Ian Scott Massie : May 2012

This newsletter looks at Land Art and at one of its first galleries - Grizedale Forest.  There's also mention of one of its finest practitioners - Andy Goldsworthy. Plus news, events, reviews and art courses coming up.
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Grizedale Forest – Cumbria’s pioneering Land Art Gallery

Taking a Wall For A Walk, Andy Goldsworthy

In the 1980s and 1990s Grizedale Forest in Cumbria established a sculpture trail. Artists were invited to submit ideas for commissions, and the chosen few were given studio space at the Forest’s own studios and help in creating their vision. Some of the finest sculptors from across the world emerged as a result of this and similar initiatives producing, for the most part, work which was intended to be ephemeral, lasting only as long as the weather and materials allowed it to.


Chieftain in a Hot Spot, Andy Frost

I first came across Grizedale in a television documentary and finally went there on my honeymoon, staying in the forest in a borrowed VW camper van. On that first visit we saw work by Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash and Sally Matthews  among others and the effect of seeing work in this enormous outdoor gallery, a huge Cumbrian valley of trees, fields and distant skylines, was a revelation. Over the years we returned with our children to camp and walk in Grizedale. We brought our friends to see the forest and we return there still twenty years later.


Wild Boar Clearing, Sally Matthews

Inevitably I began to experiment in making sculpture outdoors myself. On beaches, in forests, by the river at home in Masham I built dry stone creations, sculpted mud and clay, arranged leaves, sticks and stones and, sometimes, photographed the result.

The artist whose ideas most inspired me was the remarkable Andy Goldsworthy whose work can be seen all over the world both in galleries and in the wild. His 2007 exhibition for Yorkshire Sculpture Park was simply wonderful. The underground galleries became caves of stone. musty scented constructions of logs, rooms hung with curtains of stalks and, in the grounds he suspended tree trunks between dry stone walls.

  
Hanging Trees, Andy Goldsworthy

  
Seven Spires, Andy Goldsworthy

Goldsworthy continues to work all over the world, expanding and developing the various themes which have inspired him throughout his life and producing books, photographs events and exhibitions.  

The next time you have a few moments somewhere beautiful gather some leaves together and arrange them on a rock, select some wood or build a drystone cairn. It is amazing how quickly you will find yourself drawn in to this simple, primal and beautiful world of natural sculpture. Leave what you have made behind and you will probably find, as I often have, that the next time you return to the place, someone else’s hand will have added to your work or created something fresh in its place. It is art for everyone which nearly always finds  a willing response.

   
Floating Leaf, Ian Scott Massie  
 
Brick on Granite, Ian Scott Massie