CAPTURING A COMMUNITY Photographer Suzy Bennett is highlighting the timeless skills of local artisans in a creative tourist trail around Dartmoor
Amid the rugged Dartmoor landscape, photographer Suzy Bennett has brought local artisans together for a tourist trail with a firm focus on craft
Dartmoor’s boundless beauty can be hard to take in: swathes of green wildness interspersed with deep, wooded valleys and rocky outcrops that seem to go on for ever in all directions. It’s a land from another time. A place where you’re more likely to spot a herd of ponies galloping on the horizon than another person. Small wonder the area is popular with creatives looking to escape the rat race, who are attracted by the vast moorland’s weathered charm and ample opportunity for solitude. From bowlturners to weavers, potters to shoe-makers, the National Park is home to a burgeoning community of crafters, although outsiders don’t often get to see them when they’re hidden in their workshops. But photographer and journalist Suzy Bennett has devised a plan to put local talent on the map. Quite literally. She is the founder of The Dartmoor Artisan Trail – a tourism initiative that connects visitors with the artisan producers who bring a cultural richness to this remarkable area.
Having arrived in Devon from London 12 years ago, Suzy sought a sense of community after two decades living quasi-nomadically as a travel writer. “While I met lots of new people, I didn’t make any lasting connections. I craved feeling part of something, contributing to my own country and appreciating it more,” she says. “I was dreaming of a little cottage somewhere, futureproofed against motorways and airports.” The search stopped at Dartmoor in the pretty village of North Bovey – five hours from the capital and a world unto itself: “There are no street lights, no road names, no mobile reception. Once you’re over the cattle grid, you’re in a bubble – a land from a storybook, protected from modernity.”
It all began with a curtain pole. Suzy needed one for her newly acquired cottage but instead of heading to a department store (you don’t get many of those on Dartmoor), she turned to the forge in the nearby town of Moretonhampstead. It was here she met Greg, software designerturned-blacksmith. His workspace was filled with smoke from a roaring fire, and traditional forging tools and materials were scattered across every surface. Suzy was enraptured by its chaotic charm. “It’s a 150-year-old workshop and the rafters were crammed with all these beautifully ornate Victorian farm tools,” she remembers. She asked Greg whether she could photograph him at work, and he agreed. However, when she returned a month or so later with her camera, she found to her horror that he’d tidied up in preparation. “I wanted to capture the chaos,” she laughs, “so I had to go through the scrap heap and put it back as it was.”
Despite a distinct lack of phone signal, word travels fast in these parts and Suzy quickly became acquainted with other makers and producers. And so began a photography project, celebrating local craftspeople,
whose traditional skills lent themselves perfectly to her authentic portraits.
After 18 months (she thought it would take three), Suzy had created an entire exhibition, which was shown at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen (in the local village of Bovey Tracey) to great acclaim. Her work wove an invisible thread through the previously disparate community, labelling them the Dartmoor Artisans and linking them in a way no one had before. From this came the idea of the trail. The concept is simple: visitors can print a self-guided map, and cycle, walk or drive between workshops, providing them with a deeper appreciation of the area and its people – and the artisans with a new platform from which to promote their work. “It works for everyone,” says Suzy, who does this entirely voluntarily. “There’s no middle man getting a cut – there’s no one making it more expensive. The craftspeople are being paid what they want to be paid and it’s a totally fair deal for all parties.”
The project was welcomed by the artisans, who are all too aware that, in an age of massproduction, it’s difficult to make a living from handmade goods. Woodturner Sharif Adams can certainly attest to this – in a breezy barn outside North Bovey, he uses a pole-lathe to craft wooden bowls. Being off the beaten track certainly has its merits, but not when it comes to footfall. The trail means people can visit him – helping to ensure the survival of both the craft and his business. Other artisans along the way (there are currently 28) include Yuli Somme, a felt-maker based in a converted chapel who has found her niche – rather aptly given there’s a graveyard just outside – in crafting compostable burial shrouds. She is the only person in the country doing so. The makers of ‘green shoes’ (who appear in next month’s issue of CL) are also en route, as is a weaver of heritage fabrics and a host of other makers, including upholsterers, hide-tanners, painters and gilders. The trail has fostered the sense that artisans are part of a “cohesive unit and greater creative scene,” Suzy says. “I think things like this could be the difference between the skills surviving and not surviving.”
With a growing number of people opting to avoid mass-produced items in favour of products with provenance, Suzy’s project was ideally timed to connect customers not just with the
“The trail attracts people who want to glimpse behind workshop walls”
story behind what they were buying but the person who had created it. “The trail attracts those looking for something deeper,” Suzy says. “People who are interested in glimpsing behind workshop walls, meeting locals and really getting to know who lives in the area rather than superficial sightseeing. “What’s funny,” she laughs, “is that a lot of the artisans are not particularly tourist-friendly. They’re definitely not putting on any kind of front. You’ll hear Greg swearing from a few streets down because he has just hit his thumb again.”
Working together on the project created a bond between Suzy and the people she photographed, and many are now great friends. “I finally have the community I was longing for,” she says, smiling. But despite being settled in Devon, her work is still having an impact on the wider world. “Since launching the trail, I’ve been contacted by people from across the UK, Europe and even further afield, saying that they would like to set up an artisan trail in their region. For me, that is the absolute best result,” Suzy says. “The project came from a desire to protect traditional crafts, so I love the idea of it feeding out to other communities across the world – helping to bring opportunities to struggling craftspeople. That’s my life’s work done.”