The Cornwall Blog

Starting tomorrow, the 9th of June, and running until the 11th June 2016 is the Royal Cornwall Show. This annual event really draws the crowds! Every year the visitors are around 120,000, not bad for the show that starting in Truro over 200 years ago as a ploughing competition between farmers! Today, alongside the best livestock and animals you will find Cornish wrestling, flower shows, the food tent (with free samples!!), show jumping, a steam fair, dog show, local businesses, health and beauty, the list goes on! Located at the show ground just outside Wadebridge, the RCS often boasts a royal appearance. A great place to head if you want to see the cream of Cornwall and enjoy the buzz of a crowd! Find out more about the Royal Cornwall Show .  

It seems you can't move for festivals these days - and Cornwall is no different! Having said that they are loads of family friendly fun. This month, Sunday 15th May, we have Lostfest , in my neck of the woods, Lostwithiel. The event raises money for FLEET, a charity who provide equipment for emergency services in Cornwall. For those who don't know, Lostwithiel is a charming ancient stannary town which is nestled quietly a little in land in a wooded valley. Well, normally quiet, but come Lostfest the streets are buzzing with life. Expect delicious food lining the streets, traditional crafts, handmade gifts, medieval re-enactments, a vintage fair and a couple of local bands. From by the river, to under the trees, the church yard, museum, the shops and cafes - all over this little town fun is unleashed. Lostwithiel is such a pretty place to visit, just up the hill you will find the Restormel Castle. There are two parks that follow the Fowey river and the Tudor bridge is a...

With ceramics by Adam Buick and Rowena Brown 25 March to 6 May 2016 Porthminster Autumn by  Emma Jeffryes New Craftsman St Ives open their 2016 season with an exhibition of work by St Ives artist Emma Jeffryes, Jerwood Makers prize winner Adam Buick and ceramic artist Rowena Brown. In recent years Emma Jeffryes has established herself as one of St Ives’ most distinctive and well-loved painters. Her naive paintings of the town’s unique landmarks and vistas draw on a palette of vivid ocean colours and her lively brushwork conveys the vibrant energy of this busy coastal community. Ceramicist Adam Buick, who has shown at New Craftsman since 2010, was one of only five artists selected for the prestigious Jerwood Makers prize in 2013. His beautifully understated, Korean inspired Moon Jars are created from clays, grit and metal ores sourced directly from the land around him and focus on the individual’s subjective experience of landscape. Ceramics by Rowena Brown...

  From the 28 November 2015 to 16 January 2016 the renowned St Ives ceramic studio Leach Pottery are hosting an exhibition. Douglas Fitch and Hannah McAndrew present A Love Affair with Clay, these established potters have lectured in Japan and the USA and are presenting their new work. Now partners in marriage as well as ceramics, much to the delight of the pottery community, you can see their shared influences of English pottery. They share their time between Hannah’s studio in a quiet corner of rural Galloway, Scotland, and Douglas’s studio in mid Devon. Hannah loves pots that have a purpose and Douglas decorates his with appliqué decoration or sgrafitto, using traditional slips made from local materials. Founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, the Leach Pottery, St Ives, is among the most respected and influential potteries in the world. Over the last hundred years it has forged the shape of Studio Pottery in the UK and beyond. So for somethi...

Opening August Bank Holiday Monday and on show throughout September, The Picture Room at Newlyn Art Gallery presents Stupid Beauty, a selling exhibition by Contemporary Landscape painter Gareth Edwards RWA. A graduate of Goldsmiths College, a member of the Newlyn Art Society and an elected RWA Academician, London born Edwards is a tutor at the Newlyn School of Art and a resident of St Ives’ prestigious Porthmeor Studios. This new collection of small, exquisitely coloured oil paintings reflect the artist’s personal memory of places such as Nice, Mousehole, Lindisfarne, Antibes, Puglia, Kefalonia, Camargue, the Euphrates, Essaouira, Bergen, Iona and the Isle de Rhe. Created in a one-off performance of energised, wet into wet knife painting, these diminutive yet vibrantly powerful works are indicative of the artist’s intensely personal relationship with land and the subjective, sensorial experience of time and place. The show will also i...

In January of this year, talented St Ives artist and Porthmeor Studios resident Lucie Bray died unexpectedly at the age of 39. An outstanding sea and landscape painter, Lucie held her first ever solo exhibition at New Craftsman Gallery St Ives in 2011 and has held regular annual shows at the gallery since that time. Lucie was working on her 2014 show before her death and this May, in collaboration with Lucie’s estate, New Craftsman will be going ahead with the exhibition as planned. Made up of both new and recent works, the event will be a celebration of Lucie’s talent and passion for the Cornish land and seascape. The exhibition will include contributions from key members of the St Ives arts community, in the form of handwritten submissions to be exhibited alongside the paintings, which respond to Lucie’s paintings and celebrate the subjects which inspired Lucie and her working practice. Lucie was extremely proud to have been part of the ar...

The Leach Pottery St Ives presents an exhibition of more than 80 pots by West Cornwall based potter Peter Swanson. An independent studio potter for the last four decades, Swanson is entirely self-taught and his distinctive and highly accomplished works have established him as one of the UK’s most respected contemporary potters. This exhibition marks 40 years since he moved from Hampshire to Cornwall to open a family run pottery at Penbeagle, St Ives in 1974. Swanson works in stoneware and porcelain using locally sourced clays and produces his own ash glazes from various natural materials such as oak, beech, lavender and granite dust. With a style inspired by Leach and set very much in the Anglo-Oriental tradition, he has travelled extensively in Japan and Korea, absorbing ideas that have greatly enriched his working practice, and has most recently visited wood-firing potters working in Australia’s NSW. In this brand new collection of work S...

"Tall Ships and Small Ships" - by John Dyer, the Festival's "Artist in Residence" A picture is telling thousands of words as school children across the country knuckle down to interpreting an oil-based celebration of one of this year’s great world Maritime events – the Falmouth to Royal Greenwich Tall Ships Regatta. Artist in residence for the Regatta, John Dyer, has unveiled his fireworks and fiesta painting, based on memories of the last Falmouth Tall Ships Festival in 2008, which, with the help of story-tellers, performers, a playwright and a hip-hop poet, is getting youngsters deeply immersed in their own paint and salty tales. Damian Dibben, creator of the world famous “The History Keepers” time-travel series is part of the creative team for the BIG Art & Storytelling Tall Ships Project says, “This is a brilliant, original competition. John Dyer’s picture is bursting with character, life and colour – I can’t wait to see what stories it inspire...

Beginning their 2014 exhibition schedule, Leach Pottery St Ives present and exhibition of work by British potter Mike Dodd showing from the 15th February to the 30th March 2014. A largely self-taught artist whose work has received widespread critical acclaim, Dodd studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge and a one year ceramics course at Hammersmith College of Art before setting up his first studio in Sussex in 1968. In 1975, along with friend and potter Peter Schofield, he founded the Cider House Pottery at West Cornwall’s Godolphin estate, where they built a small wood-fired climbing kiln, and later constructed and worked with a traditional Thai kiln. Dodd remained in Cornwall until 1980, when he travelled to the central jungles of Peru to build a wood-fired Anagama kiln for an Amuesha Community, in a project funded by Oxfam and Survival International. He now works from his studio near Glastonbury in Somerset. Producing work that has been referred to as ‘pottery without ego’, ...

From the 15th to 30th November 2013, Lighthouse Gallery present an exhibition of new works by two exceptional painters whose works draw inspiration from the landscape and its wildlife. Catherine Hyde trained in Fine Art Painting at Central School of Art, London. She is well known for her symbolic and richly atmospheric paintings of hares, stags, owls and fish whose journeys through her broad, glowing canvases bind the elements, seasons and beauty of the landscape together. Catherine recently illustrated Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy's original fairytale ‘The Princess’ Blankets’ and Saviour Pirotta’s ‘Firebird’ which were both nominated for the Kate Greenaway Award for distinguished illustration. Ingebjorg Smith is a Masters graduate of the Glasgow School of Art and has worked as an illustrator for BBC Scotland, Gaelic Children's TV, Canongate Press and designed posters, sets and costumes for theatre productions Wildcat and Halaballoo. Painting from her studio amid the...

From 19th October to 15th November 2013 New Craftsman Gallery are presenting an exhibition of paintings by Colin Orchard, member of the Royal Society of British Artists, along with sculpture by Joanna Wason. Born in Surrey in 1935, Orchard had no formal art training and began his career as a messenger in the art department of The Times and then as a typographer and layout artist. He also went on to produce humorous illustrations for The Times, Shell, ICI, WH Smith, Sony and other major companies. From 1963 to 1973 he was Art Director for Letraset International, then freelanced as a graphic designer until 1983 when he moved to St Ives and became a full time painter. He has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions and galleries including David Messum, Medici, Walker Galleries, Ainscough and New Grafton. In 2007 he was elected a member of the RBA upon winning the Artist award at their exhibition that same year. Orchard’s work is strongly influenced by Impressionist pain...

Painter Mark Preston has been drawn to the rugged, dramatic coastline between St Ives and Lands End since he was a fine art student in the 1990s. For the past year, Mark’s work has focused on capturing the beauty of the land and sea of West Cornwall throughout the four seasons. This exhibition of forty works, showing from the 6th to 21st September 2013, explores the Duchy in all its glory; sun, rain, storms, spring flowers, winter seas, enticing beaches and wild landscapes. Although based in Derbyshire, Preston is a devoted painter of the Cornish land, coast and sea, fascinated by the way in which the changing seasons affect these spectacular places. Inspired to become a landscape painter through many painting trips to the Peak District, Cornwall and Scotland with his artist father, Rex Preston, Mark paints outdoors using acrylics, with relatively little time spent in the studio. Direct contact with the landscape and natural elements are essential for his painting. Working wi...

First Ever Cornwall Ceramics Trail Launches to coincide with the St Ives September Festival 2013. The history of ceramics in Cornwall is of great importance to the art history of both this region and the wider world, and attracts students, academics and cultural visitors from across the UK and internationally. Alongside established public venues such as the Leach Pottery St Ives and a wealth of private ceramics galleries, the county supports a broad community of independent ceramicists working from private studios. Timed to coincide with the St Ives September Festival 2013, from Saturday 14th to Saturday 28th September this year the first ever Ceramics Trail Cornwall will see potters and ceramicists opening up their working studios to the public. Throughout the event fans of contemporary Cornish pottery will have a unique opportunity to meet and engage with ceramicists, see them at work in their pottery studios and purchase works direct. French born potter Michel François, who...

I was not aware that framing a picture is an artform all of its own, but take a look at any badly framed photo or painting, and you will see what I mean...  Stable Art in Bodmin, Cornwall, provides an excellent framing service which I can recommend from experience, they have framed some beautiful prints for me with the end result looking very professional and chic. They have also framed some artwork that my husbands graphic design studio produced which really compliments the piece and is now proudly displayed on their walls. Stable Art are not just picture framing, they also have an extensive range of art supplies. The shot above shows a corner of their stock which includes Unison, Daler Rowney, Conte, Derwent and Voltaire along with pencils, pastels, graphite, charcoals and drawing pads... The list really could go on! When you visit Stable Art you will see their beautiful extension which has enabled them to expand their art material selection, above you can see some of thei...

The Tallest Horse on Earth is a puppet show for children and quirky grownups. Set in a patchwork world of string, papier-mâché and toy tractors, The Tallest Horse on Earth is the story of Tim. Tim is a little boy and is the proud owner of The Tallest Horse on Earth! Or so he thinks... When Tim embarks on an adventure, he has only one trusty companion in mind. With puppetry, live music and a good measure of giant smashing, expect an epic adventure of small proportions.. See their website here . Performed by Seamas Carey & Alex Heane Directed by Jim Carey Written by Callum Mitchell Designed by Gabrielle Fromentin Puppet Consultant Craig Johnson Tickets £7 adult, £4 child, £5 concession, £18 family 20th April 2013 The Centre, Newlyn Book online here , or call 0845 094 0428.

Open Studios Cornwall is a unique opportunity to discover the people behind the Cornish art scene, visit studios in breathtaking locations, and buy an original piece of artwork direct from the artist. This year the free event showcases 209 artists and craftspeople from across the length & breadth of Cornwall who will open their studios to the public. With its heady mix of established artists, recent graduates, traditional and contemporary art and host of creative disciplines, Open Studios Cornwall is the largest and most diverse arts event in the county. Work by award­‐winning lighting and furniture designer Tom Raffield The Open Studios Cornwall experience will encourage you to discover the art of surfboard shaping, get inspired by incredible home studios, and to get up close and personal with Cornish art. There will be artist run workshops throughout the event, offering the opportunity to learn new skills, ranging from how to throw a pot to monoprinting. For those ...

A new play by Bill Scott, with lyrics and music by Tom Adams. Don’t miss Cornwall’s favourite alternative to pantomime this winter, when Miracle Theatre bring ‘the ultimate monster-mash up’ to Bude’s Parkhouse Centre on Thursday 20th December! Renowned for their surreal and comic re-workings of well known and loved stories, Miracle’s inventive approach to FRANKENSTEIN!  promises to tickle funny bones and have audiences jumping out of their seats! Originally a Victorian novel, famously a black and white movie starring Boris Karloff and the inspiration for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Miracle presents its Frankenstein! as a musical performed by the Ffitch Repertory Players in 1947. As with past Miracle shows, The Revenge of Rumpelstiltskin and Aladdin, audiences will enjoy backstage glimpses of the intrepid players as they struggle to create their terrifying vision of the future - a world where the rich and famous have paid huge sums to have ...

If you are looking for something special for all the family this summer – look no further! Over the past two months Cornwall’s Miracle Theatre has been touring around the South West delighting audiences with their current show ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ and now it's heading your way. Miracle Theatre has once again teamed up with the King Harry Ferry and the Fal River Team to offer audiences the chance to take a special ‘showboat’ from Falmouth to see The Importance of Being Earnest on Wednesday 8th & Thursday 9th August at St Mawes Castle. The journey across the picturesque estuary will include a complimentary pint of ale from the local Skinners brewery range, a sunset cruise back to port, all hosted by the ‘Miracles cabin crew’ (Kyla Goodey and Sally Crooks of Trifle Gathering). This year the Showboats also marks the start of Miracle’s season of ‘Theatre around the Fal River’ this summer. “We are so pleased to be working with the Fal River team to run ou...

Miracle Theatre has gone into production of a feature film based on its recent sell-out show Tin, commissioned by the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site. Using an imaginative combination of digital technology and hand-made models, the Redruth-based company has now commenced production of a micro-budget feature film of this story of love and money, opera and tin mining. The film will feature the original cast of the theatre production, which includes opera icon Ben Luxon. They will be joined by other actors, including Jenny Agutter (The Railway Children, Call the Midwife, Outside Bet) and Dudley Sutton (Lovejoy, Weekend Retreat) who will play Abraham Bennett, one of the devious bankers. Jenny Agutter said of the project “I loved the production of Tin, which I saw at the Count House Botallack in a domed tent on the coast. This was an extraordinary and appropriate setting for the play, surrounded by ruined tin mines, one could easily imagine this fantastic tale taking place. The thea...

Bodmin Moor View by Joanna Commings, acrylic on watercolour paper, 94 x 71 cm Exhibiting in North Cornwall is the artist Joanna Commings. She was born in London and grew up watching her artist father paint and draw, and then began trying to achieve results herself, exploring different approaches and techniques. Her main interest in the early days was life drawing and portraiture. Receding Tide Polzeath by Joanna Commings, acrylic and oil on watercolour paper, 78 x 102 cm Later, while living in Kent and then East Sussex, Joanna frequently walked on the South Downs and over the Weald, where she began to develop an interest in the subject of landscape and how to express it. It was her move to Cornwall in 2002, joining the talented Cornish artists, which really unleashed her fascination with painting the landscape in all its moods, alongside a continuing passion for portraiture. View her website here .