Ramsgate Rocks

Unfortunately I couldn’t make this morning’s official opening of the new project by Thanet’s greatest living-here artist (Tracey only visits), Ruth Cutler. Her Sea Garden project, which she’s crafted from local stones and plants, was due to be unveiled by none other than our local MP Dr Steve Ladyboy at 11am. Here’s one I snapped off through the railings a few months ago when it was a work in progress. Ruth’s asked everyone to rally round and look after, or even add to, the sea garden so do feel free to lend a helping hand.

Meanwhile Ramsgate’s newest charity, Beach Within Reach, has also been launched today with a fun event on the sands. The charity aims to provide all-terrain wheelchairs that can be used by adults and children, with no hire charge only a returnable deposit. BWR’s Treasurer, Kim Twyman, told me: ‘These All-Terrain wheelchairs will be on Ramsgate main beach for the new season of 2008 and on other beaches in the Thanet area as funds permit. We hope this project will increase the tourism industry in our area. We are trying to reach charities, organizations and schools out of the area that run holidays/breaks/days out for the disabled.’

Good on yer, Kim! The launch is also being featured on the BBC’s teeny-tiny news today, so if any of you lot want to catch a glimpse you’d better dash home by 6.30!

Click here for more details of Ruth Cutler’s sea garden
Click here for more on Beach Within Reach

Prom…

And Ramsgate artist Ruth Cutler’s sea art is much more visible now that the ne’er-do-wells have ripped down the banner telling us what it is:

Graffiti art is coming along nicely here, too, after it was scrubbed off in March and CCTV installed for all of ten minutes. I thought the banner headline in the local ball scratchers’ magazine recently was ‘Getting Tough On Graffiti’? Um, hurrah?

March 2007

December 2007

Sea Art

Staying with the subject of art, I see Ruth Cutler is progressing nicely with her sea garden at the end of one of those fourteen car parks that adorn our front. Ruth, who I like to think of as Ramsgate’s more talented (natch) answer to Margate’s Lady of the Soiled Bedsheet, is transforming this patch of scrub into something a bit special with a briny twist.

I understand there were some terrific seaside natives growing there, which would have made splendid home grown fodder for the project, had the council not come along and sprayed it all with weedkiller a few days before she started (natch).