I’ve been trying to come to Grizedale ever since I visited Coniston Institute with School of the Damned in 2017, so I was ecstatic to finally get the nod. As much as I’m intrigued by the dense history and artistic alumni, I’ve been working to resist preconceptions so that I can enjoy things without comparing them, so I can safely say the Grizedale was exactly how it was.
After introductions to the staff and a quick tour of the Tudor / mock-Tudor mash-up building (with Tom offering archaelogical insight and personal opinions) we get shown to our rooms, just-painted and furnitureless but for beds. Our first task is to select some old framed artworks for our walls and hang them, then we go to a room stacked high with dusty brown wood things and jostle for the best chests. Taking them back to our rooms is difficult and fun because all the doors in this building are different sizes, and one set of descending stairs is faced with an ascending one.
Serendipitously, I knew Hannah and David, two of the other volunteers, from food justice projects, so was nice to get to know them and Jess. We were grateful guinea pigs for the hostel rooms above the pub, and executive decorators of the “prison wing”. With almost a decade of (re)furnishing bougie pubs and moving between tiny flats under my belt, I have myself marked as a spatial design guru – a seasoned furniture scavenger with tetris level tessellation. A maximalist magpie who loves a tableau.
Memorable tasks for the week at the Farmers’ Arms included building no-dig beds and shovelling compost, planting a 25 metre long hedge with native saplings, making snacks for 40 from kitchen scraps, and bawling my eyes out while watching Karen’s film The Closer We Get at Oxen Park Cinema Club. I also made a creepy crow diorama inside a cubby, and thrashed around in a freezing-cold boggy pond on the side of a mountain (a tarn?) during a long walk back from the forest to the pub. The evenings were filled with cooking and debriefing, a film or a game of cards. Though the work was often physical, it was balanced with rest and a little bit of play. One evening Simon took us walking into the side of an old slate mine, which was equally
Over at Lawson Park, time moved differently and the story of Grizedale became more clear: through objects, books, plants and ferments I could get a deeper sense of the evolution of the project – the necessity of usefulness. Helping with practical gardening was a huge highlight as I was able to contextualise much of the knowledge I have accumulated through training and reading. The views were obviously stunning, and I was so dazzled that I thought it smart to jog all the way down the track then back up. Reader, it wasn’t, don’t do that.
The warmth, joviality and transparency with which the organisation operates was quite astounding. That creatively-minded people already have it within them to solve problems, multi-task and laugh it off while delivering serious, functional art was deeply moving and empowering. A melting pot of practitioners, local and far-flung, working towards a common goal. Usually I have found that arts orgs are cagey about their business and purposefully keep distance between different areas in order to maintain hierarchies and the rigid shape of their institution.
I felt so welcome at Grizedale and appreciated for my being, I was encouraged to lean into my interests and had my work celebrated. Karen and Adam are both hyper-aware hosts: organising for comfort and stimulation rather than blind progress. Their approach to the day-to-day centres around having regular breaks, developing skills and collaborating for the sake of it. I am grateful to have been part of the long illustrated history of Grizedale and hope to return soon.