Wednesday 17 June '09

Len's Gift

Len and some of his work

Len is the grandfather of artist Matt Do (of Matt & Ross fame), he recently visited Lawson Park along with a goodly sector of the Matt clan  - Matt is currently working (very hard) with us in the lead up to the opening on the 25th. Len who is 86, still works as a gardener not too mention maintaining his other interests, including wood turning. He brought a group of his turned bowls and other items as a gift for the collection. He also took a chunk of wood away with him to make into Lawson Park pens for us - now thats what I call a grandfather.

Posted by Adam Sutherland on 17/06/09 at 19:03

Wednesday 17 June '09

Poppy abuse

Blue Bayou

The brilliant blue Himalayan poppies have been attracting the passing visitors into the garden to take photographs, which we all thought was rather nice, until we discovered that they had also been pulling up the plants for the unripened seed heads and dumping litter and banana and orange skins, it does rather put you off being welcoming.

Posted by Adam Sutherland on 17/06/09 at 08:09

Friday 5 June '09

A storm cloud over the 21st century

1723hrs and a big storm has hit the Vittoriale. Here's hoping the power holds out....

Posted by Alistair Hudson on 05/06/09 at 16:22

Friday 5 June '09

Arriveriaderci

All aboard

Jonathan, banners and bones do Pirates of the Caribbean meets The Great Dictator

Even though the final push at Lawson Park is well underway, projects continue apace, just to try and prove we are not going to be a slave to our building like other art institutions. Though the bags under my eyes reveal why it's a hell of a lot easier just to do one thing at a time.

So I've buggered off for two days to Lake Garda to finally realise our project with Jonathan Meese, to make a performance from Vittoriale degli Italiani, one time home of futurist poet and militarist Gabriel d'Annunzio and now a beautiful and extraordinary visitor attraction. The hanging gardens provide a gentle green backdrop to the monumental stone constructions celebrating dictatorship.

The best gardening touch of all is the battleship Puglia rammed into the hillside and merged with a network of granite paths, the most impressive garden terrace I've ever seen.

On deck, with Garda stretching out behind it, is Jonathan painting flags and fascist memorabilia all the time being filmed by his cameraman Jan. One tourist/culture offianado got a bit steamed up over the imagery and you can see why. Looking forward to the party tonight with all the dignitaries and skeletons with Hitler mustaches.

We seem to be all set up for the webcast, wunderkind webmaster Dorian remains chipper and so too is Jonathan, happy in this balmy enclave of dictatorial splendor.

tune in turn on drop the tiny mustache 

www.dannunzioz.org

Posted by Alistair Hudson on 05/06/09 at 13:28

Monday 25 May '09

We plough the fields and scatter

Ladina Fessler working on Lawson Park's meadow

This Bank Holiday sees us reinstating what was the lawn bit of the wlldflower meadow in front of Lawson Park -underneath this soil is the equivalent of a small house containing the water and drainage for the new hostel. Here's our jolly Swiss intern Ladina weeding....

Posted by Karen Guthrie on 25/05/09 at 10:14

Topics: 'wildflower meadow'

Sunday 17 May '09

Nordic Eightsome

Loose suit Jack

Just back from a most untimely trip to Denmark and Sweden looking at craft and design. A full account of the ins and outs of the world of mid century modernism and other things like, what is craft for? you can look at the trip's own website and blog http://www.formingideas.co.uk/view/blog - it was an Arts Council event to look at how to develop crafts in the UK.

I was interested to see Paul Potts - whom I initially mistook for Jack Dee - plastered very large outside the Danish Crafts Council, the poster promoted the very recently unknown Paul with the fact that he has had 60 million hits on You Tube - interesting no?

Posted by Adam Sutherland on 17/05/09 at 06:24

Wednesday 13 May '09

Holy Trinity

Chair exhibition

Morris, Guille, Lyons, three great UK designers from the 1940's and 50's all ready to move into Lawson Park, barr a little upholstery including Adam Chodzko's Leather jacket intervention

Posted by Adam Sutherland on 13/05/09 at 22:29

Sunday 3 May '09

The Long Goodbye

Lunchtime drinking starts already at Lawson Park

Lisa Stewart has been gamely managing the building project here at Lawson Park for yonks and recently those of us left on site now it's (kinda) finished (a few builders, Adam, me, Lisa & Alistair) cracked open the champagne to christen the building and to thank her in the best way we know how.

Lisa's hands in the photo show she's earned that mug of bubbly.

Lisa will be back and forth for a while yet tying up loose ends and plans to relocate to Ireland in the near future.

Posted by Karen Guthrie on 03/05/09 at 21:25

Tuesday 21 April '09

The poster that never was, (nor should have been?!)

GA director Adam as John Ruskin (Photo: Karen Guthrie)

One of the nicest GA days out recently was onto the hills for a photoshoot with a pony, a prop 'big heid' from one of Pope & Guthrie's old projects, a graffiti-ed truncheon and Adam. Sadly the project for which this memorable image was produced has been aborted - NOT - I must add -  because of this picture...

Posted by Karen Guthrie on 21/04/09 at 11:40 0 Comments

Topics: 'John Ruskin' 'Whitworth Art Gallery'

Tuesday 14 April '09

Wildflower Survey

We've received a fascinating detailed examination of the beautiful 1 hectare meadow that Lawson Park overlooks, from the Cumbria Hay Meadows project. There are 30 native plant species present apparently, but its steepness makes it unsuited as a formal seed-donor site for others trying to establish native meadows unfortunately, as equipment struggles on the slopes.

It's all a far cry from the downright ignorant complaint we had about the meadow after last year's NGS charity open day: "There were no wildflowers to be seen". Clearly a blindfolded visitor.

Anyhow, the report recommends:

• Manage the whole parcel for its floristic and habitat interest, focussing on the species rich neutral grassland , tall herb vegetation and small parcel of oak woodland.
• Re-instate a cutting and preferably grazing regime over the area.
• Sow the area of disturbed ground below the building with a suitable seed mix and manage with the rest of the herb rich neutral grassland sward.

You can read more about the Cumbria Hay Meadows Project here. Email us if you'd like to receive a copy of the whole report or if indeed you'd like some hand-harvested seed this summer, to start your own meadow.

Posted by Karen Guthrie on 14/04/09 at 14:51 0 Comments

Topics: 'biodiversity' 'seed' 'uplands' 'wildflower meadow'