Ground Works programme
June 2021
With the cancelling of the Ground Works and related Landlinks events in May 2020 due to the virus restrictions, we are rescheduling to June/July 2021.
Our new, revised programme is planned to include artists, writers, poets and naturalists all of whom will offer their artworks, thoughts and ideas about environmental matters and concerns.
Please keep checking the site for details.
Nailsworth Midsummer Tree Walk
Walking the Land
with artists Richard Keating and Rachel McDonnell
venue: Nailsworth Civic Centre, Old Market, GL6 0DU
date: Wednesday 23rd June
time: 19:00
tickets: Free but a £4 materials charge on the day
book here
Nailsworth Town Council are developing a five year tree planting plan. You are invited to walk with local artist group, Walking the Land to consider trees and attachment to landscape. You’ll be invited to share your ideas, stories and feelings about trees in and around Nailsworth and join us as we consider where new trees could be planted.
We’ll walk for two to three miles and aim to finish the walk by 8.30. Strong shoes recommended.
We regret that the route is unsuitable for wheelchair access.
Well behaved dogs welcome.
Donations to Tree Aid
Living with Trees
with Robin Walter
venue: Three Storeys
date: Thursday 24th June
time: 19:00
tickets: £6.00, £5 Concessions
book here
and also available from Yellow Lighted Bookshop, Nailsworth
We’re very pleased to have environmentalist & writer for Common Ground Robin Walter, coming talk at Ground Works. Robin is a writer, forester, arborist, environmental campaigner and musician. He worked as a woodland officer for the Woodland Trust for many years and contributed to Arboreal, Little Toller’s 2016 anthology of woodland writing.
View Robin’s videos here
The Plot Café and Bar will be open
BOOK NOW
The Apple’s Rounded World
performed by poet Adam Horovitz and fiddle player Becky Dellow
venue: Three Storeys
date: Friday 25th June
time: 19:00
tickets: £10
book here
We’re very sorry to announce that due to a family emergency Adam and Becky’s performance is cancelled and ticket money refunded
The Apple’s Rounded World is a unique guided tour of the Slad Valley in poetry and music. Originally commissioned for Laurie Lee’s centenary, is a non-stop lyrical guide to the valley performed by poet Adam Horovitz and fiddle player Becky Dellow.
It features poetry and prose from the Slad Valley written by Laurie Lee, Frank Mansell, Horovitz and his poet parents Frances and Michael, and covers nearly every decade from 1914 onwards.
Woven in among the poetry and prose are English folk tunes, many of which would have been played by Laurie Lee.
“The tunes selected to complement the poems are from the traditional English dance music repertoire with the majority chosen from an old handwritten manuscript book which belonged to my great great grandfather, thought to date from the mid-1850s,” says Becky Dellow.
“This hand-stitched and well-worn tune book was passed on to me by my grandfather, Charles Hampton in the 1990s. During the late 1920s and early 1930s Charles and Laurie Lee met regularly to play fiddle together and most likely would have played tunes from this book.”
Adam Horovitz is a poet, editor and performer based in a thumb offshoot of the Slad valley. He has released two collections of poetry, Turning (2011) and The Soil Never Sleeps (2018). He released a memoir, A Thousand Laurie Lees (2014), for Laurie’s centenary and appears on Cerys Matthews’ album We Come From the Sun (2021). His next collection of poetry, Love and Other Fairy Tales, will be released later this year.
Becky Dellow has been playing fiddle semi-professionally on the folk scene for the last three decades. She has appeared on other people’s albums previously, but releases her debut solo album, Take Her Out and Air Her, later this year. She recently got her doctorate in Musicology, focussing on the tune book of her great great-grandfather Thomas Hampton.
We’re very sorry to announce that due to a family emergency Jane and Kim’s ‘Conversation with Artists’ is cancelled and ticket money refunded
Earthbound
In Conversation with Artists Jane Ponsford and Kim Norton
venue: Three Storeys
date: Saturday 26 June
time: 17:00
An Illustrated talk/discussion/conversation on the Earthbound exhibition featuring new works by artist/papermaker Jane Ponsford and ceramicist/curator Kim Norton as part of ‘Ground Works’ project in Three Storeys,
Their unique collaboration resulted in unexpected responses to their local landscapes. The studies and resulting objects, artefacts and pieces represent an artistic conversation about ‘Earth’. This Conversation with Jane and Kim looks at 18 months of exchanges and sharing. Cafe/bar will be open
Earthed: Papermaking inspired by place
with Jane Ponsford
venue: Three Storeys
date: Monday 28th June
time: 11:00 -15:00
tickets: £60.00 includes materials
We’re very sorry to announce that due to a family emergency Jane and Kim’s conversation is cancelled and ticket money refunded
In this workshop led by artist Jane Ponsford, you will learn about the history and traditions of papermaking, transform cotton rag pulp into sheets of paper or into different forms, colour and stain them with natural inks, dyes & locally gathered pigments. Explore the medium through a practical workshop with demonstrations and individual attention.
- Use of vat, mould and deckle.
- Sheet forming using cotton rag and other pulp.
- Build other materials into the paper.
- Colour: stain newly formed paper with inks and pigments.
- Shape / texture: simple embossing and making and using improvised moulds.
Participants will go home with several sample sheets of paper and some experimental 2D and 3D pieces. You will also have had an introduction to the medium allowing you to take your papermaking further using various methods.
Suitable for all abilities. A handout includes lists of materials, equipment and suppliers
The Plot Café will be available for drinks and snacks
The Art of Walking with Walking the Land artists
venue: The Pavilion
The Museum in the Park, Stratford Park, Stroud. GL5 4AF
date: Saturday 10th July
time: 10:30
tickets: £5, £4 concessions
book here
Walking the Land artists will take you on a 2 hour walk and offer you different ways of creatively encountering and responding to the landscape. You’ll need notebooks, drawing material, a camera and/or a smart phone, strong shoes and possibly sunscreen.
Mush, Muck and Brambles – the deep ecology of Stroud and Stroud Green
with performance artist and creative ecologist Richard Layzell
venue: The Pavilion
The Museum in the Park
Stratford Park
Stroud
Gloucestershire
GL5 4AF
date: Saturday 10th July
time: 14:00
tickets: £5, £4 concessions
book here
Renowned performance artist and creative ecologist Richard Layzell has been exploring the boundaries of the urban and the rural since the beginning of 2021. These have included the abundant car parks and common land of Stroud and the patches of land that reveal biodiversity in Stroud Green in London. He has many stories to tell.
www.thenaming.org
SOUND WORKS an evening performance by Stroud based collaborative sound project, Konstruct.
venue: The Pavilion
The Museum in the Park
Stratford Park
Stroud
Gloucestershire
GL5 4AF
date: Saturday 10th July
time: 19:00
tickets: £7.50, £5 concessions
book here
Musicians Andrew Heath, Simon McCorry and Phonsonic (Alexander Caminada) will be creating a live soundscape of elements found in our local landscape. Using field recordings, acoustic and electronic instruments and audio manipulations, Konstruct will construct a unique and improvised work.
For most of us the environment and the landscape around us are inseparable from the sounds we experience there. There are the obvious and joyful sounds of birds singing or the satisfying crunch of leaves underfoot, but there are many sounds that are more subtle, less defined, yet, they form a vital part of that experience. Using field recordings of the places we visit, we can create a version that allows us to personalise our experience, emphasise certain sounds and bring in other elements to help us to convey our emotions. It allows us to place the listener into our experience.