The week preceding a visit by ESP, a young artists group run by Eastside Projects (Birmingham), to Grizedale Arts in the Lake District, I moved house, from one flat to another. So Friday morning found me very tired. I also no longer lived anywhere near Birmingham, but continued to hold ambitions to contribute to its life and network, in view of my Midlands’ origins and upcoming contributions to Sideshow the British Art Show fringe, in Nottingham later this year. You gotta stay connected.
Grizedale, the contemporary arts organisation that replaced the forest-based initiative responsible for large-scale British sculptural works such as Andy Goldsworthy’s Wall has held a fascination for me since I met Lisa Stewart (former project manager of building developments) and Adam Sutherland, Director in 2007. I was travelling through the UK in an 8 month tour of farms in a project, ACE-funded that became known as ‘GB Farming’. At that time, I was concerned with how Lawson Park Farm, now the organisation’s HQ, might appear or be meaningful to neighbouring Lakeland farmers. Working on, I hesitate to say, a “commercial” farm (knowing the politics of not-making-money and subsidies) in the next valley, it seemed slightly absurd to encounter Japanese guests at Grizedale. Even if they did teach us how to cook bracken, “like asparagus”.
Not to mention the money.
Now, in my third visit, the compass had shifted. Grizedale has become to me, in my research into possible models and relationships between artists, farmers, the city and the contemporary art world, one example that might offer inspiration. Say what you like, the terrain of the rural is treacherous, and crossing over (I will always associate contemporary art with the urban), a tricky business that Grizedale operate uniquely. How is it, that one weekend, I’m hearing stories of their “fuck you” (attitude behind a) ‘Late at Tate Britain’ evening of films and performances, with angry artists, mocking titles and self-depreciating over-tones (that makes it alright, to be this rude)? Then two weeks later, I’m hanging paintings of elderly ladies from a Cumbrian local arts group, with other ‘young artists’ in our twenties, care of Grizedale Arts. The humility makes me want to cry. Who’s being serious here?
Now on my way down south from Aberdeen I was curious to see what the place looked like, having been swathed in scaffolding when I was last there, to consider again (“with my own eyes”) the functioning of the art at Grizedale (through Adam?), and to have a good time. By telephone the previous week, Liz Rowe an artist from Eastside Projects, who runs the ESP programme offered me the option of two activities. Having had my head, mercilessly immersed in a full time, practice-led PhD, I was more than willing to offer my hand to manual labour, to assist Adam in gardening. More that, than ‘Craft Salon at the Mechanics Institute’ alongside the Coniston Arts and Crafts Annual Exhibition.
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The location at which you find me is Carnforth train station, after a 5 ½ hour journey:
A figure is sitting peacefully in the sun, fielding text messages and ‘phone calls from a chain of individuals, trying to work out who is in whose car. One driver swoops by, and collects a rucksack. Another promises to be there in 30 minutes, “sorry a bit longer”. Time stretches into an hour. I wander (not ‘lonely as a cloud’).
A figure is sitting peacefully in the sun, fielding text messages and ‘phone calls from a chain of individuals, trying to work out who is in whose car. One driver swoops by, and collects a rucksack. Another promises to be there in 30 minutes, “sorry a bit longer”. Time stretches into an hour. I wander (not ‘lonely as a cloud’).
Think it’d be a nice place to stay.
In the co-op, later Gene-George Earle overhears a girl in the queue extremely distressed about somebody being sent to prison.
Driving out of the town, we have a conversation about book covers, a hand-made display in the front of one of the shops. It seems a long time ago now, numbers in my ‘phone, friendships consolidated.
Three days later, I visited Calke Abbey with my mother, to see Beacon Art Project’s exhibition Profusion and began to compare the two experiences: the weekend at Grizedale and encountering the artworks specifically located in the house and grounds of the Victorian ‘lost in time’ National Trust property. The first was privileged, if you consider along the lines of access. Grizedale does not offer an open door policy, and my memory incorporates two delicious nights’ sleep in a double bed above my normal level of luxury. One of the reasons I had recently moved was that I had been troubled by frequent fighting in my apartment building. The difference between my ‘normal life’ and that I can encounter in the art world became apparent. I’ve become used to this turbulence, however: ‘Why should I not enjoy my fresh towels and go downstairs, join in conversation over Adam’s home-cooked stew with 8 others from Birmingham, and the GA crew?’
I met Dorian Moore ‘technologist’ and Maria Benjamin, the new Programme Manager.
The following day we set to work “in the fields”: myself, Kate Hattley, Rebecca Bibbey and Mark Essen under direction by Adam. The other group headed into the village: Gene-George Earle filming; Robin Kirkham and Harry Blackett, who produce publication Endless Supply, running a craft activity, ‘What Craft Means to You’. Chris Poolman engaged artists and visitors in making new animals from vegetables; it was the “one and only appearance” for The Hybrid Vegetable Animal Company.
What followed for me was an enjoyable day firstly planting reeds into the ornamental part of Lawson Park’s garden, secondly strimming a whole (albeit small, approximately 8 m x 30 m) orchard, and weeding. It is amazing how - I am reminded of Eric Gill’s phrase, of which my knowledge must be acknowledged to Adam, “the ecstasy of drudgery” – meditative I find ‘working outdoors’. The contrast of experiences, between sharing a beer at an opening, to passing a wheelbarrow between ourselves in discussion of green things, made for a change of tempo in conversation, and sharing our lives differently.
Later that night we all went for a swim in the lake. Somebody told me recently, on a beach north of Aberdeen city, that she had grown up and attended school in very rural Scotland. Her failure to complete university was related, at least in part to the anxiety associated with urban living: whether being ‘surrounded’ by people or abjectly missing countryside things (dogs and horses and fields and guns), I’m not sure but it was an interesting point.
I realise I’m reading ‘emotion’ into one side, and ‘thinking’ into construing a construction to consider (education and life? Whilst trying really hard not to rely on the easy ‘rural/urban’ division, it suits).
Back to Grizedale. Alistair Hudson, the Deputy Director talked the next day about a history of education in which Institutes, such as that at Coniston, were patronised. Adam Sutherland “for those of you that don’t like listening” to his talk about potters including Josiah Wedgwood, threw one himself. The rhythm of the wheel turning broke up his speech, to which, whilst waiting to perform myself, I became attuned.
It was a reading…writings attached to drawings. 14 lines for 10 sonnets I had read with farmers. Were they poems? My nervousness, excitement and enjoyment of the occasion, almost confirmed that they were.
It was a warm environment to experiment in/with/by.
Beacon Art Project has provided another model for contemporary art working in the rural, “taking the audience to the art”. Profusion continues this theme, whilst necessitating mention of other exhibitions: Tell it to the Trees and Give me Shelter by Meadow Arts. Similarly at National Trust properties, the ‘peripatetic’ organisation interjected work by established contemporary artists, strategically straddling two worlds, audiences.
With a new ‘Contemporary Arts Programme Manager’ on the scene, Tom Freshwater, the temperature is hotting up. The potential for many kinds of collaboration, exhibition, mostly in “rural” places across the UK, seems exponential.
We argued at London Fields about what ‘rural’ meant in the second meeting. Clearly, ‘rural’ is just a word and can access and be applied to different definitions.
The National Trust is one of the largest landowners in the UK.
In my project ‘Farming Fiction’ from which I read at Grizedale, I interviewed one of its agricultural managers, responsible for policies of the National Trust. I was impressed by the idea of it buying land, to keep in perpetuity – not sure that’s the right word – for the nation. Particular pieces, particular places, of importance. How nice. I interviewed other farmers, through and around reading poems with them; different attitudes towards the land became strongly apparent. ‘Countryside Stewardship’ schemes reward farmers for taking certain measures to protect the land in a manner we might hope, or some might enact, they do anyway. I said, recording on my Dictaphone, “that’s kind of common language… you buy into”. Then I met a farmer who would not let me draw, for talking. All he wanted was to show and tell me about the part of his farm he loved, having researched its history and biology extensively. There seemed to be something special in his relationship with the land.
I liked that furniture designer Martino Gamper had sourced wood, from the estate in making a series of seats in Calke’s courtyard and grounds. But on closer examination, they don’t look sittable. Can I talk about this with my Mum? Attention wanders, to the lake. She’s happy to be with me.
It’s true it’d be rubbish to look at this stuff with her in an art gallery. It’s true National Trust properties have a habit of experience, for some. It’s true you need a car to get here, or you’re going to use one if you can rather than take the Beacon Art coach. But are we really thinking of contemporary art in Messianic terms?
I really, really, really liked the installation of Clem Crosby’s paintings in the Stables. It was so un-meant. I mean, you could just imagine him walking in and saying, ‘yep, let’s put them there’. Cos there were 6 stalls, right, for the horses, and he’d, geddit put 6 paintings, one in each!
No, it was wicked. I’m being serious. It was kind of funny because they were abstract and silly with splodges of paint (not ‘silly’, I’m not disrespecting them, it’s just, you know, my Mum…). “She’s not ***** stupid!” No, I know but, like, the old argument, about contemporary art, that you need to explain it (am I about to make a comparison with oil paintings, Gainsborough, Constable that would undermine, somehow and treat ‘contemporary art’ as a passing fad?)…
Anyway, we stood firstly in the stable and there’s a lot to deal with because it’s rather beautiful and wonderful and then they’re there, like altars and you can’t approach them, quite. I wanted to go up and examine the surface, but the distance created by the ends of the wooden stalls kept me away, and it became rather a reverent experience. Slightly ironic in the circumstance, considering that it wasn’t, exactly, clean.
I think, judging by the response to the upper rooms of Calke Abbey, which has been preserved in its distressed state, my mother liked Mark Fairnington’s work, A Congregation in which drawings of animals emerging from architectural structures tally with the spirit of eccentricity, from collections of natural history in the house, and curatorial decisions (from the Trust) to display contents of rooms as they had been found. The work led to joint musings, and commenting on rather installation-like appearances, of ‘between rooms’; next to the more noticeable displays of bedrooms, school rooms, dining rooms, some spaces, wrapped up in white cloths were curiously lit as though intended as artworks (and indeed, what is the difference…?). They harked back to Karla Black’s Don’t Attach Delay a sculpture at the foot of a staircase that many National Trust visitors were making an effort to avoid. Made from sugar paper, folded over as though covering an artefact or furniture it was as if the (new) artworks and contents of the house, through careful and sensitive decision-making, were speaking to each other. Close the door and you never know what might take place, at night.
I’m being serious!!!
If there’s any cynicism, a nervous flirtation with ideas I don’t really carry through, in this piece of writing, it results from feeling that the rural has become for me, something of a double-edged sword. Rural is who I am: it is isolation; it is horse-riding; it is not picking and choosing your friends because there aint that many around.
Rural is the best parties, is spending time with your parents’ generation. Rural is all the places I made art when I was growing up, running along hay bales at my friend Lucy’s house. It is lifts and shared taxis back from Nottingham, and (going through phases of) not being able to afford the same things now.
As much as it is interesting to observe ‘successes’ of Beacon Art Project, National Trust contemporary art initiatives and Grizedale Arts, maybe it’s game over to look at them this way. It feels like politics, worn out (the rural) very quickly. As much as a tool for speaking, the category threatens constraint for me now.
It’s bank holiday in Aberdeen. I’m waiting for the keys to my studio, in a hut in the garden of my new flat. Which is delightful, by the way.
Georgina Barney is a writer and artist.
‘Farming Fiction’ a project based in Nottinghamshire reaches conclusion, at an event ‘What is my apology for poetry?’ during Sideshow at the British Art Show 2010.
In the co-op, later Gene-George Earle overhears a girl in the queue extremely distressed about somebody being sent to prison.
Driving out of the town, we have a conversation about book covers, a hand-made display in the front of one of the shops. It seems a long time ago now, numbers in my ‘phone, friendships consolidated.
Three days later, I visited Calke Abbey with my mother, to see Beacon Art Project’s exhibition Profusion and began to compare the two experiences: the weekend at Grizedale and encountering the artworks specifically located in the house and grounds of the Victorian ‘lost in time’ National Trust property. The first was privileged, if you consider along the lines of access. Grizedale does not offer an open door policy, and my memory incorporates two delicious nights’ sleep in a double bed above my normal level of luxury. One of the reasons I had recently moved was that I had been troubled by frequent fighting in my apartment building. The difference between my ‘normal life’ and that I can encounter in the art world became apparent. I’ve become used to this turbulence, however: ‘Why should I not enjoy my fresh towels and go downstairs, join in conversation over Adam’s home-cooked stew with 8 others from Birmingham, and the GA crew?’
I met Dorian Moore ‘technologist’ and Maria Benjamin, the new Programme Manager.
The following day we set to work “in the fields”: myself, Kate Hattley, Rebecca Bibbey and Mark Essen under direction by Adam. The other group headed into the village: Gene-George Earle filming; Robin Kirkham and Harry Blackett, who produce publication Endless Supply, running a craft activity, ‘What Craft Means to You’. Chris Poolman engaged artists and visitors in making new animals from vegetables; it was the “one and only appearance” for The Hybrid Vegetable Animal Company.
What followed for me was an enjoyable day firstly planting reeds into the ornamental part of Lawson Park’s garden, secondly strimming a whole (albeit small, approximately 8 m x 30 m) orchard, and weeding. It is amazing how - I am reminded of Eric Gill’s phrase, of which my knowledge must be acknowledged to Adam, “the ecstasy of drudgery” – meditative I find ‘working outdoors’. The contrast of experiences, between sharing a beer at an opening, to passing a wheelbarrow between ourselves in discussion of green things, made for a change of tempo in conversation, and sharing our lives differently.
Later that night we all went for a swim in the lake. Somebody told me recently, on a beach north of Aberdeen city, that she had grown up and attended school in very rural Scotland. Her failure to complete university was related, at least in part to the anxiety associated with urban living: whether being ‘surrounded’ by people or abjectly missing countryside things (dogs and horses and fields and guns), I’m not sure but it was an interesting point.
I realise I’m reading ‘emotion’ into one side, and ‘thinking’ into construing a construction to consider (education and life? Whilst trying really hard not to rely on the easy ‘rural/urban’ division, it suits).
Back to Grizedale. Alistair Hudson, the Deputy Director talked the next day about a history of education in which Institutes, such as that at Coniston, were patronised. Adam Sutherland “for those of you that don’t like listening” to his talk about potters including Josiah Wedgwood, threw one himself. The rhythm of the wheel turning broke up his speech, to which, whilst waiting to perform myself, I became attuned.
It was a reading…writings attached to drawings. 14 lines for 10 sonnets I had read with farmers. Were they poems? My nervousness, excitement and enjoyment of the occasion, almost confirmed that they were.
It was a warm environment to experiment in/with/by.
Beacon Art Project has provided another model for contemporary art working in the rural, “taking the audience to the art”. Profusion continues this theme, whilst necessitating mention of other exhibitions: Tell it to the Trees and Give me Shelter by Meadow Arts. Similarly at National Trust properties, the ‘peripatetic’ organisation interjected work by established contemporary artists, strategically straddling two worlds, audiences.
With a new ‘Contemporary Arts Programme Manager’ on the scene, Tom Freshwater, the temperature is hotting up. The potential for many kinds of collaboration, exhibition, mostly in “rural” places across the UK, seems exponential.
We argued at London Fields about what ‘rural’ meant in the second meeting. Clearly, ‘rural’ is just a word and can access and be applied to different definitions.
The National Trust is one of the largest landowners in the UK.
In my project ‘Farming Fiction’ from which I read at Grizedale, I interviewed one of its agricultural managers, responsible for policies of the National Trust. I was impressed by the idea of it buying land, to keep in perpetuity – not sure that’s the right word – for the nation. Particular pieces, particular places, of importance. How nice. I interviewed other farmers, through and around reading poems with them; different attitudes towards the land became strongly apparent. ‘Countryside Stewardship’ schemes reward farmers for taking certain measures to protect the land in a manner we might hope, or some might enact, they do anyway. I said, recording on my Dictaphone, “that’s kind of common language… you buy into”. Then I met a farmer who would not let me draw, for talking. All he wanted was to show and tell me about the part of his farm he loved, having researched its history and biology extensively. There seemed to be something special in his relationship with the land.
I liked that furniture designer Martino Gamper had sourced wood, from the estate in making a series of seats in Calke’s courtyard and grounds. But on closer examination, they don’t look sittable. Can I talk about this with my Mum? Attention wanders, to the lake. She’s happy to be with me.
It’s true it’d be rubbish to look at this stuff with her in an art gallery. It’s true National Trust properties have a habit of experience, for some. It’s true you need a car to get here, or you’re going to use one if you can rather than take the Beacon Art coach. But are we really thinking of contemporary art in Messianic terms?
I really, really, really liked the installation of Clem Crosby’s paintings in the Stables. It was so un-meant. I mean, you could just imagine him walking in and saying, ‘yep, let’s put them there’. Cos there were 6 stalls, right, for the horses, and he’d, geddit put 6 paintings, one in each!
No, it was wicked. I’m being serious. It was kind of funny because they were abstract and silly with splodges of paint (not ‘silly’, I’m not disrespecting them, it’s just, you know, my Mum…). “She’s not ***** stupid!” No, I know but, like, the old argument, about contemporary art, that you need to explain it (am I about to make a comparison with oil paintings, Gainsborough, Constable that would undermine, somehow and treat ‘contemporary art’ as a passing fad?)…
Anyway, we stood firstly in the stable and there’s a lot to deal with because it’s rather beautiful and wonderful and then they’re there, like altars and you can’t approach them, quite. I wanted to go up and examine the surface, but the distance created by the ends of the wooden stalls kept me away, and it became rather a reverent experience. Slightly ironic in the circumstance, considering that it wasn’t, exactly, clean.
I think, judging by the response to the upper rooms of Calke Abbey, which has been preserved in its distressed state, my mother liked Mark Fairnington’s work, A Congregation in which drawings of animals emerging from architectural structures tally with the spirit of eccentricity, from collections of natural history in the house, and curatorial decisions (from the Trust) to display contents of rooms as they had been found. The work led to joint musings, and commenting on rather installation-like appearances, of ‘between rooms’; next to the more noticeable displays of bedrooms, school rooms, dining rooms, some spaces, wrapped up in white cloths were curiously lit as though intended as artworks (and indeed, what is the difference…?). They harked back to Karla Black’s Don’t Attach Delay a sculpture at the foot of a staircase that many National Trust visitors were making an effort to avoid. Made from sugar paper, folded over as though covering an artefact or furniture it was as if the (new) artworks and contents of the house, through careful and sensitive decision-making, were speaking to each other. Close the door and you never know what might take place, at night.
I’m being serious!!!
If there’s any cynicism, a nervous flirtation with ideas I don’t really carry through, in this piece of writing, it results from feeling that the rural has become for me, something of a double-edged sword. Rural is who I am: it is isolation; it is horse-riding; it is not picking and choosing your friends because there aint that many around.
Rural is the best parties, is spending time with your parents’ generation. Rural is all the places I made art when I was growing up, running along hay bales at my friend Lucy’s house. It is lifts and shared taxis back from Nottingham, and (going through phases of) not being able to afford the same things now.
As much as it is interesting to observe ‘successes’ of Beacon Art Project, National Trust contemporary art initiatives and Grizedale Arts, maybe it’s game over to look at them this way. It feels like politics, worn out (the rural) very quickly. As much as a tool for speaking, the category threatens constraint for me now.
It’s bank holiday in Aberdeen. I’m waiting for the keys to my studio, in a hut in the garden of my new flat. Which is delightful, by the way.
Georgina Barney is a writer and artist.
‘Farming Fiction’ a project based in Nottinghamshire reaches conclusion, at an event ‘What is my apology for poetry?’ during Sideshow at the British Art Show 2010.
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