As the season draws in, the team at ARTlifeLAND is preparing to ride off into the sunset, to new adventures in the world of landscape art. We began this journey four years ago and it has taken us through the realms of Romantic poetry, dark starry skies, geo-located word clouds and walking the land with pencil and paper in hand. We've recorded its changes - both subtle and dramatic - and mapped its contours according to those who live and visit here. We have a wealth of imagery and words as a lasting archive of the story we've woven over these four years, and a legacy of imaginative and ground-breaking arts trails and publications. As project leader and ARTlife Coordinator, I give my heartfelt thanks to all those who made it happen and I wish us well on our individual journeys ahead - may our paths cross in the future!
- Tracey Roberts




All the ARTlifeLAND projects interweave with the stories of other arts companies and creatives. Find the archives and the ongoing journeys here:

Coleridge Way projects led by Chris Jelley: Story Boxes, QR code poetry trails and Flycatchers walks - http://coleridgeway.blogspot.co.uk

'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' book and exhibition with Contains Art, who have gone on to commission imagery by local artists for other reprints of famous stories - http://containsart.co.uk/

Frances Harrison's Dark Starry Skies storytelling and film-making  - http://www.darkstarryskies.com/

Ignite Somerset, led by Richard Tomlinson, who mentored individual ARTlifeLAND artists and led our New Romantics film promotion project - http://www.somersetfilm.com/initiatives/ignite/

Poetry Pin - an ongoing journey with Chris and Davina Jelley - https://poetrypin.info/

Ralph Hoyte's exploratory Romantic Litscape project, capturing the voices of the poets in Somerset - http://romanticlitscape.blogspot.co.uk/

Ange Hardy's Coleridge Way journey expressed in words and music - http://www.angehardy.com/shop/details/esteesee

Who would have thought that a simple idea to place story-writing journals in boxes along the Coleridge Way would have grown into a nationally-recognised community poetry phenomenon! Well, Chris Jelley and the team at ARTlife certainly didn't when we first commissioned the boxes in 2012 as part of ARTlifeLAND and the reinvigoration of the walking route. The hugely successful concept was taken up by Exmoor National Park Authority, morphed into poetry boxes, and to date over 5,000 poems have been added to the boxes in their summer locations across the moor.

BBC national news covered the story yesterday and we are all very excited to see this rural community arts project make the national stage - all credit to Chris and his original idea. Where next Chris?
See the news item here - www.bbc.co.uk/news/

In celebration of the poetry boxes project, a selection of the poems have been published by Flycatcher Press. The book launch is on Monday 21st November at the Bath Hotel in Lynmouth and an exhibition of the original journals and boxes is at Lynmouth Pavilion.

On Saturday, we celebrated the sixth (and final) workshop walk along the Mineral Line Poetry Pin trail. The weather blessed us with sunshine and the words were flowing as we walked the gentle two miles from Washford to the harbour town of Watchet.

We watched steam trains pass by, and visited the Witch's Tree (hidden just off the trail). And after collecting some poems (it's a bit like a treasure hunt), and posting a few new ones, we reached the courtyard at Contains Art on the East Quay, to find a fabulous floating exhibition of words - courtesy of Christopher Jelley's hard work that morning to get everything ready.

Have a read of Chris's blog about the walk, and then get yourself down to the UK's first Poetry Town and grab some poems out of the ether! poetrypin.info/news

Mineral Line Poetry Pin
Read and write and walk with us along the Mineral Line on Saturday afternoon - meeting at Washford recreation ground at 1pm and taking a poetic meander to Watchet via the Poetry Pin trail of new works. Bring your smartphone and you can add your own words to the trail as you walk!
www.poetrypin.info

ARTlifeLAND News #11 invites you to add your words to Poetry Pin Watchet - the UK's first virtual poetry town and history in the making. Meanwhile, over at Shurton Bars, in the shadow of the new nuclear power station building site, Poetry Pin Hinkley re-opens to new submissions as part of the finale of ARTlife's landscape art programme.