Artists put farming life into focus.

Byline: By David Whetstone 

Artists have been getting a taste of farming life in North Northumberland in a mutually beneficial exercise. David Whetstone reports.

Despite the forgivable impression that Northumberland is populated almost entirely by artists, there are still residents who make a hard-earned living from rearing sheep.

In deeply rural Tarset, perched on the fells between Otterburn and Kielder Water, they have recently been through an arduous lambing season ( followed by an equally stamina-sapping spate of shearing.

Thanks to an artist, or at least a documentary photographer, an insight into farming life on the fells has been preserved for posterity.

Award-winning Kate Bellis worked during the spring with hill farming families in Tarset ( and evidently this has involved more than taking photographs. David McCracken, of Burdonside Farm, said she had been "getting quite good at rolling fleeces the blackface way", a reference to the breed of sheep favoured on the fells.

Kate was recruited by the charity Visual Arts in Rural Communities (VARC) to work with the people of Tarset, as was sculptor Sally Matthews, who is probably best known for her scrap metal cows on the Stanley stretch of the Coast to Coast walk.

Kate grew up on a small farm in Devon so knew something of the lifestyle before taking her camera to Northumberland. She studied photography at university and then won a Young Photojournalist of the Year award which enabled her to travel to China and Tibet.

She has since worked in Ireland, Italy, Uganda and Kurdistan.

Sally, who has worked extensively in the North-East, made sketches and also produced life-sized animal sculptures with local people.

Janet Ross, who runs VARC at Highgreen, Tarset, said Kate planned to visit Falstone Show on August 21 to take more photographs for a book which she and Sally will publish next summer. An exhibition will also tour to Hexham, Glasgow and London.

Meanwhile, landscape artist Nigel Green is nearing the end of a 12-month VARC residency at remote Highgreen. The building sites, industrial estates and retail parks of Wearside had been Nigel's main inspiration before moving to the cottage and studio at Highgreen where he found a very different landscape and natural materials to replace those found in an urban environment. During the winter Nigel ran a weekly art club in Byrness First School and he has also worked with Otterburn Youth Club members and local schoolchildren. He is currently adapting the installation pieces he displayed in a barn at Highgreen for display at the Queen's Hall Arts Centre, Hexham, between July 19 and August 21. The next VARC artist-in-residence at Highgreen is to be the London-based painter Sebastian Lowsley-Williams who plans to relocate in September with his wife and baby.

* Meanwhile, The Art Tour rolls on with artists in North Northumberland throwing open their studios this Sunday between 11am and 5pm.

Art lovers will find a welcome at studios or galleries in Blyth, Cambo, Netherwitton, North Togston, Warkworth, Shilbottle, Alnwick, Glanton, Powburn, Craster, Chathill, Belford, Wooler, Westnewton, Ford and Lowick. For further details, pick up an Art Tour brochure, tel Mary Ann Rogers on [phone] or log on to www.tynedaleartistsnetwork.org.uk.