Craft Café launches River Clyde-themed art exhibition at The Tall Ship

Thu 25th September 2025

Impact Arts’ Craft Café Govan is inviting the public to visit its newly launched Clyde-themed art exhibition, Flow: Journey Through a River! The exhibition is running at The Tall Ship, Pointhouse Road & Stobcross Road, Glasgow G3 8 until October 23, 2025.

Craft Café, run by community arts charity Impact Arts, operates three days a week, 50 weeks a year at Elderpark Library in Govan, providing older people in the area with a warm, relaxing space to explore their creative side, enjoy free hot drinks and snacks, stay connected to their local community, and get linked in with other support services where needed.

Members can explore painting, drawing, crafting, and a wide variety of inventive creative techniques, as well as local community arts and climate action projects.

This latest exhibition explores: the rich diversity of nature and wildlife that thrives along rivers, their symbolic power as mirrors of life’s transitions, and members’ personal connections and memories associated with Clyde including the shipyards.

Over 50 Craft Café members explored a variety of creative techniques to produce the artworks featured, including:

  • Tie-dyeing and cyanotyping to create water patterns
  • A collaborative poem about the life of a river (created with support from a visiting writer) turned into a large concertina zine and illustrated with monoprints of Clyde wildlife
  • A sound piece combining memories and reflections
  • Two mock stained glass underwater scenes
  • Large jellyfish and fish sculptures made from waste materials
  • Two large canvases
  • Plus, individual artworks by our members

Charlotte Craig, Impact Arts’ Creative Lead of Craft Café Govan, says:

“Many of our members have discovered their creative talents later in life and their extraordinary skills are showcased in this exhibition. Through their work, Craft Café aims to challenge negative assumptions about aging and celebrate the creativity and achievements that can flourish at any stage of life.”

Here’s what our members have to say about Craft Café Govan:

“I never thought I’d be able to be creative following a road traffic accident I had many years ago. Creating art gives me a lot of satisfaction, that I can start off with a pen and a straight line and end up with a ‘masterpiece’! Art takes me into a world of my own and gives me a great sense of achievement.”

Another member says: “I get a great sense of achievement from creating art and poetry, and have learnt that even if I don’t appreciate what I’ve done, someone else will. Art makes me push myself to achieve and I like to share my work with my family. I was adopted and discovered that being good at art runs in my biological family, so it gives me a strong sense of connection which makes me so happy.”

If anyone is interested in purchasing any of the artworks, please email: charlotte.craig@impactarts.co.uk

All proceeds from any sales made will go directly towards the project and support Impact Arts to continue supporting members of Craft Café Govan.

If you have a connection to Govan or you believe in the power of art to bring people together and bring joy to later years, you can also support this project by making a donation.

Craft Café Govan is a free-to-attend programme made possible by funding from Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Communities Fund, Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector, Creative Scotland, Improving Lives, Lush, WA Cargill, and public donations.

Impact Arts is a community arts charity based in Scotland. Since 1994, we’ve been delivering creative arts and support programmes for children, young people, adults, families, and older people who are facing disadvantages or barriers to progress in life. Our mission is to tackle inequalities, address poverty, and transform lives through art and creativity.  

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