When the Little Forest Land Art team came together for the first time in January 2017 we had one target – getting the site ready for Art in the Garden 2017. This is our host Jan Griffiths’ annual open studio event in early June. The event has been getting bigger and bigger since the first one in 2012, with more artists and makers showing each year, in rotation, in and around her meadow and in her studio.
Although it seemed like we were continually clearing brambles for five months we did manage to open up new areas for work to be shown. The time flew by and soon we had artists arriving with their glorious creations, finding places to display them to show them off for the best.
First up was Mark & Rebecca Ford from Two Circles Designs with their organic woven willow ‘pods’. Carefully positioned, as you wandered around the meadow they would drift in and out of view. Other work dotted around included intricate chicken wire animals, metal wind sculptures, ‘kokedama’ moss balls and a nettle plant that would need a very big dock leaf!
There were also a couple of my own land art interventions that I call ‘clearings’. More on these in a future blog.
The preview was a gloriously warm, late spring evening. Wine and homemade elderflower cordial flowed, the cash till pinged and the car park got jammed!
There was one last area that we created that was popular with our visitors, a recently felled oak tree stump. This stump is the star of our big Artist Opportunity that could see you take part in Art in the Garden 2018. I will tell all very soon.
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Sometimes you don’t know where chance meetings will take you. Back in 2007, when I was just starting to emerge into the outside world after years of agoraphobia, I went to the first events at the new Aspex Gallery, after it moved to Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth. After surviving a few panic attacks and forcing myself to not run out the building at the launch event, I went to the first three talks and workshops provided by Jonathan Parsons and the ARC team. The only other person who came to all those same events was Jan Griffiths, a welcome friendly face to chat to and help me keep calm.
We bumped into each other a few other times and became friends. She talked about building her own home on a bit of land to the north of Portsmouth, in the Hampshire countryside. It was another 5 years before I could travel in cars and managed to get over to see her Open Studio event. What greeted me, after driving down the long, tree lined, gravel drive was Jan’s house, garage block and ceramics studio, overlooking a 3 acre meadow, surrounded by woodland. 24 acres of woodland. I was in love.
It was another few years, while I was getting more confident traveling, and completing my ACE supported Grow An Exhibition project (AN blog – I will retrospectively finish this, up to the exhibitions), before anything would happen.
Jan hosts a number of Open Studio events each year, one being her Art in the Garden in late Spring. As well as exhibiting a number of other artist’s and maker’s work, she has wanted to add an artistic element to the landscape. I have been fascinated by the land art of people like Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long, and a chat with Jan eventually turned into a land art project. It went public in Summer 2016 and a few people volunteered their help. Work started in January 2017.
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