Nature-mindfulness charity The Sharpham Trust is supporting a major artist to create ‘icebergs’ to float in the River Dart.
Anthony Garratt will make huge floating panels, displaying enormous paintings of real icebergs.
He’ll be making the panels on the Sharpham Estate and right now he’s running a Crowdfunder appeal to support the creation of the art-piece, entitled The Melt.
Sharpham Trust Director Julian Carnell said: “We decided to support this art project to bring further awareness to the plight of the planet. Our mission as a charity is to make a more mindful, sustainable world, and this art piece echoes that sentiment.
“Good art brings meaning to our lives, and The Melt will be a thought-provoking work that we hope helps to send the message, yet again, that we need to call a halt to hurting the Earth and start nurturing our planet instead.”
The Sharpham Trust is based on the Sharpham Estate, three miles downriver from Totnes, South Devon. In the last 4 years, the charity has turned the estate organic, launched a rewilding project to restore nature on former farmland and created a new wildflower meadow habitat.
The Trust operates Sharpham Meadow natural burial ground – run as an organic haymeadow - and hosts retreats & events on the estate designed to connect people to the natural world.
Learn more about our rewilding hereDuring 2024, sailing voyages to the Arctic depart from the UK, gathering crucial scientific data, and raising awareness of Arctic decline.
Ella Hibbert will attempt to become the first ever person to circumnavigate The Arctic, solo and non-stop – a passage that is only possible because Arctic ice has melted so much in recent years.
Jim and Sam Mcneill and Ice Warrior will also depart on important citizen science expeditions. During their voyage, they will send pictures of icebergs they encounter to artist Anthony Garratt.
He will then paint giant, 5-metre-long depictions of these melting monuments and the paintings will be floated in lush, tidal locations for the Summer months – including on the River Dart close to The Sharpham Estate.
Anthony Garratt was born in 1979, He lives in, and works from South Devon. He studied at Chelsea College of Art and Falmouth College of Art.
He has exhibited extensively in public and commercial galleries and his paintings are held in private and corporate collections internationally.
His eclectic, self-initiated public installations have garnered much national press interest. ‘High and Low’ which was commissioned in Snowdonia to communicate the area’s mining heritage, won the ‘Arts and Business Award’ in Wales and featured on national television. ‘To All At Sea’ featured in both The Guardian and The Spectator as a ‘Top Ten Outdoor Artwork ’. His recent public participation artworks have encouraged hundreds of people to engage with the practice of painting, whilst raising thousands for associated charitable causes.
Since 2014, he has been a tutor and mentor at The Newlyn School of Art, both on short courses and year-long professional practice programmes. He is a member of the Wilderness Art Collective and runs school workshops to encourage a creative relationship with environmental issues and emotional responses to the landscape.
Artist Anthony Garratt is helping to fund this amazing eco-art project through a Crowdfunder, running until mid-March.
If you can, donate here to contribute to this thought-provoking piece of work.
Give to the Crowdfunder here
At the heart of the Sharpham Trust ethos is our desire to build a more mindful, compassionate and environmentally sustainable world.
We connect people with nature and foster mindfulness and well-being through our programme of retreats, mindfulness courses, outdoor learning and the arts.
© 2024 Sharpham Trust | The Sharpham Trust Sharpham House, Ashprington, Totnes, Devon, UK TQ9 7UTReceive regular updates on courses, events and more by subscribing to our newsletter.
