Past Events

New Eyes was a very exciting project which was aimed at showcasing the wealth of arts and crafts talent in the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and it was awarded funding. The project offered opportunities for art activity and training for the arts and crafts sector in the Blackdown Hills. 
 
The project was managed by the artists themselves, and invited local artists and craftspeople to submit ideas to make work about the Blackdown Hills in any media they chose.  Those chosen were given a small amount of funding to carry out their project, and all the work was  showcased in the Blackdown Hills during the summer of 2007.  Somerset Film and Video were on hand to provide training and support to ensure the work was both presented and recorded to a professional standard.  New Eyes also sought members of the community who were not artists but would like to try their hand at working with digital media, and who wished to learn new creative and technological skills.

‘It is an ambitious project in that it has to be flexible enough to include a wide range of ideas’, says Arts Project Officer Jacy Wall ‘ We have some really fine artists and makers in the Blackdown Hills, and are determined to tempt them out to make some work of real flair and imagination to celebrate this very special place. At the same time, it is important to provide open workshops and training to allow anyone with an interest in the arts to take part in the project in some way’.
To find out more about the project and its progress visit www.neweyes.org.uk

June 2005 Lifting Spirits in the Blackdown Hills!
The aim of Lifting the Spirit was to encourage local people and visitors to explore the churches, chapels and missions of the Blackdown Hills – to take a second look – and then respond creatively to what they saw. Lifting the Spirit consisted of a series of workshops run by a group of Blackdown Hills based artists.  The first introduced local children to art in Hemyock church, painter Sally Clark and print maker Sally Hebeler ran a half day drawing and printing workshop for 16 children at St Mary’s Church, Hemyock.

Taking their inspiration from pattern, shape and colour in the church, the children made charcoal sketches.  These were then translated into printing plates and original designs for stained glass windows.

The standard of work was very high – but what did the children think about doing art in church?

“I would love for this to happen again.”
“When I’m older I might be an artist instead of an actress.”
 “Thank you to all the adults who helped and
thank you for letting us all get messy!”

The workshop was the first of several being run in the Blackdown Hills by Lifting the Spirit With funding from Awards for All, Lifting the Spirit ran further workshops throughout June and July 2006:

The Workshops

Otterford Church
Tuesday 21st June (mid-summer night’s eve) 6pm – 9pm
Drawing with Liz Gregory
Photography with Nicky Saunter

Churchstanton Church
Saturday 9th July 10am – 2pm
Drawing with Liz Gregory & Sally Clark
Photography with Nicky Saunter

Dunkeswell Church
Saturday 16th July 10am – 2pm
Creative Writing (leader tba)
Printing with Sally Hebeler

The Workshop Leaders

Sally Clark
well known for her exuberant Blackdown landscapes – Sally will lead drawing workshops.

Liz Gregory
a painter of closely observed, vibrant landscapes – Liz will also lead drawing

Sally Hebeler
a maker of exquisite architectural prints – Sally will lead printing

Nicky Saunter
a producer of beautiful black and white landscape photographs  - Nicky will lead photography

The workshops were the first step and in September, art work created during the workshops was exhibited at venues throughout the Blackdowns as part of the Devon Nine Days of Art event.

Applehayes Revisited (2004)
The project commisssioned 4 artists – Piers Rawson (Photographer), Liz Carman (Painter), Fiona Hamilton (Video/Film) and Tim Martin (Painter) - living and working in the Blackdown Hills to produce new work in response to the landscape around Applehayes, Clayhiddon.

The inspiration was the number of  important Camden Town Group painters who visited Applehayes in the early 20th century and painted the landscape surrounding it – these are some of the finest records of the Devon landscape.
The aim was  to use this as the basis for contemporary artists to retrace their steps and register their own personal response. The project began with a visit to Applehayes in early July, with an introduction by Dr John Furse to the Camden Town Group.  Liz Carman led a tour of the views and landscape which they painted. The artists were then given time to develop work for exhibition.  Piers Rawson led a two day workshop with students from Somerset College of Arts and Technology aimed at providing them with an insight into the working practises of a professional photographer and enabling them to produce photographic work. The results of all of the above was exhibited at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Autumn 2004.

The exhibition also included original work by the Camden Town Group on loan from Plymouth City Art Gallery and Museum and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and a specially commissioned piece by photographer Roger Polley.

Video Still – Pastures New – A Visual Conversation – Fiona Hamilton

The Blackdown Journey (2003)
This project was initiated and co-ordinated by Somerset Art Week Ltd.  In March 2003, Project Artist Gordon Field took a party of artists from the Blackdown Hills Creative Arts Forum on a section of a proposed ridge path along the Northern escarpment of the Blackdown Hills (now part of the Neroche Landscape Partnership Scheme). Inspired by the landscapes along the path the artists submitted proposals for interpretive projects and workshops, which were completed and   displayed at the Blackdown Hills signpost show for Somerset Art Week 2003.

3D students from Somerset College of Arts and Technology created their own interpretations of the route with their tutor Chris Jelley and project artist Gordon Field. These temporary sculptures were placed along the ridge path for Somerset Art Weeks  Gordon Field explored seasonal colour variations in large paintings to be placed along the ridge path.
 
One of the workshops was :
‘Art in the Woods’ Childrens Workshops
Ridge Route

Organised and presented by Liz Gregory and Tim Martin with support from Fiona Hamilton and Gordon Field, the workshop took place in the summer on the common near Mount Fancy.  The following report is by 13 year old Megan Davies, a workshop participant from Hemyock.

“At the beginning of the trail we were given a card with a colour on it.  As we walked, our task was to find objects of a similar shade to our colour and think of words to describe our surroundings.  We stopped at regular intervals to sketch shapes seen in the landscape and decide on names for the placessuch as ‘Helms Deep’, Pizie Dell’ and ‘Mount Toffee’.  We then split into four groups and each group chose a place where they wanted to work.  The first piece of art along the path was at ‘Gator Swamp’.  The group made three alligators in the bog from bracken and small stones, which they named Al, Ali and Alistair.

The ‘Treedom’ group made mobiles, which they hung from the tree and stuffed a large hold full of red berries.  They then wrote TREEDOM using large stones at the foot of the trunk.

The group working in the bracken chose to use one of the drawn shapes to make a maze through the bracken to create ‘Tick Palace’.  This lead to coppiced holly trees through which a tunnel was created with various mobiles and arrows.  At ‘The Holly Dome’ they created a white oak leaf, using white stones and drew on veins with red berries.  The final group was based at ‘Sleepy Hollow’.  They made a human figure from grass and flowers which was suspended from a branch.  This was the witch ‘Cherry Twinkleberry’ and inside a hollow tree smaller figures were suspended.  These were the fairies, which were protecting the witch.

As so much interest was created by the art trail, a second workshop was organised for children from West Buckland Primary School.

Fibrefest
Over 2,000 visitors from far and wide flocked to Uffculme, Devon on 1st and 2nd September 2007. Here they enjoyed the first Fibrefest organised by Blackdown Hills Natural Fibres. Over 60 stalls exhibited a wide range of fleece, fibre and textile products. There was also a range of workshops and lectures, run by talented artists and tutors to introduce new skills and share their knowledge.

The next Fibrefest will be held at Coldharbour Mill, Uffculme on 22nd and 23rd August 2009. www.fibrefest.co.uk