Painting With Pride: Making Over Margate Arts Club

Exterior Woodwork: Lobster No.CB7

Colourful, kitsch and timeless, there’s nowhere quite like Margate. And nowhere quite like Margate Arts Club. As part of our Painting With Pride series, we were delighted to help transform this community space, where local LGBTQIA+ people are safe and celebrated. From Morris dancing to drag nights to stand-up comedy, these rooms are the backdrop to a dazzling array of activities, so the décor needed to be as versatile and vibrant as the venue. Our Carte Blanche collection was perfect for the job. 

I’m the cofounder of Margate Arts Club and Margate Pride. Before, that I was based in London, where I co-founded Sink the Pink and worked as a BBC radio producer. I grew up in Kent and always knew I would come back — something always excited me about Margate’s alternative art scene and to have watched it evolve so tremendously and become a much safer place for the LGBTQIA + community has been such a joy. I’m so proud to be a part of it with the things I do here.

My partner Pom Pom and I had always talked about opening our own community nightlife space. Doing it together, here in Margate, has been a dream. We have a similar aesthetic and are super passionate about creating spaces that feel warm, welcoming and inviting but, at the same time, with a very definite identity that’s DIY, grassroots, Queer, arty and very silly! Colour plays a huge part in that, so as soon as we took on the building, we painted the front of the shop. It’s been pink then green and now the gorgeous Lobster . Each room has its own identity and colour plays a huge part in that too.

The people make the Arts Club. The community that use the space say it feels like they’re at home in the club, and hearing that makes my heart sing because that’s exactly what we want. On Mondays, the Queer Morris dancers rehearse, we have a Queer silent reading group on Tuesdays, Wednesdays is trans social and throughout the week, local performers, drag queens and DJs rehearse here in the daytimes. On weekends, we have performances, DJs, drag nights, pride socials, comedy nights, open mics — the space really is well-loved by so many. 

Pom Pom is very passionate about the club’s lighting, so we wanted a colour that felt warm and inviting in the main space but could also be lit really well for the dancefloor. Shallot was the first colour we both jumped with joy when we saw. So, that had to be in the main room. We loved the idea of the garden room being Raw Tomatillo green to bring the outside in, which we combined with accents of Shallot . It’s full of succulents and hanging plants beneath the skylight, which, combined with the Raw Tomatillo walls, make it such an inviting, cosy, organic space. This colour has really added so much to the space. We wanted a darker colour for the basement, so deep Romesco was perfect. It creates a really sexy, basement bar feel.

We worked alongside our painter, Polite Projects, who really understood our vision and continually expressed how much he liked working with Farrow & Ball paints and the finishes he was able to achieve.

The green garden room! It’s been transformed by Raw Tomatillo . The main club space has also been completely transformed. It looks so chic, unlike before, when we had 10 years of shabby club life on those well-loved walls!

Working with Farrow & Ball as part of Painting With Pride, has made me realise this kind of partnership is actually quite rare. I haven’t come across this level of allyship before. The process was simple and straightforward. We were able to choose the colours that worked for us and they were sent to us here in Margate, so we could decorate according to our needs. Without this support, we’d never have been able to afford to do this refurbishment. It’s meant that after 10 years of running a community venue, we are able to revamp and refresh a building that, although well loved, was looking quite tired. We wish more businesses would follow suit and show support all year round, not just for Pride, especially for smaller, independent, grassroots venues like us.

Well, now we’re so shiny and new, the world is our oyster!! The transformation has given us a deep sense of pride and value in our space. People comment on how great the glow up looks. We have Margate Pride on August 10th and we’re so proud to play a big part in the planning and delivery of the town’s favourite event. Pride is a protest and it’s really important that people support it because none of us are free until we’re all free.