Every Tuesday morning at 8.00, starting in early 2019, Chipping Norton artists Crabby Taylor and Judith Yarrow met at Glyme Lane (behind the leisure centre and school in Chipping Norton) to record and find inspiration from drawing and painting directly from what they found there. Crabby Taylor makes Raku and smoke-fired ceramics and also paints. Judith Yarrow is a mixed-media landscape artist. Their work includes the William Fowler Allotments, the Millennium Wood, beehives and the footpath up to Glyme Farm. Next to join the project were Jill Colchester with her dynamic figure drawings of allotment holders and beekeepers and poet Mo Browne who has written a poem for the project. Since then other artists have joined them: Ruth Shaw-Williams with her book of sheds, stained-glass artist Anna Gillespie and allotment holders/artists Carol and Sophie Harvey.
The work spans a year of changing seasons and weather and was an evolving project.
Glyme Lane will be affected by nearby house-building plans and there is the real possibility of a relief road cutting through this area. The artists feel it’s important to acknowledge what this area, with its ancient track, longstanding, historic allotments, organic farmland and refuge for nature, means to people in Chipping Norton and to record it at this moment in time. The exhibition included recordings by Lucy and Nick Parker of allotment holders, those involved in the William Fowler Memorial wood and Glyme Farm, talking about what Glyme Lane means to them and to wildlife.
The work was exhibited in September 2021 at The Chipping Norton Theatre gallery, postponed from April 2020 when Covid intervened. Covid has emphasised how precious these local areas of allotments, woodland and footpaths are to their communities.
A selection of work will be shown at local FarmED for Oxfordshire Artweeks 2022.
