Peterborough: Cathedral to showcase art created in lockdown

Hundreds of works of art created during lockdown periods are being displayed at a cathedral.

Made in Lockdown, at Peterborough Cathedral, will feature more than 250 pieces created during the pandemic by more than 150 people.

They include a sculpture of a "mad March hare" riding a child's scooter, which the artist said was "a suitable response to all that was happening".

The exhibition runs from 21 January to 18 February.

The cathedral asked anyone whose creativity had been inspired during the pandemic to submit their art.

Some of the artists featured have shared their thoughts about their work.

"I was inspired by the famous illustrator, Sir Quentin Blake, who painted 10 rainbow drawings to raise money for the NHS," says photographer Kathryn Glover.

"That sparked my own idea to create my own collection of drawings, each showing an imaginative rainbow and a snapshot into the many lives of lockdown.

"Each features a powerful pun to help smile collectively together at the ways in which Covid-19 has been cast upon us all."

One is a tribute to her brother who, she says, "worked as a postman tirelessly throughout lockdown".

It is "an ode to the Tortoise and the Hare story, as traditional 'snail mail' letters and posted gifts became just as important as screens and technology", she adds.

Vivien Stevenette's husband Gareth was diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly before the first lockdown in March 2020.

"Everything happened so quickly," she says.

Her husband was given six to 12 months to live.

He lost his sight because of the disease and when he came home, she became "chief nurse, bottlewasher and everything else".

While she looked after him at their home, she began knitting "to de-stress".

"Every day I would knit a new square and they grew and grew into this wonderful blanket.

"It was such a terrible time - and yet such a loving time - a time when we were closer than we'd ever been.

"This [blanket] just reminds me of all that we went through."

Her husband died in August, five months after his diagnosis.

"He's in this blanket. If I wrap it round me, it's a piece of him."

After that, she went back to another hobby - painting.

Mrs Stevenette drew a self-portrait, based on a picture her husband had taken of her in Cornwall.

"I put the bird in, to represent him, watching over me in my loneliness.

"Before he died, he said, 'Don't ever give up painting, will you?' and I said 'No, I'll never do that'."

Viv Scone created a piece she calls Hairy, Harey Times.

"It is in part a sculptural study of the form of a hare but with a nod to the times being out of joint and wildlife (real and imaginary) behaving badly, such as the Llandudno goats and Banksy's rats in the bathroom," she says.

"A 'mad' March hare seemed a suitable response to all that was happening.

"The physical constraints of the pandemic, and the emotional highs and lows as the months went by, resulted in a unique period of creative energy and a sculpture that was unlike anything I had made before."

Her hare is seen riding a child's battered scooter which she found abandoned in a tree, and many other materials were foraged locally.

"I have wondered if it became a rather 'unserious' piece as a way of counteracting some of the more frightening emotions associated with the pandemic," she adds.

Rick Nelms has motor neurone disease (MND) and began using his computer to create paintings during lockdown.

One of his works on show is called God Keeps His Promises Always.

He used his computer to create the image as he was no longer able to hold oil pastels himself, he says.

"I wondered if I could get the computer to do the same thing, and the answer is yes," he says.

He created it in memory of a friend who died with MND recently.

"The stormy sea is a reminder that no matter how bad the storm in life might be, God is always with us.

"I chose the rainbow as a symbol partly because in the Bible it's used as a symbol of a kept promise with Noah, partly because it's been such a feature of lockdown, and partly because of its significance for the LGBTQ community. It seemed a really appropriate symbol.

"It's been a lot of fun learning how to make the computer do things that it didn't know it could do - and I certainly didn't know it could do - getting it to put brush strokes on, as I would have done.

"It's given me a purpose in life at a time when it would have been easy for life to be purposeless."

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