Fellfoot Forward scheme arts bursaries awarded for 2022

The Fellfoot Forward Landscape Partnership Scheme, led by the North Pennines AONB Partnership and funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, has awarded six artists, who live or will work in the Fellfoot Forward scheme area, with micro bursaries.

The bursaries will run from May to October 2022 and are intended to support artists and producers to develop the next steps with their practice, skills, knowledge, or a new idea. The activities that the bursary could fund include mentoring, site visits, short experiments, research, as well as thinking and development time. This bursary programme will support future artistic practice that responds to the natural and social Fellfoot Forward landscapes.

The successful artists are:

Ruth Wharton, a visual artist, local to the Fellfoot Forward area, whose practice relates to the North Pennine landscape, and particularly the evidence of mining. She has a local farming and mining background – her grandfather ran two barite mines and employed Nenthead men. The bursary will fund two days of specialist photo etching tuition in Copenhagen, enabling Ruth to introduce photography and text into her practice. Her artistic development will be enhanced by a deeper understanding of UV processes in printmaking and by increased research experience. It will also contribute to the costs of research within the North Pennines AONB communities and landscape.

Heather Turner, a visual artist who has previously worked as a psychologist, coach, and facilitator. Her emerging practice is inspired by Fernand Deligny’s Wander Lines drawings, made over a ten year period in the sixties and seventies by tracking the movements of austistic children. She is also influenced by Richard Long, a British sculptor, land, and conceptual artist, and Martin Pirong, an artist whose wander line drawings are created using GPS technology. Heather will work with a community local to the stone circle, Long Meg and her Daughters, to research and develop the wander lines of the site and create a subsequent artwork with participants.

Mark Gibbs, a professional fine artist who also works in arts education, currently as Arts Co-ordinator at Carlisle Youth Zone. He creates intricate animal sculptures and evocative paintings which celebrate the Pennines and its wildlife. He is interested in animals on their own terms and what they reveal about our relationship with the natural world, with a particular interest in the issues around moorland bird conservation. The bursary will fund Mark’s research and development to make hybrid curlew sculptures, combining ceramics and paper, and working with ceramist Dave Norman in Castle Carrock.

Nicola Colclough whose work focuses on nature connection who incorporates her training as a Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) leader into her practice. The bursary will support a residency in the Fellfoot Forward area during which Nicola will observe and record people who ’touch’ the land, finding out about their experience and what it means to have this direct relationship with nature. She will develop her knowledge of how people work with the land, including the skills, techniques, and knowledge that are overlooked or at risk of being lost, and also explore if there are ways of touching, holding, and feeling nature that can be incorporated into forest bathing activities.

Alex Farines, a Brazilian born neuro-divergent creative practitioner living in Penrith. His practice involves developing strategies of performance art as a means of engagement with embedded issues of social trauma within selected contexts (e.g. lived experiences of mental health and poverty). The bursary will enable Alex to devise and test a small series of creative tasks, indoors and out in the North Pennines, as well as individually and in a group. He aims to work with a local peer support group, whose members share a difficult mental journey in life, addressing loneliness and improving well-being by ways of visual creativity and arts.

Coralie Martlew, an early career portrait artist specialising in pet and people portraits in graphite pencil, based in Lazonby, Penrith. The bursary will support her professional development, particularly in people portraiture. A self-taught artist, she will use the bursary to enrol on a tutored portrait drawing course and further her practice, including sharing her skills with local communities.

Fiona Knox, Fellfoot Forward LPS scheme manager, said: “Now that we are through the awarding and commissioning process, we have six fantastic artists, at different stages of their practice, who will benefit from the bursary funding to develop their techniques as well as their approach to community work across the Fellfoot Forward scheme area”.

ENDS

Notes for editors

About The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Using money raised by the National Lottery, we Inspire, lead and resource the UK’s heritage to create positive and lasting change for people and communities, now and in the future. www.heritagefund.org.uk. Since The National Lottery began in 1994, National Lottery players have raised over £43 billion for projects and more than 635,000 grants have been awarded across the UK. More than £30 million raised each week goes to good causes across the UK.

Fellfoot Forward Landscape Partnership Scheme – Led by the North Pennines AONB Partnership, the Fellfoot Forward LPS is a major project to conserve, enhance and celebrate the natural and cultural heritage of a special part of the North West of England, which stretches from the Cumbrian fellside of the North Pennines AONB and UNESCO Global Geopark to the River Eden, and runs north from Melmerby to Hallbankgate. Fellfoot Forward will bring together management and restoration of habitats, such as woodland, peatland and grasslands, with community archaeology, conservation of historic buildings, community arts and education, and is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. For more information about the Fellfoot Forward Landscape Partnership scheme visit https://northpennines.org.uk/what_we_do/fellfoot-forward/

For media enquiries about the Fellfoot Forward LPS contact Kate Stacey at North Pennines AONB Partnership – katestacey@northpenninesaonb.org.uk, Phone: 07970020648