For nearly 30 years, Yvonne Gallimore has been a stalwart of Artsreach, Dorset’s rural touring arts charity. At the end of July she retired, at a party at Buckland Newton attended by Artsreach past and present staff, trustees and village partners.
Ian Scott, the long-time director of the charity, which was founded in 1990, led the tributes to Yvonne and her “massive contribution to Artsreach and the wider cultural scene in Dorset”. Best known now for its packed programme of performances to village halls across rural Dorset – theatre, music in all genres, dance, comedy, spoken word – and children’s shows and workshops, Artsreach also had an important visual arts component for many years and Yvonne was the key figure in these projects.
The first visual arts tour, Material World, which took place in 1998, focused on contemporary craft textiles, functional, decorative and wearable. Many will remember the amazing and exciting range of work, often using unusual source materials, such as nettles (a dress that definitely didn’t sting you!)
As Ian Scott recalled, this exhibition was well-attended and – even more importantly – sold well for the artists, “a major objective in a county that then had loads of individual, relatively isolated visual artists and relatively few galleries.” Yvonne, he said, had “helped to establish a contemporary modern aesthetic” for Artsreach.
Not much fuss
Subsequent travelling exhibitions, often accompanied by workshops with craftspeople and makers, included Branching Out, willow sculpture, basketry, furniture and paper, All Fired Up, ceramics, and Making Advances, experimental work challenging the boundaries between art and craft.
Former chairman Barbara Fraser, a long-time Artsreach village partner at Portesham, recalled “how much I came to admire her crazy ideas which turned out not to be crazy at all.”
When Portesham showed the Changing Views exhibition, Yvonne and her family “swept into the hall and within three hours our rather barren hall was turned into a fascinating display area with large, white-painted blocks, screens and the artworks themselves. Sunday evening came and Yvonne, Adam and family packed it all into a van and drove away. Not much fuss … a lot of hard work.”
Yvonne has been involved with every aspect of Artsreach, not only curating exhibitions and helping to discover exciting new groups and performers for the touring programme but also working tirelessly on the children’s workshop programmes and nurturing long-term projects, such as the William Barnes celebration with music, poetry and Dorset food (now the annual Barnes Tea).
Kerry said: “Yvonne has always firmly believed that the arts are fundamentally about people and bringing people together – and that has shone through in every aspect of her commitment to the work.”
That commitment was recognised this year at the National Rural Touring Forum conference in June when Yvonne was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. She was genuinely surprised, having assumed that it would go to others. “The truth is that Yvonne still doesn’t recognise the remarkable impact she has had during her time with Artsreach.”
There were warm tributes from Debbie Evans, the Purbeck-based chairman of the Artsreach trustees and Tracy Cooper, Dorset Council’s senior arts and culture officer. These were followed by presentations and gifts, including a handsome bay tree. And then, of course, tea – proper Artsreach tea, with home-made cakes, cookies, macaroons and scones.
Guests at the party included Dorset folk singer, musician and actor Tim Laycock, sculptor and artist Lal Hitchcock and furniture maker and sustainable artist Karen Hansen, who had both participated in several visual arts projects.
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