Love Letters to Margate is the project of a trio of young artists that could be sending ripples through the established order of things. Each of the three artists behind Love Letters to Margate are 25 or under and they are shaking things up a bit. The exhibit which starts on Valentines Day was created without any local authority arts funding, council commissions or other "arts money" what-so-ever.

Kate Limond, Selina Tolfree and BJ Fisher-Smith are the young artists who are showing Thanet artists that art need not be tied ever decreasing "arts funding". There was no waiting for Thanet District Council to commission work and the trio have not felt the need to wait for an expensive gallery before showing what they can do. As a result "Love Letters to Margate" opens at the Sandy-Wiches cafe, Cliftonville, on Valentines Day.

"It's quite fashionable to malign Margate (yes, we mean you, Sir Bob), and it is too easy to get sucked into Margate-bashing.", says the trio. "Moreover, we think art should be as accessible as possible and in your face, especially if you can have a cup of tea at the same time."

The main focus of the exhibition is to present a different view of Margate.

I contacted Kate to find out more...

Striking out "on your own" even in the company of friends can be a scary and unpredictable road but this has not stopped Kate, Selina and BJ from sharing their vision of our town. "Selina has particularly pointed out the fact that it isn't easy to be able to display your work in the public domain if you are neither well known nor 'commercial' enough," Kate told me. "The arts shouldn't be about commercialism, on any level."



The trio are strongly aware that art is a business but want to encourage people with talent rather than putting them off with the commercial side of things. "That is completely wrong," Kate told me, "so we'd also like to take a stand against over-commercialisation as a whole, and try our best to get other, like-minded people to get involved and organise the display of their own works."

While the trio are young and yet to obtain household name status this is not the first outing for their work. Salina has gained some local exposure at various gigs and has the illustration of a children's book under her belt while you may have seen Kate's work in the Balmoral wine bar or the Tsunami relief exhibition, at the Pharmacy gallery in Margate's old town centre.

I asked Kate where the idea of writing a love letter to our local town had come from. "The initial idea, of mine, was to write an actual love letter to the town of Margate, write it out in sand, and photograph it as it was washed away by the sea. This would have given us a series of photos, which would have been the central idea and theme."

Sadly this was not to be but "...the central idea of a love letter to Margate had caught us, though, and the exhibition is built around this. We've used the idea of the love letter broken up into separate lines, and these feature throughout the exhibition."

She references Bob Geldoff's recent comments about Margate and say: "We know Margate isn't perfect, but if no-one attempts to make different types of things happen, and to celebrate what is good about Margate, how is it, and perceptions, ever going to change? We'd like to think of Love Letters as a positive force for good in the community, and also to artists. We'd like to inspire other young artists to stand up and be counted."

The trio have also started Love Letters to Margate, the blog where they plan to record their experiences as well as offering us tantalising sneak peaks at the artwork we can expect to see.

Entry to the exhibit (Sandy-Wiches cafe in Cliftonville) is free and a number of the key works will be available for purchase. If you want to chat with trio then you will be pleased to know that the artists behind the exhibition will be at the Sandy-Wiches cafe on Saturday 16th February, at 1pm to meet and talk with people.