SOMERSET Art Weeks returns from 13th to 28th September with an enthralling range of art works by painters, printmakers, sculptors, potters, print-makers and multi-disciplinary creators. From the artists studios at Watchet’s East Quay to a music and sound-scape installation in the atmospheric grounds of Shave Farm, Brewham, there is a dazzling display of the talent and imagination of Somerset’s vibrant arts community.
Lachrymae at Shave Farm has a particular significance, serving partly as a memorial to artist Rowena Pearce, who died earlier this year, and a 25th anniversary celebration of this powerful work by Frome-based composer Helen Ottaway.
In 2000, Rowena Pearce, Helen Ottaway and sound designer Alastair Goolden presented a new movement-generated gallery installation at Shave Farm for Somerset Art Week. Lachrymae was prompted by Rowena reading Ted Hughes’ translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, particularly the story of Phaeton whose sisters are turned into trees as they mourn the loss of their brother. This story of tears and transformation inspired sculptural hangings made from glass, rag paper and algae, and music – fragments of laments for voices and violin. The artists created a space for people to explore and to experience continually changing shapes and sound combinations caused by their movement.
Over the last 25 years Lachrymae has appeared in different forms: as films, live performance, a virtual sound walk, a CD and from 2013 as an outdoor installation, which has toured to Devon, Dorset, Somerset and the Dutch Island of Terschelling for the Oerol Festival. The first outdoor Lachrymae was commissioned by Wandsworth Festival and produced by Artsadmin for The Shimmy, a one-day event alongside the river Thames in Wandsworth Park.
Rowena worked with fellow artist Tim Millar to create larger sculptural hangings – Lachrymatories (tear jars, used by Romans to collect tears to place in the coffin of a loved one). The lachrymatories were cast and the installation was constructed and trialed at Shave Farm.
Watchet’s East Quay, an always stimulating site with exhibitions, artists studios, an excellent bookshop and a wonderful cafe, will be an important destination in the west of the county. The resident studio artists will be opening their doors and inviting the public to enter into their studios, see what they’ve been making and find out more about their creative processes.
Artist Paul Newman, whose many roles include being director of Dorset Visual Arts and leading the visual arts programme at The Sherborne, the arts centre in the former Sherborne House, will be taking part in Somerset Open Studios with an exhibition of his own works at Ilminster Arts Centre as well as curating a special 30th anniversary exhibition for Somerset Art Works, Lustre, at Taunton’s Musgrove Hospital.
Paul’s exhibition of 30 birds, from A Year, a Month and a Week, is part of Canopy Tales in the arts centre cafe. It’s the first time that a selection of these birds have been shown together, as he had originally intended.
Pictured are some of the lachrymatories and one of Paul Newman’s beautiful bird illustrations.