Arts & Antiques pages.qxp_Layout 1 17/06/2021 13:37 Page 26
MENDIP TIMES
Where the wild deer run free THE Somerset Guild of Craftsmen is proud to showcase its “maker of the month”, stained glass artist Clare Maryann Green. Clare is based deep in the heart of Exmoor where, in her own words: “the wild deer run free and owls hoot from the woods” and nature clearly resonates in all her work. It is easy to be inspired in such beautiful Clare Maryann Green Somerset surroundings. The guild’s gallery in Broad Street in Wells is the ideal venue to see Clare’s work in person, but she also has a presence on all social media sites. When she's not busy creating her renowned stained glass windows and hangings, Clare works hard at her smallholding where she tends more than 60 sheep. The lambing season is over and she is now busy shearing, using the wool for yet more crafting. The creatures she sees daily are prevalent in her beautiful stained glass. Clare's passion lies with windows. She says her mantra is: “I want to glaze beautiful buildings with joyous windows.” She has recently finished a superb commission for Williton Community Hospital.
PAGE 26 • MENDIP TIMES • JULY 2021
Pilgrimages can start at home
SCULPTOR Ian Marlow is looking forward to welcoming visitors back to the studio and sculpture garden in Buckland Dinham, near Frome, after the restrictions of the last year. Ian will be opening the studio and sculpture garden in July for the Frome Festival from July 3rd-11th. On show in the exhibition will be new sculptures in stainless steel as well as a series of limited-edition bronze sculptures based on pilgrimages that he is currently working on. The first of these is Pilgrim – The Reader. Number one of the edition was exhibited at Delamore Arts in Devon in June where it immediately sold, with the second bronze going to the sculpture exhibition at Beaulieu which opened on June 19th. Each edition in the series features a person in a different activity while seated on animal or bird. Ian said: “Not all pilgrimages involve travelling to a religious site. Music, art, literature, meditation, nursing, walking, reading, sports and 1,000 other routes can all take the person on a spiritual journey. “Each person is unique, so the journey they take must be appropriate for them. That journey, represented in the first sculpture in the series by the horse, is an abstract construct far larger than the person who travels along its path. “Nor is the pilgrim in control of the route it follows. The pilgrim in the sculpture is concentrating on the words contained within the book he is reading. Those words are the ‘Pilgrim Way’; they are both the path and the journey. They alone navigate the course, dictate the stops along the way and how long the journey will take.”
