Artist Joanne Ward’s Sundae Bear is part of ellenor’s first major public art trail and one of the first large-scale sculpture trails to take place across Dartford, celebrating creativity, community and local hospice care across North Kent and Bexley.

There is something undeniably happy about Sundae Bear. It makes people smile immediately.

The giant sculpture, covered in melting ice cream, chocolate chunks, sprinkles and glossy swirls of colour, feels like childhood memories brought to life. It is playful, nostalgic and impossible not to love.

But behind the sculpture is an artist rediscovering herself.

“I’m a mum,” Jo says almost immediately when I ask her to describe herself. “That’s always where I seem to start.”

Jo, who lives in Welling with her husband and four children, admits she feels strangely uncomfortable calling herself an artist, despite spending most of her life creating.

“The thing that I’ve done consistently through all my life, even though I’ve had spanners in the works and things, is art,” she says. “Art is my thing.”

Even now, she grabs creative moments wherever she can. Five minutes with a sketchbook. Pens and paint markers scattered across the table. Ideas spilling out faster than she can catch them.

“Strange ideas pop into my head and I like to express them whatever way I can,” she says. “I just have to get them down on paper.”

That imagination became Sundae Bear, one of the sculptures featured in featured in ellenor’s public art trail raising awareness and funds for local hospice care across North Kent and Bexley.

The name itself came from childhood memories.

“I always went for the sundae,” Jo laughs. “All the chocolate sauce and things on it.”

That sense of nostalgia runs throughout the sculpture. Jo talks about loving colour, texture, metallics and anything that feels larger than life. Even as an adult, sweets and desserts still inspire her creatively.

“I just have the biggest sweet tooth,” she says. “Chocolate is my biggest vice.”

As she speaks, it becomes obvious Sundae Bear was never about painting a sculpture. Jo created an entire character.

When the bear first arrived at her house, completely white and unfinished, she immediately hugged it.

“I just got his face in my hands and was looking into his eyes going, ‘Oh, he’s lovely.’”

Soon the family kitchen had been transformed into a temporary art studio. The table was pushed aside. Brushes and paints took over the room. Her children walked around the giant bear while Jo disappeared into hours of focused concentration beneath the Velux window where the light was strongest.

The project also became a creative collaboration. Jo’s design was selected by photographer Nick Johnson from The ImageWorks, an official imaging partner for ellenor’s art trail, who visited throughout the painting process to photograph and film Sundae Bear taking shape.

“He was really encouraging and positive the whole way through,” Jo says. “We just hit it off creatively.”

Once she started painting, Jo became completely immersed in the process.

“I get very hyper-focused,” she says. “My husband kept saying, ‘Have you eaten dinner? Have you had a drink?’”

At night, she would clear away her brushes before patting the sculpture gently on the head.

“I’d just say, ‘Goodnight.’”

Then she laughs.

“My kids would look at me like I was mad.”

The emotional connection surprised even her.

“He definitely became part of the furniture,” she says quietly. “I was quite sad to see him go.”

But while Sundae Bear is full of joy, the reason behind the trail itself was never far from Jo’s mind.

Before becoming involved in the project, Jo already knew of ellenor through its charity shops and local presence. But the project also brought back painful memories of her father, who died during COVID after being diagnosed with glioblastoma.

“There was talk about putting my dad into a hospice,” she says. “But we lost him before anything really happened.”

As she painted Sundae Bear, those memories stayed with her.

“I wish my dad could see me doing this,” she says. “He would have loved it.”

For Jo, that emotional connection became part of the reason the project mattered.

“All the time I was doing it, it was in the back of my mind what I was doing it for,” she says. “What it’s going towards. Being auctioned. Raising money. That was always there.”

What makes the trail particularly powerful is that it opens conversations many families might never otherwise have.

For ellenor, the trail is not about sculptures filling Dartford with colour this summer. It is about helping people encounter hospice care differently through creativity, storytelling and shared public experiences. Families may arrive to see the artwork but leave with a very different understanding of what hospice care means and the role local charities like ellenor play within their communities.

Jo understands that instinctively.

“Some people might come because it’s artwork. Some people might come because their children want to see the bears. But hopefully people will become aware of what the trail actually is.”

That is where the trail becomes something more than colourful sculptures.

 A brightly coloured bear covered in sprinkles becomes more than a sculpture. It becomes a conversation starter about care, family, grief, community and the importance of supporting local hospice care close to home.

Jo hopes people who stumble across Sundae Bear this summer will feel happiness.

“It’s just gonna make people happy,” she says. “It’s something you don’t see every day.”

But beneath the melting ice cream and playful colours is another story too. One about creativity helping someone slowly rediscover a part of themselves they thought they had lost.

When I ask Jo what she would say to other artists thinking of taking part in something similar, her answer is immediate.

“Just go for it,” she says. “Get out of your comfort zone. Have confidence in yourself.”

Then, after everything she has told me during our conversation, she laughs. “I know I need to take my own advice.