A NEW course being run by Frome Community Education in its summer term has been inspired by an exhibition currently on display at Frome Heritage Museum.
‘Celebrated Women of Frome’ is the name of the exhibition and the new five-week course, the latter starting on Monday afternoons and repeated in the evenings from 25th April at the Cheese & Grain. The course is led by well-known tutor David Lassman, who is also the curator of the exhibition at the museum on North Parade.
David says, “There has been so much interest created by the exhibition since its opening back in early March, that a course seemed the next logical step.
“The course will focus more deeply on the women being celebrated and give a context to the environments in which they lived, ranging from the seventeenth century to the present-day.
“These will include author Betty Trask who is probably best known today for bequeathing £400,000 to create a literary prize in her name, pioneering photographer Alice Seeley and Frome MP Mavis Tate.
“The women that have been brought together to be celebrated in the museum’s exhibition are an incredible group of individuals and reflect all that is great about the town.
“The course will take this one step further and along with more in-depth study of their lives and legacies, the wider social milieus in which they existed and were shaped will be contemplated.
“One example is Christina Rossetti, who may have only resided in Frome for a year, but whose influence and that of her family on the town is immense and vice-versa.
“She wrote several poems while in Frome and the letters she sent to family and friends reveal the significant effect the town’s landscape had on her life and literary development.
“At the same time, it is not too far-fetched to say Frome became somewhat of a Pre-Raphaelite town, which will be a subject for discussion in one of the sessions of the course.”
There will also be several related events to look out for in the coming months, including one on Betty Trask organised by Frome Writers Collective, Frome Library and Society of Authors.
Many others will take place during the Frome Festival, including a talk on Elizabeth Rowe organised by Frome Society for Local Study and a discussion on Alice Seeley by Photo Frome.
The ‘Celebrated Women of Frome’ exhibition runs at Frome Museum until Sunday 10th July, which also sees performances of specially written duologues by Nevertheless Productions.
For more details or to enrol on the course contact: www.frome commed.org.uk or the Cheese & Grain on 01373 455420.
Picture: David Lassman.
