Stunning views of nature
Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust’s ERIN MCDAID urges people to take a look at nature through the eyes of local artists
JUST over a year ago I sat at home connecting with colleagues via Zoom and Teams trying to work out how on Earth we were going to deal with the overwhelming response to our open call to artists asking them to submit designs inspired by nature and their connection with greenspace during what had already been a challenging few months for everyone.
Like many other organisations the lockdown called in March 2020 had severely impacted the way in which we worked.
The majority of staff were working from home, or at least based at home while they toiled to keep our wonderful nature reserves open for people to exercise and seek solace.
Our events programme had all but shut down, save a few online sessions.
Like everyone else, we had had to come to terms with restrictions of our ability to see the people we loved and visit the places we loved.
At the same time, we witnessed a clear and almost unstoppable desire for people to continue to connect with nature whether via the web, in their gardens or on local greenspaces, including sites they’d not visited before.
A number of our nature reserves, including Besthorpe, north of Newark and Skylarks, at Holme Pierrepont were busier than ever before.
To capture this unique time when some people were connecting with nature more intensely than ever before, rediscovering nature or sadly struggling because they couldn’t connect in the usual way we launched an open call asking artists to submit postcard-sized artworks that represented what nature meant to them.
As we issued the call we promised to exhibit all the entries at our Idle Valley Nature Reserve later in the year – with no way of knowing at that stage that we would receive nearly 1,000 entries or that it would take us a year to be able to open the exhibition safely.
A year or so on and we are delighted to have the exhibition up and ready to open at Idle Valley Nature Reserve near Retford tomorrow and over the next two weeks we hope that a significant number of people take the opportunity to view the stunning and eclectic range of designs.
That we chose to exhibit artwork linked to people’s connection with nature at our Idle Valley reserve also now seems serendipitous as this reserve was one of many discovered by a new audience during lockdowns.
Set against the wonderful view from the centre looking out over Belmoor Lake, at the southern end of the reserve, the artworks look amazing – thanks to a combination of the artists’ talent, energy and inspiration and the hard work of our event partners and curators INSTAR.
The emotion and passion represented in the designs also serve as a reminder that we should perhaps all ensure we don’t lose sight of what was, while challenging, a special time for some as they rediscovered nature or simply had more time to appreciate the simple things in life that we often take for granted.
I hope that readers will consider visiting the exhibition but I would also urge everyone to reflect on what wildlife and greenspaces have meant over the past 18 months and take steps to ensure that there is no danger of losing your connection with nature – be it long held or newly discovered – as the myriad distractions and time pressures that shaped our daily lives before the pandemic vie evermore vociferously for our attention.