Wirksworth Arts Festival - open trails weekend

8th - 9th September 2012

For anyone whose never been to Wirksworth Arts festival Open Trails weekend and is interested in art then next year you must go! Its a fantastic event where you can see anything from visual art, drama, music, performance  art, an absolutely definite date to put in your diary.  The festival is described on the website as 'Brilliant, electrifying, weird, radical, curious, unexpected, dramatic, visionary, provocative – contemporary visual art in the heart of rural Derbyshire' - a great description. www.wirksworthfestival.co.uk/home/curated-programme

 
This is the 5th year I have been and it just gets better and better. The whole town becomes a gallery with more than 170 artists and makers showing their work in private homes, historic building, gardens, shop windows, churches and even a train. 

Also if your nosey ....like me and love looking at/inside peoples houses ..like me and have got a bit of the Kevin McCloud in you..... then its a great way to look at art and see some incredible private houses that people open up for the general public to wander in...to look at the art but also to nose at  their homes! There are some beautiful homes that are very old buildings architecturally but ultra modern inside ..a real eye opener.

The town has a really vibrant feel to it as you wander round. Not ony do you get to see a hugh variety of art but also to talk to the artists.Work from well known, established artists  to new graduates is exhibited showing contemporary fine art and unique and inspiring contemporary craft. Its great to just wandering through the town listening to music being played from buskers to full bands  and taking in the atmosphere.

My highlights from this year festival:

Lynne Shaw

This year ex - Leek College Foundation Degree in Contemporary Art student Lynne Shaw exhibited her fantastic books.

'its good to talk'  - Lynne Shaw

 

'Dear Norma - from Mam' - Lynne Shaw

Lynn Shaw: 'I am a Fine Art Artist specialising in Artist Books, which I produce to record information for posterity and to share with others. I create either unique or small number edition books using traditional book binding methods, printing, collage, digital imagery and vintage papers. The size and the construction of each book are unique to each individual theme. Inspiration for my books is diverse and includes urban degeneration; war; chronicling of my past and that of others important to me; epitaphs; stamps and emotion at football games'.

We are hoping to get Lynne to run a workshop at college.

Helen Hallows

I chatted to Helen Hallows who produces mixed media work based on landscape. Helen ran a workshop at Leek College last year and is returning later n September to run another one with Foundation Degree students

'Valley Deep' - Helen Hallows

'Home' - Helen Hallows

  

Helen Hallows: I create mixed media work that is an emotional response to nature and the environment. Using ink, collage and stitch I capture the transitions from night to day or season in to season. My ‘British Landscapes’ series has been well received and sells through galleries and art markets across the East Midlands and Yorkshire. Expanding into high quality prints and cards has allowed my work to reach a wider audience.

2 new artistic discoveries for me were Landscape inspired artists Andrew Bird and Jo Hulme.

Andrew Bird

'Fulcrum' - Andrew Bird

'Leaving Thailand' - Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird is based in Derbyshire, and a frequent visitor to Cornwall, where he finds inspiration for his paintings. He captures an 'essence' of a place or situation as well as  simplify the form and colour of what he sees. His paintings undergo many additions, with building up of layers, scraping, scratching and re-working the surface to reveal textures and colour.


Jo Hume



'Sunset over Otterburn Ranges, Northumberland'

'St Bees Head, Cumbria'

 

Jo describes her work....'Northscapes’ There are some visual moments in nature that ignite in me a strong sense that we are mere fleeting fragile witnesses in time and space and which suggest values and traces of being within ourselves. This inspiration finds expression in a range of media as the painting emerges in abstracted form, a summing-up of memory, imagination and experience, with a life and energy of its own. I find ‘visual moments’ in the land and seascapes of Northern England endlessly inspirational – a reminder of human fragility and perhaps suggesting deeper values and meaning in life. This inspiration finds expression in a range of media as the painting emerges, in abstracted form, a summing-up of memory, imagination and experience, with a life and energy of its own'.

The video below features artists & visitors talking about arts festival - watch it...it will give you a good idea of what the festivals about...and make you want to go.

 

Look out for next years arts festival - the date of the open arts trail weekend are not available yet but the festival always runs in September with the trail weekend being the first or second weekend - http://www.wirksworthfestival.co.uk/.