A County Durham art gallery, dedicated to the region’s coalmining heritage, celebrated a milestone moment this week after welcoming its 10,000th visitor.
The Mining Art Gallery, part of The Auckland Project reached the landmark figure, just eight months after its launch when Claire Vickers and her seven-year-old son Jack Bell walked through the doors. [On Tuesday, 29 May 2018.]
Claire and Jack visited the gallery, in Bishop Auckland Market Place, with family friend Joanne Ames and her sons Elliot, aged 9 and Isaac, aged 5. The group, who are all from Bishop Auckland, decided to visit the gallery during the half-term school holidays to take part in family craft activities together, creating their own banners for the Durham Miners’ Gala in July.
Claire said: “My grandad was a miner so I like to bring the children to the gallery so they can understand their history
“We quite often visit the Mining Art Gallery to take part in craft sessions, the kids love it and we always have a good time together. We enjoy looking round the gallery too, the children enjoy picking out which artworks they like best.
“It’s great to have something like this here in Bishop Auckland.”
Launched in October 2017, the Mining Art Gallery attracted more than 2000 visitors in its first week, as people flocked for an opportunity to see powerful art from prominent local mining artists such as Tom McGuinness and Norman Cornish.
Since then, visitors have come to the gallery from across County Durham, the UK and international locations such as France, Spain, America, South America and Canada to see the works on display, which evoke both the arcane underground world of the coalmines and the closely bound communities of the surrounding pit villages and colliery towns.
More than 300 visitors have taken part in the family crafts and activities, which regularly take place in the Mining Art Gallery’s learning room, from making their own mining banner to painting portraits using boot polish, a technique sometimes used by mining artists when paint was in short supply.
The gallery is run by team of 50 staff and volunteers, who also run daily Working the Seam talks, digging deeper to reveal more about the artworks on show.
Kathy Wilson, Visitor Experience Officer, The Auckland Project, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have reached such an exciting milestone for the Mining Art Gallery.
“The heritage of our region is something we want to bring into the future and the feedback we have received since opening has shown that the mining art on display here still resonates strongly with both the local community and visitors from outside the region.”
In preparation for Durham Miner’s Gala in July, children visiting the Mining Art Gallery during May half-term will be invited to design their own Big Meeting Banner. The best drawings and crafts created between Friday, 25 May and Friday, 1 June will be displayed at the Gala itself on Saturday, 14 July.
A special temporary exhibition commemorating the men conscripted into the mines during World War II will also continue at Mining Art Gallery until Sunday, 30 September 2018. The Bevin Boys- War’s Forgotten Workforce commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Bevin Boys scheme, and features artworks created by Bevin Boys, Tom McGuinness, Ted Holloway, David McClure and John Tipton.
The Mining Art Gallery is open daily from 10am to 4pm, last entry is 3.30pm. Entry is £4 for adults and £3 for concessions.
For more information, visit aucklandproject.org. Or to keep up to date with events at the Mining Art Gallery, sign up to The Auckland Project’s monthly newsletter or follow The Auckland Project on social media.