Creative Odyssey CIC – Inspiring arts projects in nature to inspire and soothe the soul.
Sculpture Trail 2021
We are committed to encouraging public interaction with contemporary art in a rural setting as well as creating space and opportunity for artists to experiment, show and sell their work to a diverse audience. 68 Artists have been selected to take part in the 2021 Raveningham Sculpture Trail and we will all be very busy preparing artworks for the Trail which will be open July 31st – Sept 5th. Tickets on sale now We will keep in place all of the social distancing and other safety measures we developed in 2020 to ensure that visitors and artists can enjoy the trail in a relaxed way.
As our personal and collective creative journeys have been thrown off course or changed tack wildly this year we are continuing our Creative Odyssey at Raveningham by thinking particularly about the importance and instinctive drive to create a safe place, shelter, home, nest, space, spiritual or natural haven. Artist’s will also be responding to the magical natural site at Raveningham thinking about the flora/fauna which have lifted our spirits celebrating everything from the tiny Fungi in the woods to the beautiful Red Kites and Marsh Harriers above. Artworks will be in the form of sculpture, site specific works, stories, magic, sound, light, film and more for the meadows, pond, gardens, and woodland at Raveningham. We have an exciting opportunity here to push the boundaries of the exhibition forward towards the light at a time when ecological and political events in the world can feel quite dark. By letting our imaginations and aspirations soar we hope to create a sculpture trail that inspires visitors and creates the opportunity for artists to experiment and create. We are committed to encouraging public interaction with contemporary art in a rural setting as well as creating space and opportunity for artists to experiment, show and sell their work to a diverse audience.
Meet the 2021 Raveningham Sculpture Trail Artists…
Grace Adam – www.graceadam.com – Go-Sow. Grace’s work is about our environments; how we create, shape and have agency over our shared spaces. She wants you to notice the flowers, and then to go home and sow some wildflower seeds. Her piece, Go-Sow will help you do that. (This year we have reduced grass cutting at Raveningham to allow the wildflowers to thrive, Bee Orchids have been spotted in the front garden for the first time in years.)
Meg Amsden – www.meg-amsden.co.uk – Continuing her theme of bird-people (and developing the idea of the egg as original shelter), Meg will create different kinds of nests for them in the undergrowth. Birds/people can’t learn to fly without a secure place to leap off from. Shelter implies a place of safety but could also be a trap.
Nicola Anthony – www.nicolaanthony.co.uk – Murmuration of Incantions. Murmuration of starlings with words for wings: Phrases come from olde English spells, which took on new meaning this year – echoing the mantras, slogans and incantations voiced throughout the pandemic. Nicola’s sculptures contain historical texts, memories and narratives. A member and trustee of the Royal Society of Sculptors, she works internationally to tell stories which are often left unspoken.
Nick Ball – Nick Ball – VHS SHED – Nick’s process always involves working with recycled materials and responding to a brief. This year for the Sculpture Trail Nick plans to install an ambitious shed using old VHS tapes, creating a shelter with environmental awareness of our throwaway approach to materials.
John Bardell – New sculptural works combining stained glass and stone. The artist is experimenting and developing his process as he combines the two materials.
Eddie Barnes – Photography – @eddiebarnes_photos – During Lockdown, I began to look at things in a different way, especially the landscapes. I am lucky, I live in Norfolk. My photos are all about Norfolk and things we don’t normally notice.
James Barrett Nobbs – www.acornforge.wixsite.com – Responding to the natural space of the pond and it’s plants and wildlife James is creating a dragonfly for the Sculpture Trail this year.
Stacey Beaumont – www.staceybeaumont.com – This collection will comprise four works celebrating nature’s rhythms as elemental touchstones during periods of extreme flux, such as the Covid pandemic. The natural cycles of day to night, the tide’s ebb and flow and the progression of the seasons remained dependable and life-affirming against the backdrop of worldwide fear and uncertainty. The inspiration for my work comes from the natural environment – in its rhythms I find peace and never more so than during the last year.
Esther Boehm – estherboehm.com – Using initial ideas of a treehouse in the woods Esther has developed a series of paper skins, reminiscent of alabaster or ice, which span and fill gaps between branches creating an enclosure reminiscent of a cocoon moving up through the tree.
Helen Breach – www.helenbreach.com – Shelter……Of A Mother’s Arms. The best shelter and protection is in the loving arms of a mother. An unconditional haven. HugMe. New paintings by Helen can also be viewed in the Ravenous Cafe during the Sculpture Trail.
Ruth Brumby – www.ruthbrumby.com – In response to the theme of safe places and havens in difficult times, Ruth is considering the support that we give to one another by making a group of life size figures whose balance is maintained by their mutual support. Responding to the Raveningham space these works are intended to show that with support and connection we can still be joyful and brave.
Humans have exhausted the Earth’s resources with selfishness and greed. The planet is heating at an alarming rate. Famine, wars, wildfires and floods are ‘the norm’…and now viruses. The Earth is soon to pass ‘tipping point’ and become uninhabitable. This piece was initially inspired by the endangered Monarch Butterfly. She is dying. She is angry. A new race will evolve to survive earths deathly gaze…. survive the apocalypse, to become custodians of the new world.
Sound the trumpets! The time has come. We are the Keepers. Your life is done.
Your sins have found you. Messiah returns. Precious earth anew Bridges burned.
Heeded not scripture. Words of warning Revelations revealed. Tis global swarming
So, rest now my loves Too late to mourn. We are the Keepers. A new race is born.
Sarah Cannell – www.sarahcannell.com – Woodland Nocture is a new series of photographs created by Painter and Trail Curator Sarah Cannell. Created in early 2021 the photographs combine the magic of twilight with intense lighting to create images which transport our imaginations to recognisable but unworldly spaces, exploring notions of home, warmth and safety.
Mike Challis (with Pam Harling-Challis) – www.mikechallis.com – NightWire – Following on from his SoundHide and Beech Cello installations, this year Mike has made a tunnel of sound. Using found objects to resonate the sounds of Nightingales and Nightjars in the style of David Tudor, Mike highlights the magical and strange nature of these Suffolk Heathland birds.
Collaboration between Sculptors Lorraine Crowe and Dawny Christien – Lorraine and Dawny have been friends for over 10 years and both share a passion for figurative sculpting. Here, they join forces for their first collaboration together. This work reflects on the role of women in how we came together to get through the pandemic, and this extraordinary past year.
Harry Chrystall – @harrychrystalls – My current work focuses on the meeting between the viewer and artwork. In ‘Once when the world was old’, with an element of theatricality I aim to create a space where we may experience and explore the paradox at the heart of the human experience, of being both observer and participant combined.
June Croll – www.junecroll.com – Freedom, Walking Through the Seasons, a site-specific piece suspended in the trees consisting of a large woven textile journey meandering through nature hopefully towards the light. The work is inspired by the complex emotions resulting from the strange life we have all been leading during the pandemic, it reflects the opposing feelings of staying safe inside and the uplifting sense of the natural world around us continuing as normal, experienced through my daily walks.
Mark Croxford – www.markcroxford.com – ‘New Growth’ relates to my experience though the last Covid lockdown . It’s geometric construction expresses a kind of rigid stunted growth which might grow into something unknown or easily recognisable while always hopefull for the new unpredicted and beautiful. Mark’s sculptures refer to the texture and vitality of the urban landscape. Mark’s wall based constructions hint at the inner city but don’t recall a specific place or time, more a displaced memory that evokes a sense of past and habitation. His use of two and a half dimensions allows his work to straddle preconceived norms and engages his sculptures in physical space while still pointing to the metaphysical.
Natasha Day – www.natashadayart.artweb.com – Safehouses: Sun Seed Soil – Work made for the Raveningham Sculpture Trail concerns the natural world and our responsibilities towards it. The three main sculptures to be placed in a tree are “Safehouses”, named “Sun, Seed, Soil” they make reference to places, hides and refuges, hospitable for animal, insect or plant to find a safe space to grow, nurture young and live safely. They emphasise the vital aspects of nature that give way to life that sustains us on our planet and reminds us to provide and care take these. They also are highly decorated and designed as objects in their own right to reference to precious items of value to be looked after.”
Based in Ditchingham, Emmaus Norfolk & Waveney provides a home for as long as is needed for 32 formerly homeless people. Known as companions, the people supported by the charity get access to meaningful work opportunities and access to training and support so they can rebuild their lives after homelessness. This is the first sculpture created by the Emmaus Norfolk & Waveney companions and depicts a house encased in an apple tree leaf. It was created in the charity’s own forge under the guidance of leading metalwork sculpture Leigh Dyer, and funded by Arts Council England. This design was chosen and created by the Emmaus Norfolk & Waveney companions as it represents the sense of home they feel living as part of the community, and the peaceful rural surroundings of the former All Hallows Convent where the charity is based.
Sara Edwards – www.saraedwardsart.co.uk – Safe as Houses? Fairytale homes under attack from the invasive enemy or danger lurks when entering another’s home. The stories are set in stone, the characters one-dimensional.
In beauty, joy In joy, wonder In wonder, gentleness In gentleness, humility In humility, peace In peace, wisdom In wisdom, beauty
Annie Fenton – www.anniefenton.com – Inspired by her artwork in last year’s sculpture trail, Annie Fenton plans to work with the natural movements of the trees in this site-specific installation. She will use textiles to capture the shadows that are created and will offer a new way to experience the impermanence of nature.
Joella Gardner – www.joellagardner.co.uk – Borrowed From Nature. A personal engagement with nature and sustainability Joella is fascinated by the details and processes of the organic, her work celebrates and carries an essence of what she experiences in the natural world. Through the careful balance between material and construction, her work explores ideas of change and impermanence, embracing unpredictability and serendipity through experimental process.
Vivienne Gibbon – An invitation to step/ crawl inside a sculpture and give people an opportunity to step from their experience of the world into the view the sculpture could offer; giving them a new perspective, or offer a moment away from where they are to take sanctuary , quench curiosity in the hope it may awaken a sense of mystery or adventure.
Nicola Gibson – www.nicolagibson.net – Nicola has been working on miniature narratives, exploring the fantastical, the mundane and the meanderings of our minds. These frozen moments in time are preserved as illuminated specimens, outside of the touch of human hands.
Ian Gill – www.iangillsculpture.com -Ian Gill AWCB is an award winning metal sculptor whose inspiration comes from organic forms combined with an industrial twist representing nature, using traditional and modern techniques.
Tricia Hall – www.triciahall.co.uk -2 Sculptures, Mutable Sculpture, a tribute to a faithful pair of mute swans that reside in the roadside dykes near the Acle Straight. Grazing, a collection of abstract slip cast porcelain forms that are, in part, inspired by cattle grazing on Halvergate Marshes.
David Johnson – @embroiderboydave – A trio of dioramas, one embroidered and two mixed-media, based on the East Anglian Folk Tales, ‘Black Shuck’, ‘the Orford Wildman’ & ‘the Woolpit Green Children’
Cindy Lee Wright – www.cindyleewright.com – This hazel shelter is about nature nurturing and inspiring us and protecting the wild creatures we share the world with. It is also about hope and comfort in difficult times.
Paeony Lewis – www.paeony-lewis.com – ‘Today we celebrate the life of…’ Often overlooked, common Norfolk wildflowers are seen in a different way with cameraless alternative photography. Placing plants directly on traditional photographic paper creates surprising colours. These ethereal images are then fused into glass headstones, inspiring us to notice and celebrate the life of the ordinary.
Mary Littlefield – @littlefield8848 – Women made an enormous contribution during the pandemic to keeping us alive , safe and well. Mentally and physically . This installation made from recycled material, is a totem , a testament to them.
Andy Maule – www.andymaule.net – Carnac – Inspired by the form of a prehistoric standing stone at Carnac in France this work reveals and portrays the spiritual presence of the place, and touches our emotional needs and challenges.
Micro Kino – 2021 BAFTA award winning animation The Owl and the Pussycat by Mole Hill and Laura Duncalf, 2018 BAFTA shortlisted Quarantine by Astrid Goldsmith, How Mermaids Breed by Joan Ashworth, Light by Stephen Ong, Cherry Tree by Suzie Hanna and Vicki Feaver and the latest animation from Kayla Parker. Half an hour of world class animation on the front lawn at Raveningham!
Rachael Long, Sarah Cannell, Andy Jarrett – Flaming Marsh Ponies Collaboration
Liz McGowan – www.lizmcgowan.com – Work created in conversation with the Norfolk landscape, exploring the meeting points between inner and outer landscapes. Inspirations are the detail, pattern and processes – reed, mud, wind, wave, erosion, tideline – that combine to form a particular environment. The artist’s concerns are about containment and expansion, about cycles of growth, change and decay, and about the shifting relationship between us and the world in which we are immersed.
Verity Newman – www.veritynewman.blogspot.com – Verity’s architectural installation ‘Manors, Makeshifts and Monoliths’ brings memories of restricted Lockdown walks through her urban Norwich neighbourhood into the healing space of the rural idyll. Here, reconstructed exterior and interior structures imagine the public and private interactions of neighbours, acquaintances and passersby in the community during that time.
Jenny Nutbeem – @jennynutbeemtextiles -A woodland tent with botanical contact prints and natural dyes that echo the outside world. Jenny has created a safe space which responds to the light and surroundings beautifully.
Vanessa Pooley FRBS (Fellow of the British Society of Sculptors) – www.vanessapooley.com – Bronze sculptures exploring the female form which have emerged from a lifelong obsession with representing the female body and its flowing curves and lines.
Sarah Rooms Heaphy – www.sarahroomsheaphyceramics.com Horizon Totems – The passing of time through the sunrise, ever changing skies, abstract cloud formations and sunsets have been a continued inspiration. “Constant change in Nature” has been the starting point for this collection of totems. Manmade creations in stoneware/porcelain ceramics with glass inlaid tops, these totems are set onto bamboo stakes in the ground amongst the grasses of this wild garden sculpture trail. Indoor porcelain vessels are in the gallery. @roomsheaphyceramics
Bee Springwood – @springwoodbees – Bee immerses herself in a site to evoke her work, made with mainly natural / found materials. How do we make home for ourselves and all other beings , seen and unseen?
Laure Van Minden – www.laurevanminden.co.uk – Homecoming – “I don’t know where I am. I’ve lost my bearings. Where is my home? Please can somebody take me to my parents? I’m lost.” Seeing the person, not the dementia.
Ian Vance – www.ianvance.net – Ian makes lively and textured pots and sculptures from rugged clay. The designs are inspired by rock formations and natural forms and he will be showing a variety of work that can be used indoors and out – on the patio, by the pool or in the garden.
Wells Pottery Group – Collaborative ceramic patchwork blanket.
Jane West – @janewest.art – The Comfort and Shelter of Memories – Remembering happy Cannell family days picking apples in early autumn.
Peter Wiltshire – www.stainedglassgardenart.com – Stained Glass comes alive in an outside space by reflecting light as well as projecting colour. This is enhanced by adding the same movement seen in the surrounding flora. These five experimental stained glass, stainless steel and copper sculptures explore different ways this is possible.
