s Tower,
2003-6
Dr Janet Brennan-Inglis bought and began to restore Barholm Castle, a ruined 16 th century Scottish tower in
1999 and since then has researched and photographed dozens of castle restorations and written a doctoral
thesis on the subject.
2nd March – A Brazillian Odyssey: The Works of the Artist and Landscape Designer Roberto Burle Marx
Marilyn Elm is a qualified Landscape architect and interior designer who has been involved with art and design
for 30 years. Roberto Burle Marx trained as a painter and musician but he is better known as Latin America's
most influential 20th Century landscape architect. He was also an amateur botanist and expert horticulturalist
gathering an important collection of plant species. This lecture traces his flamboyant and colourful legacy from
Rio de Janeiro to the wonderful Brasilia.
13th April – Barbara Hepworth, the Stones and the Sea: The Influence of Yorkshire and Cornwall.
Elizabeth Strang was recruited as a guide when Tate Modern opened in 2000 and has since worked at both
Tate Modern and Tate Britain. She specialises in 2oth century art. This look at the life of Barbara Hepworth
(1903-1975) starts with her childhood in Yorkshire and her attachment to its landscape. Her work was further
influenced by the land and sea when she settled in Cornwall later in her life. The inspiration she received from
nature, together with her work ethic, resulted in her wonderful works in stone, wood and bronze.
11th May – Secret Art in the Passport – how we use it to Fox the Forger.
Martin Lloyd traces passports back over three thousand years, using illustrations from his collection of historic
passports to discover how passport design was influenced by a desire to confound the forger, how it
developed from the handwritten paper to the technically complex document we use today and how forgers
have responded to the challenge presented by secret safeguards.
1st June – Beauty and the Beast – Our Parish Churches and the Modern Predicament.
Anthony Russell is a cultural historian, author and artist. He combines travelling the world lecturing with
painting. Parish churches and cathedrals are once again becoming alive with activity, remembering a time
when they were once the most important buildings at the centre of any community. This lecture considers
how the cry for "flexibility" is creating challenges as well as opportunities for churches and a veritable
battleground of conflicting attitudes.
6th July – Narcissus and Art
Alberti, (1435) referred to Narcissus as the 'inventor' of painting. In this lecture we follow the journey of the
painter from relative anonymity in the middle-ages to the cult status of today, using where possible depictions
of the Myth of Narcissus. An art teacher and lecturer in psychology and a psychotherapist with thirty years'
experience, Maureen Schild is interested in the link between Art and Psychology and Creativity and has studied
the life and work of artists and their psychological significance.
5th October – Cornelia Parker
Rosalind Whyte is an experienced guide and lectures at the Tate and Dulwich Picture Gallery. She studied at
Goldsmiths’ College and gained an MA from Birkbeck. For some years Cornelia Parker’s work has been
concerned with formalising things beyond our control, containing the volatile and making it into something
that is quiet and contemplative like the ‘eye of the storm’.
2nd November – The Role of the Arts in the Cycle of Crime, Prison and Re-offending
Angela Findlay has a BA in Fine Art and a Diploma in Artistic Therapy. She has spent years working as an artist
within the Criminal Justice System in England and Germany gaining unique insights into the destructive
and costly cycle of crime, prisons and re-offending.
Through extraordinary slides of prisoners’ art, interspersed with personal stories from art projects, she
demonstrates how within the process of creating art there are vital opportunities for offenders to develop key
life skills. In the context of prisons it is clear that the arts are not simply decorative or commercial pastimes,
but absolutely vital, hugely relevant and potentially life-changing. Her talk is moving, informative and original
and has kept audiences across the country engrossed