a fire broke out in the early hours of Thursday morning (April 30)<\/a>, in the caf\u00e9 basement, she has had to close the exhibition, which only opened on April 22, and move all her artwork to safety.<\/p>\n\u201cI am devastated and heartbroken,\u201d she told KentOnline.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my first solo exhibition for a long time. It was quite important to me because since I\u2019ve had a stroke everything that I do is difficult for me really.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was supposed to be a celebration. It was going really well, and then now this has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Rochester](\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg)
Rochester artist Amanda Haines\u2019 Bloom exhibition has been forced to close early after a fire in the basement of Caf\u00e9 Nucleus<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cWe suffered a loss too, not just the caf\u00e9 but the artists working in the studios here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amanda is a retired NHS nurse with a 42-year career and has always had a passion for painting.<\/p>\n
Fire doors inside the building stopped flames and smoke from spreading into the gallery and artist studios, helping protect the artwork and limit the damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy paintings were not destroyed,\u201d Amanda added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fire doors protected them by stopping the fire from spreading, but I\u2019ve been affected because my exhibition was supposed to be on over Sweeps weekend, which is the busiest weekend of the year in the town, and because of what happened it\u2019s had to close early.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also said crews from Kent Fire and Rescue Service attended and quickly brought the blaze under control.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s bad timing for the artist from Rochester who had already sold several paintings since the exhibition opened and was expecting to attract more customers this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve already sold quite a lot, but I was hoping to sell more over Sweeps weekend, so I\u2019ve potentially lost money,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a lot of people were going to come and see my work. Friends and family were coming over Sweeps weekend to visit, but they obviously can\u2019t come now because the building\u2019s closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe building is damaged and it\u2019s not going to open soon. It needs to be repaired and cleaned after the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cafe Nucleus in Rochester High Street<\/p>\n
Despite the setback, she hopes to run the exhibition again later this year.<\/p>\n
Clean-up work is now under way at the Conservancy Building, although it is not yet known when it will reopen.<\/p>\n
Fire crews were sent at 4.42am on Thursday morning and were there for about two hours.<\/p>\n
A Kent Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said: \u201cFour fire engines attended, and crews wearing breathing apparatus extinguished the fire, which is believed to have started in a kitchen area, before using high pressured fans to clear the property of smoke.\u201d<\/p>\n
No injuries were reported, and the cause is not yet known.<\/p>\n
Speaking previously, Caf\u00e9 Nucleus managing director Aaron Sergejenkovs Telford said: \u201cFortunately, the fire was contained to the kitchen area.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur fire detection devices kicked in at about 4am and it was isolated.<\/p>\n
A message on the venue\u2019s Facebook page on Friday (May 1) said: \u201cA huge thank to Kent Fire and Rescue for their swift actions which saved our beloved conservancy board building.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going get back on our feet and in the meantime our two caf\u00e9 restaurants in Rainham and Chatham are open and happy to welcome guests.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly a year’s hard work by one artist has been undone after a fire shut a prominent cultural…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,252,609,495,607,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-936887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-fire","13":"tag-human-interest","14":"tag-kent","15":"tag-medway","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116515799413702381","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}