Rowley Gallery Blog
Hambledon Hill
Out of the Wood is an exhibition of wood engravings by Howard Phipps at The Art Stable, Child Okeford, Dorset from 16 April until 7 May 2016. The gallery is situated in the courtyard of Gold Hill Organic Farm, next to the farm shop, and looks out towards the iron age hill fort of Hambledon Hill.
The Arborealists will stage their third exhibition at St Barbe Museum and Art gallery, Lymington, 23rd April – 4th June 2016, featuring new works by 35 artists. Each will show just one work to emphasise the diversity of art practice prevalent within the group – in terms of size, medium, style and philosophy. Continue reading “The Arborealists”
I’m fascinated by the structural qualities of leaves. The veins convey the lifeblood to the leaf and often echo the physical structure of the tree – trunk, branches, twigs – in miniature. These fractal-like qualities inspired me to paint trees on dried leaves, which were collected last autumn. Some were pressed, while others were left to dry in their natural shape. Continue reading “Trees On Leaves”
The Alde Valley Spring Festival 2016
A four week celebration of food, farming, landscape & the arts
Saturday 23rd April – Sunday 22nd May 2016
White House Farm, Great Glemham, Suffolk IP17 1LS
Festival Exhibition – Open 10am-6pm, Tues – Fri, Sat & Sun + Bank Holidays
Stuart Anderson, Melanie Comber, Daisy Cook, Marchela Dimitrova, Peter Dibble, Laurence Edwards, Alice-Andrea Ewing, Richard Elliott, Meriel Ensom, George Farrow-Hawkins, Tobias Ford, Jason Gathorne-Hardy, Emma Green, Jelly Green, Maggi Hambling, Roger Hardy, Mercury Hare, Craig Hudson, Nienke Jongsma, Tory Lawrence, Ffiona Lewis, Otis Luxton, Caroline MacAdam Clark, Freddy Morris, Becky Munting, Tessa Newcomb, Sarah Pirkis, Ruth Stage, Leszek Zielinski.
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The watercolour illustrated above is Leaves in an English Wood (151 x 29 cm) by Jelly Green.
A roadside coffee stop en route to San Gimignano. They serve the best espresso macchiato I’ve ever tasted. Immediately refreshed and we’re watching out for our destination’s distinctive towers, checking the horizon for their silhouettes, easily confused by the outlines of countless cypress trees. Continue reading “San Gimignano”
It’s said they planted trees by graves
to soak up spirits of the dead
through roots into the growing wood.
The favorite in the burial yards
I knew was common juniper.
One could do worse than pass into
such a species. I like to think
that when I’m gone the chemicals
and yes the spirit that was me
might be searched out by subtle roots
and raised with sap through capillaries
into an upright, fragrant trunk,
and aromatic twigs and bark,
through needles bright as hoarfrost to
the sunlight for a century
or more, in wood repelling rot
and standing tall with monuments
and statues there on the far hill,
erect as truth, a testimony,
in ground that’s dignified by loss,
around a melancholy tree
that’s pointing toward infinity.
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Living Tree by Robert Morgan from Dark Energy, Penguin Books 2015
Ankerwycke is a small corner of riverside farmland and historic parkland on the north bank of the Thames at Runnymede. Planes fly over constantly, in and out of Heathrow and there’s a continuous drone from the M25 half a mile downstream, yet this place still remains a hidden green sanctuary. Runnymede gets all the visitors and Ankerwycke gets overlooked. Continue reading “Ankerwycke”
We were on the lookout for ancient trees. I asked for directions at our local Tourist Information in Bagni di Lucca. The forests here are mostly sweet chestnut and we were told that there were some Castagni Monumentali in the hills of the Garfagnana, high above the town. Continue reading “Montefegatesi”
A short film for Valentine’s Day. And for every day.
The Climate Coalition / Show The Love / World Wide Fund for Nature
I’d read of a huge tree, a monumental cedar of Lebanon, that grows just outside the walls of the town of Barga in northern Italy. It was born in 1814 and transplanted here in 1836 where it became adopted as a symbol of Giovine Italia (Young Italy) and Italian unification. Continue reading “Barga & Beyond”