Colours of Earth
Come and visit the Appledore Visual Arts Festival and join in with some exciting and inspiring arts-based ventures.
APPLEDORE IS A small village on the North Devon coast, up until now known for its beautiful estuary location, for its boat- and ship-building heritage, and for fishing. Over the past ten years, however, it has been gaining another reputation: its annual Visual Arts Festival. It was, surprisingly, the first annual Visual Arts Festival in the country, and it started with a bang, literally, when the Royal Marines gamely joined in the first art event. A colourfully decorated rope across the wide estuary linked
Appledore with its opposite neighbour, Instow, and was joined in the middle by the Marines, who transformed their coloured flares into painted air.
The Appledore Visual Arts Festival is idiosyncratic, original and fun. It is known for the quality of artists it has been able to attract, and for the originality of its programming. It has been establishing close contacts with Resurgence, and this year Satish Kumar has agreed to open it. In addition it will be showing his acclaimed BBC film, Earth Pilgrim. The theme of the festival is ‘Earth’, which connects us to the most important aspect of our future – sustainable lifestyles – and provides an excellent way for artists to express their feelings about our relationship with the Earth.
The artists whom the Festival likes are also the ones Resurgence likes, so it seemed natural to team up! We have in the past invited Richard Long, who did a huge, glorious work called Ebbtide using Appledore mud – a fine, silky, creamy mud which is as smooth as butter. And this year Peter Randall-Page will be present, talking about his latest project, Granite Song, a collaboration with photographer Chris Chapman that celebrates the landscape of Dartmoor, where they both live.
One of Peter’s collaborators on the massive Seed sculpture, housed at the Eden Project, was stone sculptor David Brampton-Greene. He will be bringing various interesting granites to Appledore and will be resident on the site during the Festival, making new work. Another exciting project involves artists exploring the area to find Earth’s pigments, natural colours and materials. Drawing on the knowledge held in the North Devon Museum in Barnstaple, which has a wonderful collection of all the minerals and rocks mined in the area, artists will rummage about in the ground and the undergrowth to look for materials such as the famous Bideford Black, a seam of coal pigment which has historically been prized by artists; to locate streams glowing with rich ochre red, where iron oxide shows its fiery colour; and to try out clays, pigments and sands. This is, of course, what artists have done from time immemorial, when they picked up ochre and drew on rocks with it.
Internationally renowned potter Svend Bayer will be present, making all sorts of things. He is a joy to watch: when he makes his big pots on the wheel it is like seeing a living thing being born. He is graceful and fluent, and he combines skill and art to produce the big, full-bellied archetypal pot. He is probably the most ecological potter I know, in that although he fires his big kiln with wood, it is sustainably sourced wood. When he moved to Devon to be near a clay pit he bought some land and started planting trees. He has planted thousands.
Resurgence has featured an article about an extraordinary duo of women who work with cob: Jackie Abey and Jill Smallcombe. Inspired initially by having to repair their own cob houses, they have become an unusual hybrid of jobbing artists, ancient craftswomen and innovative sculptors. They work with the Earth, with the soil, making round curvy cob buildings. They have produced an unfired clay wall for the Meteorological Office in Exeter; each of the tiles in it is made from clay from different parts of Devon, and its wildly differing colours show remarkably well how much the colours of the Earth vary from place to place. Jill and Jackie will be working on-site in Appledore, making a wiggly-wall sculpture, and if you come you might be able to join in alongside them. A couple of people from the National Trust will be working nearby doing something interesting involving dry-stone walling – there could well be creative sparks bouncing back and forth amongst them all.
Appledore Visual Arts provides an important showcase for art students, and has built up strong relationships with art colleges in the South West. This year we will see what the new generation are doing, as SCAT (Somerset College of Art) is holding its degree show in Appledore. This promises to be innovative and exciting, as the Fine Art course has built up a strong reputation for dynamic work. Bicton College set up the first Environmental Art course in the country, and its students will also be doing things in Appledore; they are known for energetic participation, as are the BA Combined Media students from Falmouth who always create a playful, colourful, ambitious community project.
Come to Appledore: visit some open gardens, join in workshops, explore the village and see the decorated doorknockers, have fun with your children at a film animation workshop, or watch an interesting new project in partnership with Dance in Devon in which a visual artist and a dancer will collaborate. Will it involve rolling beautifully in the mud, or will it be a moving Earth painting?
Appledore Visual Arts welcomes the Resurgence community to the Festival and would like to meet as many of you as possible.
Appledore Visual Arts Festival runs from 29th May to 1st June 2008. www.appledorearts.org info@appledorearts.org
