Next Saturday Fuhaar is coming to our High Street and we couldn't be more excited! Fuhaar is the brainchild of Renuka Tank (pictured centre), veteran of Art on the Street and absolutely lovely human being. She wanted to bring her beloved Indian arts, crafts, music, dance, food and spirituality to Maidenhead and held her first Fuhaar at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in June of this year. It was a real success, but she needed more room!

Steph and I (Marie) suggested she bring Fuhaar to the Town Centre and take advantage of all the space on the High Street - creating a beautiful feast for the eyes and ears. It's taken a lot of planning and hard work, but Renuka is a born organiser and just seems to effortlessly take it all in her stride.

Yesterday was an absolute ball as Renuka and her friends dressed us up in stunning sari for the Fuhaar publicity photo. We caused a real stir of in the High Street as we paraded out of Bovilles Art Shop in a hail of glorious colours and shining jewellery. People stopped on the street to look at us and shopkeepers stuck their heads out of doors to see what all the fuss was about.  Afterwards Renuka had to wrangle us OUT of the sari, as we were pretty reluctant to take them off. I flatly refused to remove my bindi and had to explain the beautiful jewel on my forehead to all the mums at the school gates. I think they were secretly envious that we had such fun...all in a days work at Art on the Street HQ!

We must take the opportunity to wish our friend Renuka every success next Saturday - make sure you come along. :-)

Satu Vartiainen will be exhibiting her work at the Town Hall from today until 8th October. As always, 20% of all sales will go directly to Age Concern Slough & Berkshire East, directly benefiting the community.

Satu is originally from Finland but
has lived in the UK for 29 years. She's incredibly active on the arts scene and has been a committee member for Cookham Arts Club for 10 years.


Aside from that, she's just a bloody lovely and incredibly talented lady. :-)

A little bit more about Satu...
Born in Finland, Satu lived many years in Paris where she began to study art,
drawing and painting at Ecole d'Art Martenot. With a love of modern semi-abstract paintings, her own style lies something between figurative and abstract. She draws inspiration from a specific chosen subject, or sometimes just sees a shape in a photo or a magazine cutting, which leads to a project of its own. Often a composition will evolve from just a couple of lines on a canvas or MDF, after which certain colours feel right, and from there on it just happens. The painting is finished when she is satisfied with the balance and the colour combination and when the painting is a pleasure to look at.

And Satu's paintings are definitely a pleasure to look at - we absolutely love them!

The kick-off meeting (pictured)  happened on Tuesday and we've launched our Bookings Open date - the run-up to Art on the Street Dec '12 has offically begun!

We invited our friends from Live it Vintage to join us at the very beginning - they are currently where we were 3 years ago and it's lovely for us all to work together.

Lists have been made, costs have been winced at and wine was consumed (of course!). We've added a few extra touches to the event planning (we're going to have a regular featured artist section on the site and social media in the run up to the event) and everyone has an incredibly long to-do list. December seems such a long way away, but we know from experience that it's going to fly by and before long we'll be hoiking up gazebos, singing christmas carols and having a cheeky mulled wine (or three)! Bring it on!

To find out more about booking a pitch at the next event, take a look here.
And spread the word with our 'Are You An Artist?' Poster!