Welcome to the Petersfield Arts & Crafts Society !

PACS is a well established community organisation enjoyed by artists and craftspeople  in the Petersfield area. The biggest event of the PACS year is our exhibition, traditionally held during the week of August Bank Holiday at Petersfield Festival Hall.  It  is a real community occasion which attracts visitors from a large area.  The show is well established in the local calendar as an August Bank Holiday event and enjoys being part of the Hampshire Open Studios trail which encourages visitors to the town to seek out individual local artist studios as well as group exhibitions. Sadly we will not be able to hold the exhibition this year due to the Coronavirus situation. For more details please visit the exhibition page.

Throughout the year we offer a wide selection of evening demonstrations and full-day workshops with artists from many disciplines. These events are open to the public so please visit our programme page for more details. Our 2020-21 workshops programme is open for booking although please be aware that there may well be changes due to the current Coronavirus situation and we will strive to keep all information up to date.

We have around 300 members from Petersfield and the surrounding area and value the input of our members in all aspects of running the organisation. Members include professional artists as well as people who have discovered their creative side very recently – please visit our Members’ Websites index.  Every member is allowed to take part in our exhibitions. To find out more about joining please visit our Join Us page.

We have also recently introduced bursaries for creative projects/ventures – application forms can be found on the Bursaries page.

Visit our Facebook page and Instagram for regular insights into what’s going on and make sure you follow us to keep up to date! We are currently sharing work by our members in our ‘Lockdown Album’ on Facebook and also on Instagram so please visit and encourage our artists with positive feedback!

Our History

PACS was founded in 1934 when Lady Margaret Nicholson became the first president.  Among the founder members was well known local artist Flora Twort (1917-1985) along with a group of distinguished local artists and craftspeople who decided that an art society was needed to allow local artists to exhibit and encourage art in the area. Since then it has been run by a committee whose ever-changing members continue to enthusiastically bring together our local artists.