01273 302170 www.staubynsschoolbrighton.co.uk - Viva Lewes

THIS MONTH’S COVER
WHERE DID yOu gET THAT HAT?
Retired English
literature lecturer John
Hopley wears a leather
hat with a braided band
around the crown. The
hat was bought from
“the shop just outside
Rye Station, specializing
in hats,” about five
years ago. Since then,
John has subjected it to
his personal breakingin
technique of wearing
it in the rain and
regularly stamping on it to remove any sign of
newness. Picture and words by Joe Knight.
biTs and bobs
Lewes artist Tom Benjamin approached us about doing
a cover to coincide with his exhibition at St Anne’s
Galleries, The Service of Clouds. We’re familiar with
Tom’s wonderful landscapes, which he paints, as David
Hockney does, on the spot, carting his canvases with
him on his bicycle. Recently, he’s been crouching on
the ground and concentrating on the sky, so we felt it
would be great to use part of one of the paintings that
will be in the show, Towards Mount Harry, to create
a dreamy, cloud image for our cover. Although Tom
painted this on a clear, late afternoon in November,
we feel it evokes an optimistic sense of sunny spring
skies returning in March. He painted it, he tells us,
when based near the old racecourse buildings, looking
north-west towards Mount Harry and the Weald. We
like the broad brushstrokes and the variations of thickness
in paint which give the clouds texture and a sense
of movement - any image of the sky, is, after all, only
there until the cloud patterns change again.
Tom Benjamin, The Service of Clouds, St Anne’s Galleries
weekends 10-5pm, until 4th Mar or by appointment
until 10th Mar. 111 High Street stannesgalleries.com
LEWES IN quOTES
BALLOON ASCENT
FROM THE GAS WORKS, LEWES
MONDAY, SEPT. 22, 1828
Mr Green respectfully announces to the Nobility,
Gentry, and Inhabitants of the Town of LEWES
and its Vicinity, that he intends on making an AS-
CENT with his MAGNIFICENT BALLOON on
MONDAY, the 22nd of September, 1828 at Three
o’clock precisely, (being Lewes Great Sheep Fair Day)
from a commodious Situation near the GASWORKS.
A Band of Music will be in attendance.
Tickets of admission at One Shilling and Two
Shillings each, may be had at Lee’s, Lower’s and
Baxter’s Libraries, at Laporte’s, and of Mr GREEN
at Mr Jones’s, Linen Draper, bottom of School Hill,
Lewes. Full particulars in the Hand Bills.
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