Valley of the Wild Boar Edtion

A big thank you to the members of the Plus Tate group of directors for making the pilgrimage to Grizedale Arts for our annual group seminar last week. The visit allowed us to demonstrate the concept of the Community as a Resource, moving the conference around the village between Lawson Park, The Coniston Mechanics Institute, Brantwood and St Andrew’s Church. All meals were made from local produce and we were delighted to be joined by the ‘village elders’ on Wednesday night for a local produce banquet in the Institute hall. More...

Emi Uemara and Michael Eddy from Homeshop Beijing are currently with us in residence. On Saturday 4 February Emi will be running a workshop in the Coniston Institute from 10.30am to 2.30pm to show how to make this superfood staple, known as Doctor Eliminator for its health benefits and use in the treatment of and protection against radiation sickness. £5.00 including a delicious and highly nutritious lunch. See homepage for more information. Booking essential at info@grizedale.org 10% Discount for Sellafield emplyees.

In collaboration with Charlie Whinney Associates and Lakeland Arts Trust we are running a series of events through February to develop new utilitarian designs for traditional coppice and green wood workers. Alongside development workshops for the industry we are holding a conference at Blackwell on February 18^th and a weekend of practical workshops at Brantwood on February 25^th and 26^th.

Speakers include Ray Leigh of the Gordon Russell Museum, Dr Kathy Haslam and Michael Marriott.

For more details click here. Booking essential as demand for places is high.

Child’s Play is a play commissioned by Grizedale Arts in partnership with the South Bank Centre and written by Ray Davies for the John Ruskin School in Coniston. It was performed to a full house at the Coniston Institute on December 16^th as part of the redevelopment programme of this historic building. The play is now available to view online in HD on Artplayer, a new platform created by FACT. Child’s Play is part of a project developed from a concept by resident artist Alexandre Singh for a series of challenging new school plays written by contemporary artists.

As part of our ongoing collaborations with the National Trust, local ranger and farmer John Atkinson called us up when he found eight emaciated pigs that had been deliberately abandoned in nearby Dodgson Wood and asked if we could provide a good home for them on the farm. After chasing them into a trailer the pigs are now happily digging up the lower field with our own pedigree British Lop Octavia Hill looking on with ideas of social reform in mind. Needless to say, at the whiff of a curly tale, all the forces of BBC TV were mustered up and away from hard news in Manchester to get the story onto at the evening news. And more importantly the front page of the Westmorland Gazette. Note to self: cancel the PR, get more pigs.