Second Hand
An exhibition of four artists working with inherited and discarded materials.
Celia Pym, Tilly Shiner, Jane Stewart, and Shane Waltener.
Thursday 2nd April - Saturday 30th May. 2026.

Second Hand brings together four artists who work with materials that have lived other lives. Working with garments, textiles, and found objects, each artist uses what is worn, handled, discarded, and redistributed.

Using sculpture, textile, and collage, the artists in our Second Hand exhibition work with old materials to create new artworks, experimenting with techniques passed down through generations. Clothes are mended, reworked, and reassembled; objects are recreated rather than discarded.

One Work Gallery: Linda Adcock
‘White Still Life’, Oil on Canvas
Wednesday 22nd April
Artist Talk 2.30pm
Free. All welcome.

Our next artist is Linda Adcock who trained at Sir John Cass School of Art (1968-9); Canterbury School of Art (1969-72) and the Royal Academy Schools (1973-76). She has shown in London, Germany and Florence and, since living in Colchester, widely in East Anglia, often the RA Schools East Anglia Group and the Colchester Art Society. Linda Adcock will be showing a painting called ‘White Still Life’, and will be joining us for a conversation about the work on Wednesday, 22nd April 2.30pm.

We are showing the painting ‘Turning Back’ by Simon Carter until Saturday 18th April.

The Secret Painter
By Joe Tucker
Wednesday 13th May
Soup 6.45pm, 7pm Book Club

Joe Tucker's Uncle Eric was a beloved yet unconventional figure throughout Joe's life. A shambolically dressed man who lived with his mother for almost eighty years, he had an almost compulsive need to charm strangers with working men's club comedy routines, and appeared to exist only for daily trips to the bookie - and yet had also amassed over five hundred of his own remarkable paintings without anyone ever realising his achievements.

Towards the end of his life, Eric requested an exhibition of his work. As Joe and his family sorted through hundreds of paintings of street scenes, circus and theatre performers, and busy pubs, they began to ask more questions about Eric's life: why had this fanatically sociable man never left his mother's home? Had Eric ever experienced love when he painted it so beautifully? And what had driven him to create so much, yet share it so rarely?

SOCKS Imaginative Mending
By Celia Pym
Thursday 30th April
6pm-7pm
£5 Book online or in the bookshop.

Celia Pym will be talking about her mending project ‘Socks’ that formed the work for her latest book.

In Summer Term 2024 Celia Pym taught the whole of Surrey Square Primary School in Southwark, Central London, how to darn a sock. All the children from Nursery Class (the four-year-olds) to Year 6 (the 11-year-olds), as well as several of the teachers, staff and family members. SOCKS Imaginative Mending describes the project, why it happened, how it was planned and the impact it had. It also celebrates the socks and stitches themselves with photographs of every mended sock – more than 500 in all. An encounter with craft and ‘making’ gives a child a key to opening their creative imagination. This book illustrates the joyful case for why craft learning  must be embedded in the school curriculum.

SOCK Mending Drop-In Session
With Celia Pym
Thursday 30th April
2-5pm
Free, all welcome

Holes in your socks? Bring them along to the SOCK mending meet up. Celia will be on hand to help you with your sock mending. Or if you are experienced, you can help others!

Mending curious? Never mended before no problem – come by and have a go at mending a sock. Spare ‘industry’ waste socks will be available to practice on

All materials and tools provided. Beginners to experienced menders welcome. Please come by for an afternoon of mending and hanging out.

Sketch and Social
Saturday 4th and 18th April
2pm-4pm, Free

Saturday Sketch and Social on Saturday 7th March with Tania Lawrence @tania_lawrence_art. Bring a sketch book, pencils, pens, whatever you fancy. Grab a cuppa, then draw and chat with other creatives. It’s free, and is for all levels, from hobbyists, students, beginners, to pro doodlers. We’ll be running them every two weeks, and it's fine to drop in and out. We have pens and paper if you need them.

28 Newgate Street, Walton on the Naze, Essex, Co14 8AL