Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Artists creating a new kind of ‘working farm’
IT could not be more appropriate, cattle gathering in an old milking parlour – but this is no conventional herd, and no conventional parlour.
The “livestock” in the old farm building are paintings, showing cattle, sheep and geese in the honest muddy farmyards and fields beloved of artist Alex Williams. These are no rose-tinted images of farm life.
The Wales-based artist’s work has been widely exhibited in the UK and abroad, and is familiar through tableware and fine bone china. His latest exhibition runs from October 5 to November 3 at Guggleton Farm Arts, in the heart of Stalbridge, North Dorset.
Next year the gallery will celebrate 25 years of providing studios and exhibition space for artists and a wonderful welcome and involvement for the local community.
Few towns or villagers still have a working farm in their centre, but when Isabel de Pelet bought and converted Guggleton she was determined that the yard with its stable and lean-to calf sheds should be modernised sympathetically so that locals could remember, and see, where the herd of cows had come up Station Road for milking twice a day.
Guggleton was started so that newly graduated artists would have studio space and guidance. Keen to involve local people of all ages Mrs de Pelet also launched courses and classes, workshops and talks. Now, with a new curator, Deanne Tremlett, and with the milking parlour recently converted to become a space able to take larger works, Guggleton is offering even more to the community.
Fashion Retold was a recent catwalk show of designs made from unwanted clothing and textiles. A weekly pop-up pizza evening is just one of the food events, and Ms Tremlett is hoping the national association of Men’s Sheds will get involved and bring even more creativity to the yard. Children enjoy costume and mask-making at half term.
Currently courses and workshops include art for relaxation, introduction to mosaics, felted pictures, silver art clay and silver and resin jewellery, while therapists offer help in such areas as emotional health and meditation. Ms Tremlett believes Guggleton could be a model for other farms in similar situations.
“The capability to create is part of every human nature” she says. “Art is transportational. It takes you out of yourself. I think we have lost our way if children in schools are not taught to express themselves in more ways. We have lost our way if we limit what we think human beings are capable of.
“Guggleton is, in Isabel’s words, ‘a place to become’. I am really blessed to know her and be a part of this.”
The capability to create is part of every human nature – art is transportational
DEANNE TREMLETT