Medway Open Studios experience
There are moments in life when we realise: we belong. Not in a loud, flag-waving way – but in the quiet, deep exhale of finding your people. That’s what I felt when I stood among the artists of the Rochester & West Kent Art Society (R&WKAS) during the Medway Open Studios & Arts Festival in July 2025. It wasn’t just an exhibition – it was an unfolding, a homecoming, a conversation between past and present, between brushstrokes and breath.
A festival with a heartbeat
For over a decade, the Medway Open Studios & Arts Festival has celebrated creativity in all its forms – drawing, sculpture, digital art, installation, spoken word, community art, performance. It’s a grassroots festival grounded in accessibility, inclusion, and the simple joy of opening the door to creativity. Studios, cafés, churches, and living rooms across the Medway towns transform into vibrant spaces of encounter.
But this year, something extra special stirred beneath the surface: the echo of nearly a century of legacy.
A community steeped in legacy
Rochester & West Kent Art Society is not just another collective – it’s a living archive of regional art history. Established in the early 1920s, the group first exhibited in 1926, and in 2026 they will proudly celebrate their 100th anniversary of public exhibitions. That’s one hundred years of painting, sketching, mentoring, dreaming. During wartime, members continued to meet and create, using art as a form of quiet resistance and emotional survival.
Many of the region’s finest artists have passed through this society – teachers, illustrators, full-time painters, and passionate hobbyists. It’s a multigenerational circle where new voices are encouraged and the wisdom of elders is gently shared. For me, being accepted into this lineage as a migrant woman artist was deeply meaningful. I wasn’t just displaying my art—I was becoming part of a story.
Setting the stage: our group exhibition
This year, our group exhibition was held at St. Peter’s Church in Rochester, a place already charged with centuries of devotion and storytelling. We brought our artworks in cardboard boxes, canvases wrapped in soft cloth, watercolours still breathing with pigment. As a group, we arranged our works in a harmonious visual dialogue – abstraction beside realism, landscapes beside figures. It wasn’t about competition. It was about resonance.
What I loved most was the ritual of presence. We took turns stewarding the exhibition – always in pairs. Each day was a new dance of personalities: a retired architect sharing stories from London, a portrait artist discussing paper textures, a nature painter recalling her first plein air sketch. These were not just ‘colleagues.’ They were carriers of wisdom, of generosity, of encouragement.
Meeting the public: my art speaks for me
It was group show in the UK, and I’ll admit – I was nervous. Would people understand my paintings? Would they feel what I felt while creating them? Would they walk past without a glance?
But something beautiful happened. People stopped. They leaned in. Some whispered. Some smiled.
I remember a woman who stood in front of my piece for almost ten minutes. She turned to me with misty eyes and simply said: “It feels like a memory I forgot I had.” In that moment, I realised art doesn’t need translation. Emotion is a universal language. When you create from truth, truth finds its way.
There was also a man who asked, “How do you make watercolour feel so… solid?” I laughed. Because watercolour is my rebellion against solidity – it flows, it disappears, it reclaims space by vanishing. It felt like someone seeing me through the paint.
Soft power, deep connection
True to my Feminine Marketing Manifesto, I didn’t push, promote, or sell with urgency. I simply showed up – with openness, vulnerability, and presence. And people responded. Some took cards. Some asked about commissions. But most importantly, they felt something. That is what matters to me.
One of the most moving experiences was watching visitors slow down. We live in a world of speed and noise. But in that cool stone church, among watercolours and whispers, time softened. A little boy drew his own version of one painting on a scrap of paper. A couple held hands silently in front of an abstract work. One woman asked if she could return the next day – just to see it again.
These are the kinds of moments you don’t capture in your marketing plan. But they are the reason we create.
Looking ahead: the centennial year
As we wrapped up the exhibition, packing our works back into cars, something shifted in me. I wasn’t the same artist who had arrived weeks earlier. I had witnessed my art create pause. I had felt the unspoken thread that links all creators, across age and background. And I had felt seen – not just as an artist, but as a human being with something to offer.
Next year, R&WKAS will celebrate 100 years since our first public exhibition. Plans are already stirring – a major show, commemorative publications, maybe even workshops and interviews. I hope to be part of it – not just as a contributor, but as a weaver of the next layer in this fabric.
A closing thought
The Medway Open Studios reminded me that art doesn’t have to shout. It can whisper, and still be heard. It can be small, delicate, transparent – and still make an impact.
If you’re an artist wondering where your place is, or a visitor curious about the soul of Kent, come visit us next year. Walk into the quiet rooms, let the paintings look back at you, and feel what stirs. You might just find your own reflection among the brushstrokes.