Collection Conversations are back for 2026! ️ ️

Join in our exciting series of free art talks at Chippenham Museum, where artists from our Modern and Contemporary Art collection will talk about their work, providing insights into their inspiration and practice. This will be followed by an opportunity to ask questions, with the audience encouraged to join the conversation.

In October’s installment of our free art talk series, we will be joined by Morag Ballard and Helen Simmonds.

Morag Ballard's education at Chelsea School of Art led her to study sculpture at the Bath Academy of Art, Corsham, where she found the freedom to further her exploration and interest in spatial expression. Here she studied under Michael Pennie and Ken Hughes and encountered some of the leading British sculptors of the day, including Richard Deacon and Antony Gormley.

Helen Simmonds studied sculpture at the Bath Academy of Art, Corsham. A love of Thomas Hardy's novels, rich with the beauty of Wessex, influenced her decision to study there. After graduating she stopped making sculpture and set up her first painting studio at Pickwick Lodge Farm outside Corsham. In 1993, she moved to Calne and had a studio at the Old Guthrie School foundry and studios, set up by the sculptor and bronze founder Richard Cowdy; they married a few years later. Around this time, she became preoccupied with still life painting, such as her 'Blue and Green Bottles, Roses, and Delft Tile’.

📅 Saturday 10 October

🕒 2.00pm - 3.30pm

🎟️ Free, booking essential

Image captions:

Left image: AUDIO, 2010, Morag Ballard, mixed media relief

Right image: Blue & Green Bottles, Roses & Delft Tile, Helen Simmonds, oil on linen, gift of the artist

Description supplied by the event organiser.