You might think a lighting designer wouldn’t be considering environmental issues as they worked. If so, you’d be wrong. “It’s something I've been concerned about professionally for a long time”, Graham Festenstein tells me. In fact, stories about our environment – from the beauty of moonlight to the impact of rising sea levels – are the theme this year for LewesLight, the annual festival of light he’s curating. “We’re probably using less energy on one installation than someone would be using in their house for an evening”, he reassures me, before pointing out that effective lighting doesn't always need to be bright. "We want to demonstrate that darkness is nothing to be frightened of; it’s something to be embraced and enjoyed. Our eyes adapt to darkness really well."
 
Key locations across town will be transformed by lighting and projections for three nights. As with previous LewesLight festivals, the choice of sites is very important – and, at the time of our conversation, still very secret. "We want to find special places", Graham explains. Each illuminated installation will be staffed with well-informed volunteers. "We'd like visitors to understand a little bit more about why it's been created. Lots of arts events don't provide that."
 
LewesLight is undeniably a collaboration, generously supported by the lighting industry alongside production partners Sussex Events Limited. Lighting designers and organisers give their time for nothing, whilst an Arts Council grant means local artists can be paid for their contributions. The whole thing is run as a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, with a new emphasis this year on mentoring college and university students through the whole process. Safety concerns mean younger children can't participate directly; instead LewesLight is working with schools to create projects that will form part of the festival. A desire to work with young people is one of the reasons the festival has moved from October to February, fitting much better with term times. And, as Graham adds, "It's darker earlier, so we can kick off at six o'clock rather than seven o'clock, which is great for families and children." Also involved are the Linklater RATS (Raising Awareness of Tides and Sea levels), a youth group linked to the Lewes Railway Land Project. "It's 20 years since the Lewes flooding in 2000", Graham reminds me. "We wanted to work with them as this coincided with our ideas of exploring climate emergency and environmental issues."
 
Ultimately, Graham insists, LewesLight is about more than just light and darkness. "It operates on two levels, in a way. You can come and see it, you can enjoy it for what it is. But there's also the wider back story. I think the process of putting the thing together, engaging with people and bringing people together, is as important as the final result. We're not a gallery – this is a town."
 
LewesLight runs at sites across town from 28th February until 1st March 2020.
Free admission; full details at leweslight.uk

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 161 February 2020

LewesLight isn’t exactly what I thought. Although the name offers a clue, anyone who imagines it’s a celebration of floodlit local landmarks is missing the point. “We're all about context and people”, lighting designer Graham Festenstein tells me, “not simply an engineering exercise”. And he’d rather I didn’t use the f-word. “As designers, we don’t particularly like the term ‘floodlight’. It does what it implies. That’s the old-fashioned way. We’re generally working to enhance the nature of what’s there – the colours, the materials – not to distort them.”
 
Unlike some similar international events, LewesLight isn’t just about creating something artistic. “It’s very site-specific”, Graham explains, “looking at the context of the space”. This year the festival is focussed on history, with a theme described as ‘The darker side of Lewes life’. It promises to go beyond familiar local events. “The idea is to investigate less well-known stories and those that have a more scandalous or darker undertone.”
 
The day-to-day management of the LewesLight festival is handled by three people: Graham Festenstein, Phil Rose from Sussex Downs College, who’s the festival’s Community Coordinator, and history consultant Edwina Livesey. They’re part of an organising committee that’s worked to ensure almost everyone involved has a local connection, including the lighting designers and artists who have been invited to take part. There’s been financial support from Lewes Town Council and a few other sponsors, although much of the assistance arrives in the form of equipment loans from architectural lighting manufacturers and suppliers. “The lighting companies tend to help us by providing us with equipment”, Graham says, “and they also provide personnel to help us put it in and get it all working properly.”
 
There’s a strong educational link to this year’s event. LewesLight has partnered with the local Sussex Downs College campus, working closely with Production Arts, Digital Arts, History, Tourism and Marketing students. It’s also developing STEM workshops (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) with local schools, supported by Sussex University. In addition, LewesLight is promoting energy-efficient lighting and explaining the importance of ‘dark skies’. All of last year’s event only generated the same amount of electricity as half a football match under floodlights, Graham tells me, which demonstrates the effectiveness of LED lights.
 
In fact, the 2016 electricity bill could be one of the few aspects of LewesLight that’s largely unchanged from last year’s festival. Participating locations will be better advertised, there’ll be clearer maps and the guided tours will contain more information. There’ll be different venues as well: Graham tells me I shouldn’t assume it’ll be all the ‘old favourites’ illuminated this month. “We're not doing all the same sites. There's always going to be a little bit of overlap but, if we do overlap, we'll have a different designer.”
 
 LewesLight starts on Monday 10th, with installations around the town on the evenings of Friday 14th, Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th. leweslight.uk

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 121 October 2016

Robin Morley is hoping to introduce a new annual Lewes tradition. He's one of the directors of Enchanted Places, a company that can trace its roots back to the outdoor arts events he produced at Zap Productions as part of Brighton’s renowned Zap Club. Together with a partnership of other creative people, Robin is turning Grange Gardens into an ‘enchanted park’ this month. But what exactly does that mean?
 
"Southover Grange Gardens is one of the jewels of Lewes - and we plan to make it really sparkle", he tells me. Ross Ashton, fresh from transforming Durham Cathedral as part of the city’s Lumiere Festival last month, will produce a projected artwork that’ll animate the façade of Southover Grange. Sussex-based filmmaker Nick Driftwood is creating two new video works. The park’s trees and sculptures will be illuminated as well… but there’s much more to the show than beautiful visuals, as Robin explains. “For example, we're presenting 'calling birds', which is a digital mask that you put your face in. There'll be three or four of them. You say your wish for the season and the bird mimics your voice.”
 
Wishes are the overall theme for this first Lewes event, Robin says, encouraging people to reflect on the previous 12 months and their aspirations for the future. Robin’s own wishes are very much focussed on his audience. “As always, the challenge for a producer is to make it really exciting and to have those 'wow' moments. That what we're working hard to do.”
 
Although this will be the first year that Lewes has had an Enchanted Park, the concept has already proven successful elsewhere. The Enchanted Parks show that Robin developed and produced in Gateshead is currently celebrating its tenth anniversary, selling all 22,000 tickets in just 24 hours. It seems the biggest local challenge for Robin is spreading the word without giving away all his secrets. “We plan for this to be an annual event every December”, he says. “The first year is always the hardest, we know that. We expect the first week to build modestly, and then the second week to capture people's imaginations. You have to see it to understand it.”
 
Visitor numbers will be monitored carefully to ensure everyone can enjoy their visit, with people allowed to enter the park in 15 minute time-slots. It’s rather like an alternative to a Christmas pantomime, Robin tells me, suitable for families, for couples and for groups of friends. “If you went to the Theatre Royal in Brighton to see a show at Christmas, you’d sit in a seat and watch the magic unfold on the stage in front of you. If you come to Enchanted Park Lewes, you're on the stage, in the show. You're immersed in it.”
 
Tickets available from enchantedparklewes.co.uk; open from 4.30pm Wed 2 – Sun 6 and Wed 9 – Sun 13.
 
First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 111 December 2015

I've got 45 different mechanical models and will have most of them on display during August Bank Holiday weekend. Years ago I used to sell some but I don't now. For our Open House exhibition we have them in the conservatory and the dining room - and then you come into the garden for tea and cake.

I've always been practical and made wooden toys for my children. In 1997 I went to Covent Garden and saw the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre. It isn't there now but the people are still around [they have a touring show at Herstmonceux Observatory Science Centre this month] and that inspired me to make mechanical models.

When I retired from the county council, I had a passion to sit and whittle in a shop window somewhere. But my dream fell apart when I realised how much that would cost. So I set up in the back of my garage with a scroll saw, a pillar drill and a sander. I have since built a lovely workshop in the garden with a panoramic view!

My most useful tool is my bandsaw. When I make cogs, I spray-mount the outline onto a piece of wood and cut all those little teeth out with the blade. It's brilliant but you have to keep your fingers out the way.

I've got a great stock of old bits of wood; it's all recycled, donated or off-cuts. I just have to buy a bit of 6mm dowel occasionally.

I very rarely draw plans before I start. I just sketch things out in my book. Sometimes I have a better idea when I’m making something and then change the design to get it working differently.

You can't really appreciate the models unless they're moving. I let adults and children operate them as long as they're careful. If anything gets broken it can always be mended. People love studying the models to see how they work. And that's what encourages me to carry on.

As told to Mark Bridge
21 Gundreda Road, Sat 29 to Mon 31, 2pm - 5pm.
positivelycreative.co.uk

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 107, August 2015.

Oil on canvas, 132cm x 152cm, £5,500

What inspired this particular painting? It’s based on images of Bondi Beach in Australia. I found some pictures on the internet a few years ago and later spent time there taking more photographs. An important part of the process is editing and manipulating the source image on a computer before I start ‘making a painting’.

Where did you complete the work? It’s all done in my studio, which is in the garden by my house at Hamsey.

What’s so special about the seaside? This is landscape at its most basic. Basically it’s a chunk of sand or shingle, a stripe of water and a lot of sky. And it’s repopulated from scratch on a daily basis. If you want to think about bodies in space, it’s the most perfect thing to observe.

How do you achieve the impression of detail? Playing with how the image dissolves into abstraction is a central part of what I’m doing. It’s about a bunch of processes that interconnect to produce that kind of seductive illusion.

How long have you been a professional artist? Since I graduated from art school in the late 1970s. I’ve had to do various other things as well in order to survive – for the most part, that involved being a lecturer at colleges and universities – but these days I do very little teaching.

What’s your next project? At the moment I’m working on a bunch of paintings about some snow-dusted fire-ravaged ponderosa pine forested hillsides in northern Arizona that I visited earlier this year. There was an extraordinary starkness; a sort-of pine tree version of the beach paintings.

How does inspiration strike you… and how do you respond? I make research trips every couple of years. But really, paintings develop from other paintings. When I’m searching through America or Australia, I’m actually looking through the filter of my own art. Inspiration comes from going into the studio early every day and painting until something happens.

What piece of someone else’s art would you take to your desert island? A self-portrait in sepia ink by my father. He, like so many other people in my family, was an artist. It’s hanging in our kitchen at the moment.

Mark Bridge

Nick’s work can be seen at St Anne’s Galleries as part of this year’s Artwave show. stannesgalleries.com

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 95 August 2014.

The temporary greenhouse studio of mixed media artist and mosaicist Maia Eden. Photographed for Viva Lewes magazine, issue 92, May 2014.