19
November 2025

An Arts and Crafts Christmas

Welcome to The Arts Society Teme Valley
Wednesday, November 19, 2025 - 14:00 to 15:30
Ludlow Assembly Rooms
Castle Street Ludlow SY8 1AZ
Online Event

An Arts and Crafts Christmas

Speaker: Kirsty Hartsiotis

The Arts and Crafts Movement was one of Britain’s most radical and far-reaching art movements. It was not just about making art and craft, but how and where you lived and how you spent your time. Many makers moved to the countryside to live a Simple Life. Part of their ethos was the revival of forgotten crafts, customs and festivities to build a sense of community where they lived. Arts and Crafts designers sought out wassails, mummers plays, and carolling customs, put on Christmas plays, designed exquisite Christmas cards to send to their friends. We’ll discover how they spent their Christmases, how they told the Christmas story in church art and book illustration, and how they depicted the carols and plays they took part in.

THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER

Ms Kirsty Hartsiotis

Kirsty Hartsiotis has been the curator of the decorative and fine art at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham since 2008, and prior to that was the curator and manager of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. At Cheltenham she looks after the Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection, which includes the important private press archive, the Emery Walker Library. She’s curated many exhibitions on the Arts and Crafts and Private Press Movements, most recently Ernest Gimson: Observation, Imagination & Making

Passionate about sharing her deep love for and knowledge of the arts, she’s also a freelance researcher, currently researching Arts and Crafts war memorials and the work of Arts and Crafts designers in churches in the South West. She’s also been an oral storyteller for over 20 years, and has published a number of collections of stories. She’s the newsletter editor for Society of Decorative Art Collections, a regular columnist for Cotswold Life, and writes for diverse other publications on art history and folklore.