One window closes and another opens as Alison Holmans former creator and Manager of the Eynsham Art Window continues to support Eynsham artists and the West Oxfordshire Villages and countryside by supporting the Forever Fields Art Project.
Forever Fields 2023 is creating an Art Archive of 3,400 acres of threatened Oxfordshire countryside.
Open to all adults and children, individuals and groups. No previous artistic experience necessary, we want YOUR creative response to our local landscape - Begbroke, Bladon, Botley, Cassington, Church Hanborough, Cumnor, Eynsham, Farmoor, Freeland, Glympton, Long Hanborough, Tackley, Woodstock, Wootton, Yarnton.
Alison explains: ‘As soon as I heard about this project, I was excited to get in touch with my artist friends. Julia Loken, Eric White and Alice Walker, as well as Jane Tomlinson, formerly from Eynsham and now living close by in Freeland’
- All passionately paint, draw and talk about the natural world. As they paint, their awareness of the flora and fauna, co-existing is ever present. They all recognise themselves as guardians on this earth and that the changes they make has impact on all life. They all see their art as a record of a moment in time, for present generations to see and relate to and future generations to see what it was like. The pleasing outcome is when life has changed with natural growth and one can delight in the power of nature. The distressing outcome is when the scene of the painting no longer exists or can ever exist again.
Julia Loken and Alice Walker paint wild flower meadows. Julia’s of ‘Long Mead Meadow’, a natural flood plain in the fields up stream of Eynsham Toll bridge. This is a very rare and valuable site, 1500 years unchanged. Managed for hay it harbours wild and rare wildflowers and complex ecosystems, that are part of ongoing studies, monitoring their sustainability. It is just criminal, that along with other productive pastures nearby Long Mead has been designated to be dug up to lay connecting cables for the solar farm. Any digging will cause irreversible damage.
Alice Walker paints the wharf stream water meadow on the other side of the road from Long Mead. Its plant diversity is clearly present in its flora and fauna and wildlife, including otter. This is also designated to be dug to carry cables. The disturbance will be another tragic loss.