They do it because they want to be part of what they recognise is one of Europe’s premier ceramics festivals. But how many visitors understand the international significance of the event?

This year’s Continental exhibitors are coming from Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France and Spain. Longer distance potters will come from Australia, Japan and for the first time the USA but even home grown talent will travel hundreds of miles – from Ceredigion to Kent, Norfolk to Nairnshire, Brighton to Banffshire.

Last year a group came from the town of Hohr-Grenzhausen in the Rhine Valley in Germany, an area famous for salt glazed ware. This year another group will come from the area around St Amand en Puisaye in central France, a forested area famed for its wood fired ceramics.

Potfest in the Park at Hutton-in-the-Forest is now in its 10th year, Potfest in the Pens at Skirsgill Mart in its 17th – the oldest potters’ market in the UK. Between the two shows over 200 potters will be showing their work.

Potfest in the Park: Friday, Saturday and Sunday – July 30/31/August 1st
Potfest in the Pens: Friday, Saturday and Sunday – August 6/7/8th
Chris & Geoff Cox, www.potfest.co.uk

This year the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings have teamed up with The Traditional Cornmillers Guild, an organisation that represents 32 commercial wind and water mills across the UK, and the Real Bread Campaign to celebrate bread making. It is estimated that there are around 10 million bread machines sitting at the back of Britain’s kitchen cupboards, so this is the perfect opportunity to dig them out, dust them off and bake some real bread – using locally produced flour from an independent mill.

Little Salkeld Watermill, in the Eden Valley 7 miles northeast of Penrith, will be open for tours on Saturday and Sunday (12 noon, 2pm, 3.30pm) and there will be a series of workshops and demonstrations as part of a national programme of events. Baker and Miller Henk Glimmerveen will be running free Breadmachine Demonstrations showing how to get the best from The Watermill’s wide range of award-winning organic and biodynamic stoneground flours. He’ll be working with Unbleached White Flour at 11am on Saturday 8th May and 12 noon Sunday 9th May; and with 100% Wholewheat Flour at 2pm on Saturday 8th May and 3pm Sunday 9th May.

There’s no charge, but each session is limited to ten people, so advance booking is essential. The machine baking cycle takes a couple of hours, so there’s time for a coffee, lunch, a tour of the mill, or a walk to Long Meg Stone Circle.

Of course you can’t beat the sheer pleasure, quality, taste, creativity and versatility of hand-made bread, so there will be free hand breadmaking demonstrations on Sunday 9th May at 11.30am, 1pm and 2.30pm.

The following Cumbrian Watermills are taking part in National Mills Weekend:
Acorn Bank Watermill, Temple Sowerby
Heron Watermill, Beetham
Brampton Watermill, nr Appleby
Eskdale Mill, Boot
Farfield watermill, Sedbergh
Gleaston Watermill, Ulverston
Little Salkeld Watermill, Nr Penrith

Websites :
www.sustainweb.org/realbread/
www.nationalmillsweekend.co.uk/index.htm
http://tcmg.org.uk/
www.organicmill.co.uk/

Contact details for more information :
Nick Jones, The Watermill, Little Salkeld, Penrith, CA10 1NN

01768 881047

Help a Herdwick with your knitting.

Nurture Lakeland needs your knitting!

Our mission: to knit a life size woolen Herdwick sheep.

The cause: raise money and awareness of the Herdy Fund – a fund dedicated to the conservation of the Herdwick sheep and rural lifestyle associated with upland fell farming in Cumbria and the Lakes.

How you can help: knit 6”x 6” squares to help cover our Herdwick. Any colour, any design – get knitting!
Bring your knitting along and join us at Keswick Mountain Festival between Friday 21st and Sunday 23rd May. Or post them to the address below.

River Mill, Staveley Mill Yard, Staveley, Cumbria, LA8 9LR
t. 01539 822622 e. info@nurturelakeland.org w. nurturelakeland.org

Come and join artist Karen MacDougall and Penrith and Eden Museum curator Judith Clarke during Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th April for action packed creative workshops in one of the shops in the Devonshire Arcade (beside the George Hotel) as Art meets History at the shops!

Karen MacDougall: ‘Touch some of the stuff from behind the glass and hold real items from the museum collection, discover for yourself how Penrith has changed and join me in creating your own piece of Iconic Eden – no previous art experience is needed!’

Topics explored will be: The Giants Grave and other myths and legends, making a rubbing of the Penrith seal to take away, a mystery object or two plus items from ‘Whose Story is it Anyway?’ and handling objects from the local studies collection.
Karen will be asking you to vote on Eden’s most Iconic view – let us know what you think!

The workshops are free, running continuously between 10 am and finishing at 4pm. The whole session takes about an hour – you can join at any time and leave when you like.
Suitable for ages 3 – 103, but young children must be accompanied by an adult.

Karen MacDougall and Judith Clarke have led many workshops showing museum treasures and using these as starting points for art. Adults accompanying the school children on school visits to the Penrith and Eden Museum have said that these sort of sessions should be open for EVERYONE, not just school children, so these two days of workshops aim to redress the balance and reach out to Eden residents and visitors to the area.

If you need any more information contact Karen MacDougall 017683 62499.

Vista Projects Chicken City exhibition at the Gracefield Arts Centre Dumfries.

John Kennedy & Christian Barnes

Saturday 6 March – Saturday 17th April 2010

Open Tuesday Saturday 10am to 5pm

28 Edinburgh Road, Dumfries, DG1 1JQ

01387 262084

www.dumgal/gracefield

John and Christian have worked together on selected projects since 2003.

“‘Chicken City’ is a project about the things that matter to us in our dialogue about the design and management of the urban public realm:

We are hoping to have fun doing egg packaging and selling egg related craft activities as souvenirs in the shop, instead of art catalogues. We could do lots of things and events like publishing recipies, taking photos, making Pace eggs at Easter and poultry keeping courses.”

We are reviewing our knowledge database of artists in Eden and want to make sure that we’ve ‘got you all’ in our system. To that end we’d like you to make sure that we have got your details. If you are in our system you will have been receiving our enews updates, if not then we’d like to hear from you…please forward this message to your friends and colleagues to ensure that as many Eden artists as possible are receiving our messages.

WHY? Because we are a source of information on such things as grants and funding information as well as other opportunities, such as:

(it’s) Best In Eden – we are creating a ‘brand’ for Eden’s cultural activities – a one stop shop where people can find out what is going on. Our aim is to sell and celebrate cultural (not just arts) activity throughout Eden. Initially we are focusing on the two summer months of July and August and calling it the ‘its Best In Eden Summer Festival’. The brand will feature a new website and printed publicity – we are currently working with designers to deliver the best image. So if you have activity that you would like to be included let us know asap.

Art fair. Working with Kendal Arts International and Eden District Council we are assisting in the programming and promotion of this summer’s Lakes Alive event in Penrith (1st August). The event will be another large scale animation building on the success of the ‘Castellers’ and Dance Daze events of summer 2009. You will be aware that these events drew thousands of people into the closed off and traffic free centre of Penrith. One idea that we are looking at for this year is a tented art fair/sale in Great Dockray on the day of the Lakes Alive animation (to be followed by open studios the following week/week-end). Would you like to be involved? Last year’s open studios were very successful and once again we’d like to build on that success. Please note that there is likely to be a fee to participate to cover some of the costs.

Empty shops. We have made various connections regarding empty shops and units and we have been able to place artists in them either as temporary studios, galleries or for workshops. With the current economic climate ‘empty shopping’ is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Again if you have an idea or want to be involved then get in touch asap.

SO – MAKE SURE THAT WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE – KEEP IN TOUCH – PROPOSE ACTIVITIES

Specifically today:
Would you like to be considered for the potential artfair selling opportunity on August 1st?
Are you interested in opening your studio during July and August to be included in “it’s Best in Eden” marketing?

(Image on this page is by Michael Batey, featured in our spring newsletter)

You are invited to
Arcade in collaboration with Eden Arts
an Exhibition #Town2Town
5th – 20th March 2010
A dual sited exhibition of arts in empty shops in both Carlisle & Penrith

Launching Fri 5th March at 8pm Lowther Arcade Carlisle
with Arts throughout, live music & Mini Food Fest from The Circle Cafe Bar.

Launching Sat 6th March at 12 noon in Devonshire Arcade, Penrith
with Arts in empty spaces and Poetry in association with World Book Week.

plus additional activities programmed throughout including workshops, performances, The Meanwhile Empty Shops Tour (see attachment) and more – see blog arcadeart.blogspot.com/ for updates or visit www.arcadeart.org.uk

Arcade express sincere thanks to Eden Arts, Carlise City Council Arts Development, Meanwhile Projects, Walton Goodland & Penrith Retail Ltd. in development of this project.

Showcasing the work of textile artist Mandy Pattullo, Thrift & Thread will be on display from Friday 30 April to Monday 3 May at Dufton Village Hall (Dufton near Appleby, Cumbria, CA16 6DB.)

Mandy Pattullo, a specialist in international textiles and surface pattern, has a passion for the recycling and re-use of old textiles to create contemporary heirlooms and garments. For this exhibition, Mandy has looked to a past age of thriftiness and ‘make do and mend’. Her aim was to create pieces which might inspire viewers to look again at old textiles that have passed their ‘use by’ date.

“I am particularly interested in very worn, old patchwork quilts, often made of dressmaking off-cuts, clothing and tailor’s samples”, says Mandy. “After careful re-examination, I often completely unpick the quilts into their original scraps, to discover hidden layers and sometimes even other worn quilts inside!”

Visitors to the show may be intrigued by furniture covered in Suffolk Puffs, a form of Victorian patchwork. In the spirit of re-cycling, Mandy has used old headscarves and cast-off men’s ties from charity shops to make her puffs and patchwork.

Mandy is interested in the decorative, textural and colour possibilities within textiles and the way stitch can be used to create marks in the same way as drawing. She meticulously researches textile concepts and processes, using drawing, sketchbooks, sampling and photography. Final pieces often incorporate both traditional and contemporary techniques, primarily using hand and machine stitching combined with appliqué, quilting and print.

“In recent years, I have rediscovered the joys of hand stitching,” says Mandy. “I enjoy sharing traditional skills such as darning and hand-stitching with new generations and I am a great advocate of slow design: taking your time and using craft as a stress buster!”

Mandy will be present on Friday and Saturday to demonstrate textile processes and talk to visitors about her work. She intends to create a ‘Friendship Quilt’ for each venue. Workshop participants and visitors to the exhibition will be encouraged to sign their names on calico triangles, sew them together with other scraps and then stitch their names.

For more information call 017683 53954 or visit www.highlightsnorth.co.uk.

Arcade …in collaboration with Eden Arts

arcade is an artist-led initiative which aims to encourage the bringing together of artists and creative practitioners working in broad ranging art forms, and to organise openly accessible events in public ‘non-gallery’ spaces.

Projects to date have been organised specific to a Victorian built walkway Lowther Arcade in Carlisle city centre, Cumbria where the area is turned into an arts ‘hotspot’ using: the main walkway and architecture, several empty shop units or windows, plus adjoining businesses throughout.

May 2008 saw the very first initiative for Arcade with artists working together in consultation with commercial property agents to create a short programme of art interventions specific to the place; establishing new art/business links and importantly highlighting issues of regeneration in the forgotten public ’space’.

Our next Project proposes the same use of the Carlisle space but additionally Arcade are now collaborating with Eden Arts in order to incorporate further empty shop use within Devonshire Arcade, Penrith: thus creating a town to town link project in enquiry which will aim to stimulate interest from both artists practice and happening in survey.

Arcade has now gathered together an eclectic and stimulating collection of artists proposals for both the Penrith and Carlisle arcades – full programme details soon to be announced!