The 2009 Sidney Nolan Trust Sculpture Programme

Funded with a grant from Arts Council, England

Ancient Farm Buildings at The RoddWhilst living at The Rodd in the 1980s Sidney Nolan was a keen collector of antiquities, Japanese bronzes and skeletal artefacts. He had intended that the Sidney Nolan Trust would renovate one of the ancient farm buildings at The Rodd as a museum/gallery for these sculptural items. Mindful of this the Trust is currently working to encourage and facilitate sculpture at The Rodd with the eventual aim of creating the gallery that Sidney had planned.  In 2008 the Trust obtained a Lottery Grant from Arts Council England to enable a sculpture programme for 2008.

The aims of the sculpture programme are to create high quality sculpture experience (participatory and otherwise) led by a sculptor of international standing and inspired by the unique rural location.  This will provide attractive and challenging events and activities which will engage people at all levels in sculpture and cross disciplinary arts. Seminars and discussions with established international artists will complement the practical workshops.

 

Lead Artist: Professor Rod Bugg

Rod Bugg is a sculptor who has shown extensively in the UK, Europe and the Americas. His family home was in Herefordshire and he trained as a sculptor in London and South Wales before completing postgraduate study at Birmingham College of Art. He is currently represented by Galerie de Witte Voet in Amsterdam where he has exhibited regularly for the last twenty years.


His career in higher education spanned nearly 40 years and most recently he was Principal of Wimbledon School of Art and Chair of the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design (CHEAD) before working on research development across the University of the Arts London where he is Emeritus Professor in sculpture and a practice led PhD supervisor.

Rod Bugg

 

The Workshops


There are one and two day workshops for small groups of artists and those interested in making sculpture at any level. Prior experience is not necessary but at the same time more experienced artists will be able to build on their previous experience. Given the small number of participants tuition will be primarily individual.

Sculpture workshops at the Rodd will be focused on construction and working with found objects and materials within and from the landscape. The farm offers access to all manner of materials including wood, stone and clay as well as natural objects and materials of every kind and scale.

Participants will be encouraged to find inspiration for their own sculpture from the Rodd itself, its location, the river and woods, natural forms and the very special sense of place and atmosphere of the farm, its buildings, animals and history.

Young Persons Workshop

5/6th September 2009

Richard Harris' Masterclass Weekend.

Richard Harris was born in Devon in 1954, and has lived in Wales since 1994. He has been involved in making human scale environmental sculpture consistently since 1976.

Harris is a sculptor and principally a manipulator – often on a very large scale – of nature and the landscape. He first came to prominence as a result of permanently- sited works in the Grizedale Forest but has now worked all over the world including Australia, Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Korea and  Cuba.Usually, though not invariably, his materials are natural ones, wood, stone and what he finds in the land, although some sculpture such as Wrexham ‘Two Rivers’ and Wolverhampton  include  steel , which skilfully echo the surrounding configurations  and result in a keenly intelligent ambiguity: perhaps his best work is at the interstices of civil engineering and nature.

 Although his work is not figurative it has strong connections to architecture and lines of the natural and human landscape, creating places for people to move through, over, or to stop a while. He has several works in Wales, at St. Davids and the Welsh National Assembly, Senedd building in Cardiff. His largest work in Wales so far is ’Walking with the Sea’ a vast, lyrical, reorganisation of the foreshore and its hinterland at the Millennium Coastal Park, Llanelli.

Walking with the Sea - Turning with the Sea, Richard Harris - Millenium Coastal Park, Llanelli

 

Woodland Sculpture

Richard Harris Workshop - The Rodd 2008

River Sculpture

Richard Harris Workshop - The Rodd 2009

 

July 2009

Atsuo Okamoto renowned Japanese sculptor came to The Rodd for a months residency.

www.atsuo-okamoto.net

Flying Object Mitsui Bldg, Tsukuba city

UNIT position on a wheat field in March 2001

Puzzle

Flying Object Mitsui Bldg, Tsukuba city

UNIT position in wheat field,

March 2001

M.V. Puzzle

 

27th July 2009

One day workshop with Atsuo Okamoto

Atsuo talked about and discussed his work as one of Japan’s leading sculptors. Working mainly in granite, Atsuo is represented in many international Collections. Participants were invited to paint/sculpt/carve or write on individual parts of a stone sculpture Atsuo created for The Sidney Nolan Trust. This was a unique opportunity to meet and work in a relaxed, informal atmosphere with a top international sculptor. The workshop included all ages and abilities.

Sculpture, Atsuo Okamoto, The Rodd 2009 Sculpture, Atsuo Okamoto, The Rodd 2009

 

"Sculpture and The Rodd"
Masterclass with Professor Rod Bugg


20/21st June 2009

This was a two day workshop for those interested in making sculpture using natural materials found around Rodd Farm and The Rodd.

  

A group of eight began the weekend with an introduction, 'Sculpture and the Land', given by Professor Rod Bugg which followed on from the Peter Murray talk the evening before.  The students then walked up through the farm to The Rodd Wood, with Rod Bugg and Anthony Plant, looking at the natural landscape and gathering materials and inspiration.  On returning to the courtyard work began in earnest and the participants disappeared in different directions to find a suitable place to work and the tools that they needed.   For the next couple of days everyone worked solidly to produce a piece of sculpture by the end of Sunday.  The weekend concluded with a tour of all the work which meant walking from the courtyard right up to the woods again, discussing everyone's work along the way.  A wonderfully diverse collection of pieces, each one having direct reference to the environment that the artist had found themselves in.

This was a weekend course for beginners and practicing sculptors alike.

Workshop sculpture, 2009, Rod Bugg Workshop sculpture, 2009, Charlie Hurcombe Workshop sculpture, 2009, Jim Griffith

 

Art and Land: The Space Between

A talk was given by Peter Murray OBE Executive Director The Yorkshire Sculpture Park in the Tithe Barn on 19th June 2009.  The evening was very well attended with over seventy people coming from as far away as Shrewsbury and Hemel Hempstead.  The talk covered the setting up of The Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 1976 with a thousand pound grant, to the present day and the installation of the latest exhibition of works by Peter Randall-Page.  The talk focused on the siting and scale of the sculpture and then placing them in the landscape.

 

Peter Randall-Page, The Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2009

Visit the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

 

Sculpture Programme 2008

“In Conversation”

14th. November 2008

 A Symposium with international Sculptors.

 

The final (and biggest) event of the 2009 Sculpture Programme, “In Conversation”, was when the Sidney Nolan Trust hosted a major symposium on sculpture in a rural context. The event was organised in two parts and was audio recorded. The first session took place during the day and was directed at curators, sculptors/artists/professional makers and critics. It focused specifically on sculpture in a rural environment including making and curating work.

Speakers that participated included:

Professor Rod Bugg (Chair) and Lead Artist

Professor Mel Gooding, distinguished writer and critic,

Richard Wentworth, internationally renowned sculptor,

Sjoerd Buisman, acclaimed Dutch sculptor working with and from nature

Anne de Charmant of Meadow Arts and Amanda Farr of Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, also contributed.

The second session was open to the public and took place in the afternoon/evening when the key speakers made presentations and were ‘in conversation’ about their work, the future of sculpture, working in a rural context and other themes.

The day was an exciting opportunity to engage in a debate about sculpture and to help foster the future of Sculpture at The Rodd.

 

19th June 08

Hereford College of Art Introduction to Sculpture Course tutor: Rod Bugg

Sculpture and the Great Outdoors

21-22 June 08

Two Day Sculpture Workshop Course tutor: Rod Bugg

28th June

One day workshop for the Jammia Group,

Course tutor: Tania Mosse

19th July

One day workshop for the Jammia Group,

Course tutor:  Sally Mathews

24th July 

David Nash studio visit at Temple Capel Rhiw, Blaenau Ffestiniog

8th August

One day workshop for the Jammia Group from Hurst Green, course tutor:  Tania Mosse

Working with the Land’

23 – 24th August

Masterclass with Richard Harris exploring sculpture in the landscape 

30th August 

One day stone carving, workshop for Ulfah Arts,

Course tutor:  Tania Mosse

 

7 – 13th September

The International sculpture Residency which took place in early September at the Rodd, drew together a core group of sculptors in a programme of activity and discussion.  It provided an opportunity for artists from Europe to work with sculptors from the region and nationally – thinking and making as well as contributing to the generation of ideas about ways to enhance the sculpture programme in 2009.

The aim, over a period of time, is to establish an ongoing commitment to  outstanding sculptors of international repute who can undertake  short residencies at The Rodd enhancing their own work through reflection and activity and making a unique and lasting contribution not just to the Rodd but to their own aspirations and approach to making sculpture. The residency was part of the ongoing sculpture project at the SNT which is designed to make the Trust resources available  to sculptors within the region of the Marches and beyond and to promote sculpture making for young people and the wider community and the West Midlands and Mid Wales. SNT anticipates that the residency will become an important part of the artists’ calendar at the Rodd which will make a lasting mark on the way sculpture in a rural environment is thought about and made. 

The 6 artists who took part this year were:

Rod Bugg (Lead Artist at the SNT)

Curdin Tones

Margaret Wibmer

Richard Harris

Nick Lloyd

Steve Hutton

The artists came from Austria, England, Switzerland and Wales

They are all artists associated with the programme at the SNT this summer or AIAS the International Association of Independent Art Schools.

The intention of the workshop was to open up the resources of the Rodd Farm for the first time as a site for sculptors to work and talk together addressing issues of sculpture, site and location.

The work shown in the green room, the tithe barn, courtyard, its buildings and the farm yard is the outcome of the interaction of the artists and their engagement with this particular location and was available for visitors to the Rodd to see during h.Art week.

September/October workshops for the Royal National College for the Blind Hereford, course tutor:  Lottie O’Leary

 

 

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h.Art

Richard Harris

Hereford College Art

Royal National College for the Blind


 

International Sculpture residency

Work by Richard Harris during 2008 Sculpture Residency

Work by Rod Bugg 2008 Sculpture Residency

Curdin Tones 2008 Sculpture Residency at The Rodd

Nick Lloyd wooden sculpture 2008 Sidney Nolan Trust residency

Sweet chesnut sculpture, Richard Harris