posted by Cptn
Keep on eye out and join in what sounds like a thrilling combination of dance, music hall, daring feats and swimming lessons, which is Inhale and Hold – an endurance event which will splash its way through Devon from north to south between July 10 and 14.
Plopping between all kinds of waterside locations – lido, riverbank, moat and shore (and possibly even puddle) – an intrepid group of four dancing men, plus lifeguard’s tower, will be accompanied by a miniature band, for their dancing take on the water courses of the county.
It’s all part of the Big Dance, and this element, which is called Ripples: Inhale and Hold is led by Sarah Shorten, who is renowed for creating dance in unusual spaces and places.
With nose plugs, swimming caps and flippers (not to mention aqua-lung) at the ready, we here at the PRSD will be following their progress through the eight locations. Everyone is invited, but be sure not to eat for at least an hour before the event… p’raps.
Follow the action at
Thursday July 10, 12.30 pm - The Manor, Lynmouth,
Thursday July 10, 5.30 pm - Landmark Beach, Ilfracombe
Friday July 11, 1.30 pm - Grand Western Canal Country Park, Canal Basin, Tiverton
Friday July 11, 7.00 pm - Hatherleigh Community Centre (river)
Saturday July 12, 12.30 pm - Roadford Lake, Okehampton
Saturday July 12, 7.00pm - Dartington Hall (riverside)
Sunday July 13, 2.00 pm - Moretonhampstead Swimming Pool
Sunday July 13, 5.30 pm - Tinside Pool, Plymouth
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June 18th, 2008
posted by Cptn
Devon water inspires creativity, and those up in a corner of north Dartmoor imbibe deep and long from their own brand of Adam’s ale. So it makes sense that they share the water, the air and some of their expertise in the form of Dartmoor Arts Summer School, an eight-day project with an array of art courses with tutors who are at the top of their game.
They got in touch to explain a bit more about the phenomenon – and to get you to take part.
“The little village of Drewsteignton on the north-east edge of Dartmoor was treated to the influx of over a hundred lively art students last summer as the Dartmoor Arts Project was launched and a new art summer school began. The visitors in turn had the chance to spend their days involved in courses in and around the village in some of the most lovely Devon landscape, doing anything from iron-casting, cob sculpture or poetry, to documentary film-making, stone-carving or experimental ceramics. In the evening the students made their way to the back room of the local pub for supper and artists’ talks or music, stand up comedy, a drink or two and a bit of dancing.
“Of course, nowadays there are a lot of art courses on offer but this set up is a little bit unique. The organisers are primarily artists themselves who want to create a buzz of excitement about making art and sharing the experience with others. They want it to allow the people who take part to be learning and discussing without fear, refreshing their enthusiasm and, if they wish, engaging in some good open critical debate. Too often hands and head are considered alternatives but this school is committed to the idea that being good with your hands and your eyes and being able to think critically can and should go together.
“So despite what many people think, doing something in a small rural environment does not mean it has to be woolly or second-rate. In fact, in the same way as The Dartington Music Summer School brings to South Devon students of all age groups and ability levels to mix with top-level performers, so Dartmoor Arts is aiming high. Last year, Anthony Gormley and David Mach came to Drewsteignton and both gave sell-out public talks.
“The tutors too are a varied and interesting collection of artists, most with huge experience and some big international reputations and others young and keen -hand-picked from a big collection of hopefuls.
“Alan Lee, the reknowned illustrator and Oscar-winning creative designer on ‘The Lord of the Rings’ film trilogy, gave an illustrated lecture but also taught the course which he called ‘Drawing for Design’. He opened his own garden and drawing studio to his group of students and they enjoyed three days of really focused and stretching sessions with the gentle maestro.
“Andy Brown who ran a course on bird poetry, is the acclaimed Director of Creative Writing at Exeter University and this year he is going to be joined by John Burnside who is widely acknowledged as Britain’s foremost ecopoet.
“Digital photography was taught by Chris Chapman, loved particularly in the South West for his television programmes about Dartmoor, Exmoor and the Somerset levels, but famous and respected for his beautiful black and white photographs documenting the changing life of moorland farming communities.
“The cob sculpture tutors, Jackie Abey and Jill Smallcombe are a dynamic and enthusiastic twosome who have arrived at their work with cob via painting and sculpture respectively. Invited to lecture in India and just recently to do a stand at the Earl’s Court exhibition, Ecobuild, they have become real authorities in their field doing projects which range from small buildings to sculptural installations. Their course merges a great mixture of muddy, messy experience with a real willingness to try anything. One young student last year was determined, despite gravity, to make hanging cob sculptures and, with their help, succeed she did.
“Danny Adams on the other hand is a quiet and serious young painter who amazingly managed to happily sustain a two-week course of outdoor landscape painting despite rainy English weather through endless in-depth attention to his individual students’ work. During the worst of the weather, he arranged to take his students off to make visits to other artists’ studios in the area which turned out in fact to be a very popular element of the whole experience.
“In sharp contrast is the course run by Andy Griffiths, seriously experienced iron foundryman and sculptor. His course is something of an event/performance starting with mould-making and culminating in a bravura iron pour with all the students clad in visors and massive protective gear taking part in the dramatic finale.
“Students on the stone carving course were primarily taught by Peter Randall-Page, who is one the instigators of the summer school, and Simon Thomas both successful and passionate sculptors. Such is their enthusiasm for the whole pursuit, their students benefitted from a constant stream of their friends and fellow sculptors who dropped by and joined in as extra visiting tutors.
“This year Simon and Peter’s enthusiasm has led them to come up with a new idea for a course they want to teach together, focusing on their shared passion for natural form. Last year shortly before the summer school, Peter completed the monumental granite sculpture ‘Seed’ which was installed at the Eden Project and whose form was entirely based on plant geometries whilst Simon’s work has for a long time been concerned with fundamental principles underlying structures in nature. He has had long and fruitful associations with the Maths and Physics departments at Bristol University working precisely with this focus. They are calling their new course ‘Pattern and Structure’.
“The summer school aims itself at emerging artists and people of all ages and experience who are genuinely interested in making art. So the people who participated last year were enormously varied. There were students from art schools who wanted a week with fresh, unpressurised input -some from Glasgow School of Art, The Royal College, Brighton and Falmouth. Others were just looking to try their hand at something different. An experienced furniture designer who usually works in wood enrolled on the stone carving course and found the whole process so exciting and reinvigorating he has since been seen buying blocks of stone and tools. Some will just have signed up to get together with other artists and have a fresh eye on their work. Robin Dutson, one of the main organisers appreciates that it is not only the tangible take-home result but also the whole experience which is important.
“He said: ‘The summer school has been set up to create an environment which allows experimental and playful approaches to art-making.’ Robin was a student on the drawing class and its interesting and characteristic of the project that many of the tutors and organisers participated in courses as students themselves.
• The Dartmoor Arts Project Summer School runs from Saturday July 26 to Saturday August 2. Visit the Dartmoor Arts Project website to book.
• Read more about the Queens of Cob, on the PRSD
• Read more about Peter Randall-Page, on the PRSD
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June 18th, 2008
Regular readers of the republic will have noticed that we’ve been banging on about Devon’s connection to Yeats. We got in touch with artist Michael Buckland, Yeats aficionado and resident artist at the Farringdon Society of Arts, to give us the low-down.
The Theban Chorus – Antigone Condemed by Michael Buckland, part of the FSA’s cultural offering on the Yeats tour
The Irish painter Jack Butler Yeats is less well known outside Ireland than his brother, the poet W B Yeats. However, Yeats can claim to be Ireland’s greatest artist of the 20th century. His distinctive oil paintings, romantic and expressionist in tone, draw upon the land and seascape of the west of Ireland. He also painted the circus, horse racing, fleeting moments of daily life and the streets and bars of Dublin.
This most Irish of artists was in fact born in London in 1871. He spent much of his childhood living with his grand parents in Sligo, but then moved back to London where he married. In 1897 he moved to Strete in Devon. During this period he worked in watercolour, having his first exhibition in London in the same year. This consisted of mostly Devon subjects. His mother’s ancestors, the Pollexfens, had lived at Kitley House, near Plymouth, which is now a hotel. Yeats’s grandfather, William Pollexfen was born in Brixham in 1811, the son of a Cornishman.
In 1910 Yeats moved to Ireland for good, first to County Wicklow then to Dublin. His painting became looser and broader in treatment as he grew older, often drawing on memory and recollection. He exhibited regularly in Dublin and abroad, his work selling well.
I came to know his work about 35 years ago and travelled to Ireland in search of the ‘Yeats spirit’. I painted watercolours in Galway, but did not make it to Sligo, although I saw his work in Dublin. His energy of drawing and fluid colours have stayed with me since then. I now paint in Devon where Jack B started his career over a hundred years ago.
• Read Stella Mew (chief exec of the Yeats Society) interview with the PRSD.
• As part of the Yeats cultural trail, the Farringdon Society of Arts put on a performance of Seamus Heaney’s Burial at Thebes Sample, listen to the actors behind the stage during the rehearsals and check out the of the programme from Phig Billy (who will be holding a comic workshop on Saturday June 21)
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June 18th, 2008
