Striding into Autumn

Striding into autumn

Exciting times ahead

It feels a bit strange that the birch and oak leaves are beginning to turn on some of the darker valley sides but there you have it – the inevitable passing of seasons. After a delightful summer with The Long View exhibition, the completion of two treefolds, and our farm visits in the Yorkshire Dales, we’re looking forward to an eventful couple of months. For sure, we’ll be picking blackberries, plums, damsons and apples, and filling our chutney and jam pans, but there’s more: we’ll be opening a new exhibition in Yorkshire, leading walks and giving talks, and warming up for celebrations around the launch of the new Charter for Trees. Here’s a round up of what’s ahead and, as seems to be turning into a bit of a theme, a poem to end.

harriet and rob

Voices From the Land
New exhibition at the Dales Countryside Museum
opens October 6th

You might have noticed snippets of news, images and blog posts filtering through from our time in the Yorkshire Dales, and some of the work that a team of volunteers and students have been doing there as part of the project. Over the last year, between us, we have gathered audio recordings of interviews from more than 25 farmers – many of them farming families – and Rob has been making portraits using his Horseman large format camera. We have learnt a huge amount from the farmers we have met, and, as we were when we did Land Keepers in the Lake District, have been warmly and generously welcomed in.

The recordings, written extracts from interviews, portraits and landscape photographs will be on show in the rather gorgeous exhibition space at the Dales Countryside Museum from October 6th. We’re now in the final phase of collating the material, getting out to catch the last of the Yorkshire Dales shows, and in the new term will be bringing schools and farms together.

The Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes is open daily from 10am – 5pm. There’s more on the Voices From the Land website.

dates for your diary
an invitation to join us

We were fortunate with the weather for our last public event – the drop-in day at treefold:east was clear and relatively warm (as you can see from the image above), so there was plenty of time for sharing stories and ideas as the treefold took shape. Let’s hope we’re just as lucky with what’s coming up:

Photography and Poetry Masterclass at Tarn Hows, Sep 5th:   As part of Friends of the Lake District’s Great Landscapes Week we’ll be spending a day at Tarn Hows. We’ll be combing a walk with regular stops to consider the landscape – and the way it makes us feel – and exploring new points of view. If you’d like to come, please click the link to book (it’s free, by the way!). You’ll need to bring a packed lunch and your tools of choice – camera, notebook, pen, or, simply, curiosity. No experience in photography or poetry is necessary.

Kirby Lecture, Oct 13th Another event with Friends of the Lake District: we’re honoured to have been asked to present the annual Kirby Lecture this year. We’ll be reflecting on our work over the past few years across Cumbria, among trees, in meadows, and on fell tops, in farm yards, at auctions and eyes-down in the grass with ecologists, and the way our creative drives keep us looking ever more closely. Ambleside Parish Centre, 7pm.

The Long View Exhibition extension – until Oct 10th If you haven’t had a chance to get to The Long View exhibition in Grizedale, or you’d like to visit again, there’s some good news – the exhibition run has been extended until October 10th, so there is still time! There has been a small change: we have taken the living trees away so that they can make their autumnal shift in the great outdoors, and in their place we’ve left some of the materials we used in the colour installations.

treefold:north drop-in day. The best laid plans, and all that … we had originally scheduled a drop-in day during the build of the final treefold in September, but have had to change this. Please keep an eye on The Long Viewwebsite and our Facebook page for dates of the drop-in session during the build of the third treefold.

Thank you!

Thank you for taking the time to read this, for those of you who came along to our open days and who we’ve met and chatted with in Grizedale Forest while we’ve been in the gallery, or up at treefold:centre, and the many people who have emailed us. We love hearing your thoughts and making new contacts, and pursuing the conversations that arise.

Our next newsletter will come in October. If you’d like to keep up with our news more regularly, the best way is via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram – the links are all below. And if you think someone you know might like to hear of our work, then please forward on this newsletter.

As has become the custom we will sign off with a poem. Harriet wrote ‘Curlews at Raw Green Farm, 2017’ this year, about the curlews that nest in a field behind our house. The poem features in the anthology, ‘Curlew Calling’, edited by Karen Lloyd and inspired by a wish to raise awareness of these beautiful birds and their decline.

We wish you all the best during the last flushes of summer,

harriet and rob