The landscape and history of Penwith has been inspiring artists for many years, and our Seeing the Landscape project seeks to inspire everyone to appreciate and explore Penwith through art and creativity! This summer has seen a number of activities relating to this project, and we're pleased to be able to share information on them.
We began back in early June with our exhibition of images of Sancreed Beacon and Tony's Wood taken by the children of Mousehole School. For this activity, the children were each given their own camera for a morning visit to the Beacon and encouraged to take photographs of whatever interested them in this varied landscape. Each child was then asked to pick their favourite image they had taken - no mean feat as some of them had taken over one hundred pictures during their morning out! In their own words they also explained what they liked about their image. The favourite images were then put on display at the Solomon Browne Memorial Hall in June at the same time as the G7 summit - and many of the children also shared messages for the G7 attendees. The idea for this project was suggested by Lynne Jones OBE, and it demonstrates the benefits of getting children outside and appreciating nature - and the many valuable insights they have about it too! The exhibition at the Solomon Browne Memorial Hall was also supported by the Rights and Opportunities foundation. We very much hope to display the images elsewhere in the future, but you can also see all the images with the children's accompanying words here on our website - click here to view them. (Image above right is by Sunny).
Later in June another wonderful exhibition took place at Sancreed Village Hall. This showcased works from local artists, who had attended a walk through the Penwith landscape from Chapel Carn Brea with the team from Mayes Creative. Inspired by our historical landscape and the ancient settlement of Carn Euny, they then created a range of wonderful artworks that were the stars of this exhibition. From paintings to poetry, and ceramics to photography, the landscape of Penwith was celebrated through a range of artistic methods and viewpoints. We aim to get a gallery of images from the exhibition online very soon, and hope to showcase some of these artworks again in a planned exhibition for next summer. A big thank you to the artists who gave their time and creative skills to bring this exhibition to life!
The start of the summer holidays also saw an opportunity for others to explore aspects of Penwith through art, with the start of our summer family art workshops devised and led by artist Sue Kinley. Families and Penwith residents have embraced their creativity to make wonderful works of art inspired by some of the details that give Penwith it's unique character - they have painted colourful butterfly inspired pieces, constructed their own mini Cornish Hedge inspired display, and taken home magnets and mobiles celebrating the patterns and colours seen in our lichens. Most recently the 
attendees created prints inspired both by Penwith's wider landscape and small details such as leaves and grasses.
A massive thank you to everyone who has joined us to be inspired by the beauty of Penwith! For more on our work with art, visit our Art and Activities page.
