Painters, potters and sculptors have been busy creating varied pieces in kitchens, living rooms and studios around Harrow to go on display at the spring exhibition of Harrow Art Society. IAN PROCTOR reports

A GROUP of long time amateurs are preparing to showcase their work at a forthcoming spring exhibition.

Visitors to Stanmore Library in Stanmore Hill, Stanmore, are promised a display of works by some 20 members using oil, pastel, watercolour and acrylic, as well as objects from other disciplines, to view or buy.

Exhibition organiser and programme manager for the society, Margaret Mountstephens, said: Its extremely varied. You never know exactly what subjects we will get. People submit whatever they are painting at the moment. Most of it is painting but we have metal sculptures, wooden sculptures and two types of pottery.

You dont see as many landscapes nowadays and modern art, particularly interiors, are more fashionable.

There are three or four professional artists and a lot of the others are beginners but the beginners dont usually put in for the exhibition. Most of us are what I called middle-of-the-road long time amateurs.

The society chose to move the exhibition from Gayton Library in St Johns Road, Harrow, to Stanmore Library because the new venue is more accessible and more practicable for setting up the exhibition, while the autumn exhibition is held at Harrow Arts Centre, in Uxbridge Road, Hatch End, where the group is based.

Mrs Mountstephens, of Salisbury Road, Harrow, said the group has about seven demonstrations a year and seven practical sessions, plus paid workshops on separate themes not forgetting the socials.

The group holds two competitions each year, the Presidents Prize in which the president gives a brief then chooses their favourite from members pieces and the Chairmans Cup in when members are invited to vote for a winner.

Membership of the society, which started in 1934, costs £22 a year and meetings take place on Saturday afternoons at the arts centre between October and July.

Mrs Mountstephens said: There isnt a selection procedure as I like to encourage everybody. All members are able to hang their work at an exhibition as long as they frame it nicely.

There are more artists in Harrow than you would ever believe although Stanmore Art Society has closed and the same with the Wealdstone one and theres now just Pinner Sketch Club, us and a few members of Wembley Art Society left.

The spring exhibition runs from February 20 to March 2 during Stanmore Librarys normal opening hours.

Mrs Mountstephens said: People dont realise that local artists paint in their own houses. Some of us paint in studios and some of us, like me, paint in our kitchens. A lot of people think they need to go and purchase from London shows at fantastically high prices while art is still going on in Harrow it doesnt stop.