Lawson Park
25/04/07 19:23
Iodine on my hands (disinfecting lambs' navels), a
farmer's equivalent to paint, I drive to Grizedale to
check out Lawson Park Farm near Coniston.
Lawson Park Farm: owned and run by Grizedale Arts; buildings and land undergoing renovation to be experimentally farmed by artists. Behind Brantwood, John Ruskin's Lake District home (writer hunters' tourist stop...), it used to be owned and played with by the artist and social reformer.
An odd experience; I holidayed nearby with my parents the year before I started at the Ruskin (School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford). We visited Brantwood, I proud and excited to be heading off to the art school still using his name. Now it's the year after I've left, and I'm back on his trail again. Strangely, I know little more about the man than I did after that first visit; but I've been thinking about him recently in his ideas about drawing, discovery and understanding, and the 'real world'.
Lots of questions about LPF: what is the produce for; how can GA relate its activities with those of the surrounding Lake District farming community, and justify the ACE money which is being spent on it (Japenese farmers currently over in an exchange project with Grizedale-resident artists)? It doesn't seem fair
A comment from Becky, project manager, that LPF and GA's work there may be more of a continuation of Ruskin's ideas, than many heritage schemes about his life and home.
Lawson Park Farm: owned and run by Grizedale Arts; buildings and land undergoing renovation to be experimentally farmed by artists. Behind Brantwood, John Ruskin's Lake District home (writer hunters' tourist stop...), it used to be owned and played with by the artist and social reformer.
An odd experience; I holidayed nearby with my parents the year before I started at the Ruskin (School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford). We visited Brantwood, I proud and excited to be heading off to the art school still using his name. Now it's the year after I've left, and I'm back on his trail again. Strangely, I know little more about the man than I did after that first visit; but I've been thinking about him recently in his ideas about drawing, discovery and understanding, and the 'real world'.
Lots of questions about LPF: what is the produce for; how can GA relate its activities with those of the surrounding Lake District farming community, and justify the ACE money which is being spent on it (Japenese farmers currently over in an exchange project with Grizedale-resident artists)? It doesn't seem fair
A comment from Becky, project manager, that LPF and GA's work there may be more of a continuation of Ruskin's ideas, than many heritage schemes about his life and home.