"Swarm" at Rydal Hall

 

Right, an update after a while, and a bit on a recent exhibition we've been involved with.  Our friend Clare Humphries over in Ambleside, Lake District, is regularly involved, via the Lakes Collective, with organising arts and sculptures events at Rydal Hall.  "Swarm at Rydal Hall" sounds slightly like a concept album from the 70's, but bear with us...

 

 

Last year, just before the kids moved in, Amy contributed a piece to the Sculpture Trail for 2014, and were invited back to enter some work for a big collaborative piece for 2015, on the theme of "Swarm".  So some slightly frantic building work in the early part of the year, a slightly last-minute day off to get it the lakes, and here we are in Rydal.

 

 

Rydal Hall is a very nice stately home, with lovely gardens, woodland, camping, and a great relationship with the arts.

 

A shot from the Sculpture Trail, which not only grows every year, but weathers and blends with the surroundings too, making some nicely subtle artworks to look at and find.

 

 

"Swarm" was set around this rather nice tree on the approach road to the camping area, opposite the paths to the waterfall.

 

 

A few shots of some of the brilliant artworks contributed by a variety of artists and sculptors, school groups and community art schemes...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so onto our work.  Amy decided to produce a swarm of bees which could be strung up from the branches.

 

 

 

The bees were designed to be simple, slightly abstract shapes, fashioned from baked Fimo and ironed bubble-wrap, hanging from very fine wire.

 

 

 

 

My own take was slightly darker, a test really for a project I've been thinking about for a while, creatures/animals made up of machine parts.  In this case, a spider and flies made up from leftover, upcycled models and toys from previous projects like "The Britannia Model Village".  The spider is mainly made of tanks, helicopters, and railway tracks.

 

Its nice to do something 'art' as opposed to just 'photography' every now again, and the show is running for a little while over at Rydal- the other sculptures (particularly the spider made from fallen bits of tree) are fantastic and well worth a look, as is the sculpture trail in the grounds.  Big thanks due to Clare, Rydal Hall, and the Lakes Collective.  We've been asked to contribute to a show next year as well, but the theme is under wraps for the time being...