Category Archives: Workshops

Art Exhibitions East Midlands, Art Exhibitions UK, Artspace Art Exhibitions, Artspace Artist's Events, Artspace Members, Derby, Nottinghamshire, woodland sculpture, Workshops

Shire Grants and the National forest award funding !

April 19, 2022 artspace

We are very pleased to announce that ArtSpace have been successful with funding bids to Leicestershire County Council’s Shire Grants and The National Forest’s Arts Grants for the 2022 Outwoods Sculture Trail.

Into The Outwoods Sculpture Trail 2022 is based on the theme ‘Harmony and Healing for Planet and People’. Much of the sculpture will directly reference issues of climate change, sustainability and ecology. Through these trail works, and the outreach workshop programme, we aim to raise awareness of the climate emergency and encourage people to think about our place in the natural world.

The Shire Grant funding will enable us to work with local schools and vulnerable groups to co-create work for the woodland trail. Mapelwell Hall School, Cobden School, Glebe House, the Wellbeing Café, and Albert Street Artists are all taking part. We aim to provide a vehicle for creative practice to help improve mental health and well being for the participants.

Funding from The National Forest Arts Grants will enable us to commission inspiring work for the trail, work with an additional school and run drop-in workshops for the public.

The sculpture trail will encourage people from different backgrounds to come together, be and walk in nature, engage in the creative arts and learn new skills participating in workshops. These are all well proven ways to improve and develop relationships between participants as well as supporting improved mental health and emotional well-being.

We want to encourage people to visit the natural woodland environment and create a meaningful experience for them there so that they look on the woodland as a sanctuary in difficult times, enhancing a sense of place and where, through art, we can all make connections with our social and environmental context, with other people and with the natural world.

Into The Outwoods 2022 Sculpture Trail will be open from June 2nd to July 24th. It is free and open to all, dawn to dusk, at The Outwoods near Loughborough.

Art Exhibitions East Midlands, Art Exhibitions UK, Artspace Art Exhibitions, Artspace Members, Derby, Nottinghamshire, woodland sculpture, Workshops

Crowdfunder Launched for Outwoods Sculpture trail

January 19, 2022 artspace

To donate follow this link…

DONATE

ArtSpace have spent many hours developing plans and submitting funding applications to Arts Council England and Charnwood Borough Council for an Outwoods Sculpture Trail in 2022. Unfortunately we have not been successful with these core funding applications. We have, however, secured a Leicestershire County Council ‘Shire Grant’ of £5000 to run a series of creative workshops with Mapelwell Hall School, Glebe House and Cobden Primary School to co-create three or four woodland installations for the trail.

We are now launching a ‘justgiving’ crowdfunding page in the hope of raising some funds to offer modest commissions to a number of local artists to produce and install work for the trail and create a more substantial experience for the people of Charnwood and Leicestershire.

The proposed theme, ‘Harmony and Healing for Planet and People’, aims to promote personal and community well-being and increase awareness of environmental sustainability and draw links between the two.

Please help us make these plans become a reality . Any donation, however small, will be very helpful and appreciated. All funds raised will be used to build a bigger and better Outwoods trail.

To donate follow this link…

DONATE

Art Exhibitions East Midlands, Art Exhibitions UK, Artspace Art Exhibitions, woodland sculpture, Workshops

ArtSpace @ Timber

August 14, 2019 artspace

‘Earth’ Workshop at Timber Festival

The willow Earth and workshops based around it, initially part of the May 27th ‘Sculpture in the Woods day’, were successfully staged at the Timber festival over the 5th-7th July. We were able to rebuild the earth structure at Timber and run an extended set of workshops there. Visitors were encouraged to write positive healing thoughts on ribbons of muslin to hang in the ‘Earth” – these became symbolic roots to protect the Earth as well as acting like prayer flags to take these messages away on the wind. Adults and children took part in this, writing, then tying their message in the Earth. Over the weekend more strips were added to the installation, a space where visitors could go inside, read positive thoughts and contemplate our place in nature.

It became particularly beautiful in the evening as the sun set through the willow, illuminating the colours in the muslin, as they moved in the wind. We installed some of the tree spheres from the outwoods in adjacent trees, and ran 2 drop in workshops to make small willow earths. These ran over both afternoons and proved very popular. In the mornings we held sewing workshops, sewing meditative words on prayer flags to take away. Both these were for adults and older children, or families working together. Around 130 people wrote on muslin, 60 people made a willow sphere and 10 people sewed prayer flags.

Art Exhibitions East Midlands, Art Exhibitions UK, Artspace Art Exhibitions, woodland sculpture, Workshops

trail workshops attract 100 ‘s …..

August 6, 2019 artspace

ArtSpace workshops at the Into The Outwoods Sculpture Trail were declared a great success. Despite the challenging weather at the sculpture trail opening event, around 700 visitors, adults, children and families, worked together and enjoyed getting creative willow weaving, felting, monoprinting, making woodland mobiles and weaving yarn. Hundreds more attended the ‘Sculpture in the woods day’, with workshops taking place at 5 locations along the trail.

Here are a few photographs to remember the occasion ……

Art Exhibitions East Midlands, Art Exhibitions UK, woodland sculpture, Workshops

Into The Outwoods Sculpture Trail

May 13, 2019 artspace

Next free drop-in Workshops 27th May – Get creative this Spring at the Into The Outwoods Sculpture Trail !

Quick Visitor Survey

If you have visited the Sculpture Trail and/or taken part in our drop-in workshops please complete this quick survey for us. It will help us feedback to our sponsors, help with funding for future projects and help us provide better projects. Thank you very much!

How to find us ….

ArtSpace are inviting the public to come along to the Loughborough Outwoods on 27th May for our ‘Sculpture in the Woods Day’. Get creative in a series of free sculpture drop-in workshops spread along the Sculpture Trail. Eight drop-in trail-based workshops will run between 10.30am and 4.30pm allowing visitors to both make work to take home as well as work on a larger collaborative piece to remain on the trail.

Workshops will aim to inspire, engage and challenge adults, young people and children, enhancing their opportunity to experience and be inspired by the sculpture trail and reconnect with this ancient woodland. Try felting a pebble or contribute to making a fantasy woodland landscape using clay and natural woodland materials. You will also be able to make your own fish from willow withies and much more. The full program for the ‘Sculpture in the Woods Day’ is posted below.

Back to Nature, Sue Barry and Susan West

The workshops are all part of the Into The Outwoods Sculpture Trail, an ArtSpace initiative which will see a 1 1/4 mile sculpture trail weave its way through the Outwoods for 6 weeks, from 27th April to 9th June. Find the ‘Keeper of the Woods’, giant felted bluebells, willow tree spheres, an owl, jumping willow horse and much more!

Twelve commissioned artists created and installed their work in the woods over the Easter holiday period, 15-26th April, allowing visitors to observe the process and talk with the artists. Work is figurative as well as abstract, using natural materials, felt, willow, ceramic and metal.

The opening event for the sculpture trail on the 27th and 28th April was a great success despite the howling gale at the start. It included two days of free public drop-in workshops.

Aspire-Rooted in the Earth, Reaching for the Stars, Nita Rao

… Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle, Susan West

ArtSpace are a Charnwood based group of professional and semi-professional artists that formed in 1997. The Project has been generously supported by Arts Council England, The National Forest and Charnwood Borough Council.

May 27th Workshop Programme

Create a mini landscape 10.30 – 1.00 with Lisa Denham

Come and join in a collaborative workshop and help to create a mini landscape. Add as much or as little as you want using clay and things found in the woods. The woods will be the inspiration, the creatures that could be found there, or ones from your imagination.

Don’t Mess with Mother Earth 10.30 – 1.00 with Jacqueline Palmer

Re-using the material of the piece which is imbued with the elements Air, Water, Fire (Sun) , Earth and Spirit, this workshop expresses respect for the environment and will contribute to its protection through your Memory Bundle.

Earth 10.30 – 1.00 and 2.00 – 4.30 with Nita Rao

Help create roots to symbolically heal and hold our Earth together. Write down positive thoughts on ribbons of muslin and tie them inside the willow ‘Earth’. Wrap branches and twigs to create trees to take home as a reminder of these healing thoughts.

Felting with found objects 10.30 – 1.00 and 2.00 – 4.30 with Susheel Rao

Come and play with felting! Find a fallen stick, a stone or something similar and cover all or part with felt. We will have some pebbles if you prefer, a selection of coloured wools, and warm water to felt it all.

Make a fish with willow withies 10.30 – 1.00 and 2.00 – 4.30 with Jo Sheppard

In this workshop you will use willow withies and recycled materials to make two and three dimensional fish.

Art Exhibitions East Midlands, Art Exhibitions UK, woodland sculpture, Workshops

Charnwood’s Biggest Ever Woodland Arts Event

March 8, 2019 artspace

Into The Outwoods Sculpture Trail

27th April – 9th June

ArtSpace have won national funding to stage the biggest woodland art event to happen in Charnwood for decades, perhaps ever! Mountsorrel artist Nita Rao, main creator behind the event, has undertaken an 8 week ‘artist residency’ in the spectacular woodland setting to wet the public appetite and set the scene. This will be followed by a six week long sculpture trail leading through the woodland featuring artworks from eleven commissioned artists.

Some of Nita’s work at last years Into The Outwoods Sculpture Week.

The Sculpture Trail in Charnwood’s Outwoods, just outside Loughborough, will be opened with a weekend art event, including free creative drop-in workshops for the public, on 27th and 28th April. The Trail will be open until the 9th June. Nita’s residency started on 18th February and will continue until the opening of the Sculpture Trail.

*Last years Into The Outwoods Sculpture Week.*

Mountsorrel based photographer and ArtSpace member Tony Thory, said ‘last year’s smaller event was such a success, and because the public appetite for opportunities to be creative outdoors in beautiful natural surroundings was clearly so large, ArtSpace members decided to go all out and stage a bigger and better event that would last longer and meander through a large part of the woodland.’

As artist in residence, Nita will spend 2 or 3 days a week developing new work in the woods from natural and found materials, taking inspiration from the Outwoods itself.

The eleven commissioned artists will be creating and installing their work on site over the Easter holiday period, 15-26th April, allowing visitors to observe the process and talk with the artists.

Drop-in felt workshop *at last years Into The Outwoods Sculpture Week.*.

The opening event for the Sculpture Trail will include two days of free public drop-in workshops developed in response to work in the trail. During the six week trail further free workshops will be held during a ‘sculpture-in-the-woods day’. Four day-long drop-in trail-based workshops will allow visitors to make work to take home as well as work on a larger collaborative piece to remain on the trail.

Drop-in willow workshop *at last years Into The Outwoods Sculpture Week.*.

The Project has been generously supported by Arts Council England, The National Forest and Charnwood Borough Council. For further updated information see facebook – Into the Outwoods Sculpture Trail.

woodland sculpture, Workshops

Sculpture Trail for Spring 2019 gets Official Support

January 23, 2019 artspace

Following the success of the ‘Into The Outwoods Sculpture Week’ event last spring, the Loughborough Outwoods Management Committee have given their approval to plans for a bigger and better event in spring 2019. The event will include free creative art workshops for the public as well as a six week long ‘Sculpture Trail’ through the woodland itself. The organisers, Loughborough ArtSpace, are now seeking funding to stage the event and make it a reality.
The event will take place next April/May and will follow on from an eight week ‘Artist Residency’ by local Sculptor Nita Rao in February/March. She will be making work in the woodland in response to the environment, temporary ephemeral work as well as more substantial pieces which may form elements of the sculpture trail. In addition ArtSpace hope to commission around 10 artists to make work specifically for the sculpture trail. All work for the trail will be installed mid April and the trail will be officially opened with a weekend event at the end of the easter holidays, 27/28 April, including free creative drop-in workshops for the public.
A full programme of events will be announced as the plans develop. You can also follow the event via facebook : IntoTheOutwwodsSculptureTrail2019.