Wednesday 8 August 2012

Let Devon’s artists show you around the county…

Get creative with your exploration of the West Country and take part in Devon Open Studios - the largest annual arts event in Devon, which runs from 8th to 23rd September. It offers visitors a unique opportunity to see the artist in their own habitat – watch them work, buy their art direct or try their medium yourself in some of the most beautiful, unexplored parts of Devon.

Helpful Holidays is sponsoring the event for another year and has again funded five places through the Emerging Artist Bursary initiative, which aims to nurture and encourage new talent to take the next steps in their career.

Adrian Innocent, our marketing manager, met the bursary winners at Lee Wood Small Holding - a centre linking people with the land through art. The winning artists’ work covers many disciplines from furniture and print making to painting, ceramics and installations.

Watch Adrian talk about our involvement with Devon Open Studios here:



Each winner has also prepared a video. Shelley Castle takes inspiration from her workspace – an extraordinary hexagonal game larder on the Flete Estate in south Devon, where she is artist in residence. Birds and feathers feature heavily in her work, as she explains.

Stephen Bennett is a writer, poet and potter. He incorporates text in his ceramics and the Devon Open Studios will showcase his expressive ceramic heads.

Fi Smart hopes to increase public awareness of printmaking when they visit her studio in west Devon. She is particularly interested in the different processes involved in producing various types of prints and the endless ways they can be combined and modified.

Peter Lanyon combines traditional fine furniture making skills with modern tools and technologies. The shape of the bench you see in his video gives an indication of the resulting style.

Hilary O'Dwyer will hold her open studio at Bicton eaRTH Centre. The wood used for her sculptures undergoes a burning process for preservation.

Take a look at our Devon holiday cottages available during the event, and then use this map and the free event guide to plan which studios you’d like to visit. 

Bookings made via the Devon holiday cottages link on this blog or via the link on the Devon Artist Network website will help fund the Open Studios event next year.