The Grizedale Experience: Sculpture, Art & Theatre in a Lakeland Forest Find!
Grizedale is a magical forest tucked away in the fells of Furness in the southern Lake District. When Bill Grant arrived at Grizedale as Head Forester in 1963 he recognised that it was time to start managing the forest as a natural resource on behalf of the people rather than simply protecting government property. Since then, the primary aim of forest management, the production of timber, goes on uninterrupted but at the same time the forest has become an outdoor theatre for the visual arts.
There is an actual theatre, an art gallery, a visitor centre and craft studios and, of course, the wonderful sculpture trails. For the visitor a walk through the forest is a voyage of discovery as sculptures are revealed among the trees. Some works degrade very quickly while others made from the bronze-grey Silurian slate suggest they have been there since time began. The incredibly creative, imaginative and, indeed, prizewinning activities which are rooted in this Lakeland forest belie its remote location. Grizedale is today internationally recognised as a unique centre of artisitc excellence and artists from around the world take up six month residences to work in this amazing landscape.
The current exhibiton at Grizedale (until 6th November 2009) is "Ghosts in the Wood" by the artist Mike Smallcombe which, like the Reading Detectives project, is supported by Arts Council England. Visitors to the forest can see twenty giant 8ft x 6ft photographs suspended among the trees. The photographs are printed on a special waterproof outdoor canvas. Mike Smallcombe describes the exhibition thus: 'Ghosts in the Wood features images of imagined stories of local people in rural settings that reflect the sometimes harsh realities of country life'.
"The Grizedale Experience" is illustrated throughout by wonderful photographs which give the reader an insight into a magical world where art and landscape become one. In 1990 the Prudential Award for Visual Arts was awarded to the Grizedale Society. The Jury Panel wrote that the Award was given 'in tribute for a leap of the imagination that has enriched our perception and understanding of art and the landscape'.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-5K2B6B
11 October 2009 from Mary Rossall
Finds
- On Lindale Hill
- Grange-over-Sands: The Story of a Gentle Township
- The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland
- Red Ike
- Cumbrian Privies
- Ethel Fisher's West Cumbrian Dialect titles
- The Embalmer's Book of Recipes by Ann Lingard
- Nella Last's Peace
- Riding the Stang by Dawn Robertson
- Life on the Fell - a pictorial chronicle of a Lakeland community
- About Scout Scar
- William Wilberforce - A Summer Diary 1779
- Beatrix Potter - the unknown years
- Smoke over Shap by Margaret Potter
- Songs of a Cragsman by George Basterfield
- The Grasmere Dialect Plays
- The Grizedale Experience: Sculpture, Art & Theatre in a Lakeland Forest
- An Atlas of The English Lakes
- How Hall. Poetry and Memories. A Passion for Ennerdale by Tom Rawling
- Stumpy, Hero of the Lakes
- The High Places by A. Harry Griffin
- The Highest House in Wathendale
- Kendal by Roger Bingham
- Secrets and Legends of Old Westmorland
- Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley
- Little Gods by Jacob Polley
- A Lakeland Summer
- Hunter of Harter Fell by Joseph E Chipperfield
- And Nobody Woke Up Dead
- An accessible paradise
- The Fleming Family novels and Graham Sutton
- Excursion to Loweswater. A Lakeland Visit 1865
- Writing on the Wall
- Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson
- Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole
- Kendal In The Nineteenth Century by A Wainwright
- In There Somewhere
- The Bondwomen by W G Collingwood
- "Ah'd Gaa Back Tomorra!"
- A Cumbrian Copper by Ray Huddart
- The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards
- Old Will Stories by Dudley Hoys
- The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff
- T'Bacca Queen by Theodora Wilson Wilson
- Furness and the Industrial Revolution
- The Shadow of Black Combe
- The Painted Letters of Percy Kelly
- Ivver Sen
- Lakeland in the 1830s
- Wasdale Climbing Book By Michael Cocker
- Riding High by Barbara Sneyd
- Deborah in Langdale
- Early Recollections of Grange
- Hazard's Way by Roger Hubank
- Yan, Tan, Tethera
- Talk of the Town
- Capturing the Mountains
- Hope On, Hope Ever
- Mildred Edwards: Our City Our People 1889 - 1978 Memories
- Lakeland Limericks
- Surrounding loveliness
- Haweswater by Sarah Hall
- Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull
- Sunshine To The Sunless
- Geese, cattle wallopers and secret Irish paths
- Anarchists, Angels and wet Bank Holiday Mondays
- A more unconventional kind of find...?
- Skiddaw Summit by Kathleen Jones
- Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland
- Wednesday Early Closing
- Smoke Across The Fell
- The Sand Pilot of Morecambe Bay
- The Chronicles of Boggerthwaite
- Carrock Fell
- Feet in the Clouds
- Hercules and the Farmer's Wife
- Shepherd's Warning
- The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
- I've been so busy reading I haven't had time to blog!
Recent posts
- Reading Detectives film
- Thank you!
- Coffee and books at the Bluebell Bookshop
- Mary learns to blog!
- Lucky 13!
- Grange over Sands get reading
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