Eric Ravilious – Drawn to War is the first feature-length film about Eric Ravilious (1903-1942), the much-loved but hugely underestimated British Official War artist, killed in a plane crash over Iceland in 1942. Written by Alan Bennett and Robert Macfarlane, ‘Eric Ravilious – Drawn to War’ recounts a life as compelling and enigmatic as his art,…
Lorna Graves’ Landscape
I sleep in the valley by the river. I work with clay, sitting with my feet in the water. I wonder in the hills above the Eden Valley and rest in a sheepfold sheltered from the wind.Lorna Graves Discovering the art of Lorna Graves was like falling through a portal into a subterranean world. Gateways…
Sea to the West – Blinded by Dazzle
By the mid-1970s my natural playground was the slagged cliffs and green-slimed rocks of Workington beach. There was a rent in the cliffs that let you down over the edge, sliding steeply towards a hole in the cliff face and clamber down through a cave that stank of algae and piss, out onto the coal-jewelled…
Walton Wood Cottage No.1
October half-term. A long-planned visit to Edinburgh, staying in the Community Hall of Well Court, part of Edinburgh World Heritage Dean Court. These apartments were built in 1886 as a model housing development for artisans and worker families employed by the many mills that dipped their wheels in the Water of Leith. The Water of…
The Art of Getting Lost
Geltsdale is well known to outdoor enthusiasts in North Cumbria. Four way-marked trails lead walkers into the heart of this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Its Black Grouse and wading birds attract ornithologists while scholars of industrial archaeology can be found on the quarried flanks of Cold Fell. But for Carlisle artist Laura M R…