SEVEN artists, a photographer and a film maker all based in Brecon have decided to open their studios to the public for two days at the end of June. The Brecon Town Open Studios project is the idea of sculptor weaver Sue Hiley Harris.

The walking trail connecting the studios includes some of Brecon’s elegant Georgian streets as well as lesser-known byways and offers fabulous views of Brecon Cathedral, the rivers Usk and Honddu as well as the Brecon Beacons.

Sue said: “As well as being an opportunity to visit artists in their working environments, it’s a good chance to get inside some very interesting Brecon houses.”

Entry to the studios is free and a map can be picked up at any of the studios and at many venues in Brecon. The leaflet can also be downloaded from the project’s website www.brecontownopenstudios.co.uk. Tea, coffee and cakes or biscuits are available at the majority of the studios for a donation to Friends of Brecon Mind.

The participants:

Tessa Waite will be showing new work including drawings, prints and collages. Celebrating the lyrical and dynamic within life; her work combines made and found elements; generating new connections and possible interpretations.

Hilda Benham has lived in Brecon for over twenty years and finds it an inspiring and creative community. Her work expresses her love of dance, nature, flowers, colour, and the local landscape, using pastels and watercolours.

Kathryn Roberts has been working with glass for 25 years. Twelve years ago she moved to Brecon to establish the Gallery & Glassworks. “Inspiration comes from the material itself – hot glass is so magical and alive. Natural fluid forms with balance and asymmetry combined with pure colour are dominant themes.”

Rebound Books is an enterprise that up-cycles unwanted old books by turning them into beautiful handmade sketchbooks, diaries, address books and journals, each with its own character.

Sean Crawford is a fine art landscape photographer who works in in the landscapes which surround Brecon – as well as elsewhere in the British Isles and far beyond. Sean aims to convey the mystery, solitude, and elementary forces of nature of the Brecon Beacons.

Sue Hiley Harris’ material, structure and form are inter-dependent in her woven sculptures which include works suitable for both indoors and outdoors as well as wearable silver pieces. Collages, cut or torn from discarded drawings, show an immediacy and freedom as well as her interest in space, line and form.

Karin Mear is a painter who also likes to experiment with digital art and video. Her work is influenced by her immediate environment and observations and being a collector of unusual or kitsch objects these items often find their way into her work.

Composer of Greed The Rock Opera and now a self-styled film maker, Nigel Evans opens his studio door to show scenes from Greed the Movie, currently being filmed on the streets of Brecon. “It’s a front-on, though heavily satirical view of a dystopian Welsh village with some quite nice tunes.”

Roy Powell is strongly influenced by the precepts of Cézanne. Painting and drawing is seen as a mode of empathy with nature. Painting for Cézanne was not ‘servile copying’ of nature but ‘to seize a harmony between numerous relations’.

The studios are working studios, many in the artists’ homes. Phone to check accessibility if you are concerned about access.

Brecon Town Open Studios takes place on Friday, June 24 and Saturday, June 25 from 1pm – 7pm. Look out for the map and information leaflet in various Brecon shops or visit www.brecontownopenstudios.co.uk.