[vc_row css_animation=”fadeInUp” row_content_width=”grid” css=”.vc_custom_1706182725124{padding-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1706182745631{padding-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1707151320715{padding-top: 0px !important;}” el_class=”boder-radius-30 dark-bg”][vc_column_inner css=”.vc_custom_1706182750100{padding-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_column_text el_class=”sml-heading”]The Arts are central to church life. Many of our activities take place within beautiful buildings which our services combine drama, literature, music, poetry and visuals. Our churches are also places to enjoy cultural programmes including concerts and exhibitions as well as being places to see art and architecture.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”fadeInUp”][vc_column]
Unveiled is a regular Friday night arts and performance event at St Andrew\u2019s Wickford. See here<\/a> for more information. The Unveiled arts and performance evening together with a programme of art and heritage exhibitions deliver new cultural offers in Wickford. The initiative aims are to bring high quality art and performance to Wickford while also encouraging local talent by providing new platforms for local performers and artists. See here<\/a>\u00a0for more information.<\/p>\n Craft groups also meet at St John\u2019s Langdon Hills<\/a>\u00a0and St Andrew\u2019s Wickford<\/a>. Our church halls are also regularly used by local arts and crafts groups.<\/p>\n As a new town, Basildon has a rich cultural heritage in part through the influence of Vin Harrop<\/a> as director of the original Arts Centre. Depeche Mode<\/a> and Yazoo<\/a> emerged from the Town\u2019s music scene, and to some extent from the churches, in the 1980s to achieve international success. Culture and entertainment in the area can also be found at the Towngate Theatre<\/a> and Barleylands<\/a>. Basildon-Eastgate Art<\/a> encourages artists in the Basildon area giving them the chance to exhibit their work.\u00a0BasildON\u00a0Creative People and Places<\/a> is a radical, cultural programme for people living, working and socialising in Basildon borough.\u00a0Bas-Arts-Index<\/a> is a home for Basildon\u2019s creatives to connect and collaborate.[\/vc_column_text] Above the south door of the church is a fibreglass figure of our Lord pierced by shafts of light, with his hands outstretched towards the town in service of the people. It is an invitation of welcome to all to enter. The sculpture was designed by Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones<\/a> in 1968. The work of Huxley-Jones also features elsewhere within the Diocese. His Woman of Samaria is a fibreglass figure at St Peter’s Aldborough Hatch, while at Chelmsford Cathedral, Huxley-Jones’ work includes a Christus in St Cedd’s Chapel, a carving of St Peter on the south-east corner of the South Transept and 16 stone carvings representing the history and concerns of Essex, Chelmsford, and the Church. Huxley-Jones and his wife Gwynneth Holt, who was also a sculptor, lived in Broomfield, Essex. Broomfield was also home to the artist Rosemary Rutherford (see St Peter’s Nevendon below). Works by Huxley-Jones, Holt and Rutherford can be found at churches throughout the Diocese of Chelmsford.<\/p>\n A statue<\/a> by the sculptor Peter Foster depicting St Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar can be found in the Remembrance precinct adjacent to St Martin\u2019s.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”2619″ img_size=”full” el_class=”boder-radius-30″][vc_column_text]A freestanding Bell Tower designed by Douglas Galloway RIBO and built in 1999 was opened by Her Majesty the Queen and dedicated by The Rt. Revd. John Perry The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford on Friday 12th March 1999.<\/p>\n Other works of art<\/a> of note in Basildon include: the Mother and Child<\/em> sculpture and raised pool designed by the French sculptor Maurice Lambert; the Cats Cradle Pussiwillow III Clock<\/em> in the Eastgate Shopping Centre; the Radion<\/em><\/a> lenticular screen that explores Basildon\u2019s past and present with a focus on nature and heritage within the borough; and the sculpture trail<\/a> at Wat Tyler Park which has Progression<\/em> by Michael Condron and After the uprising<\/em> by Robert Koenig among the works able to be seen.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner]