International Artist Day: We're not shredding a Banksy but we are considering chainsawing a chunk of timber!

For over a decade International Artist Day has honoured the contribution artists have and are making to society.   It's a day to take an artist to lunch, or buy that painting that's been haunting you for the last month.  Visit a gallery, or go to the symphony. Participate in something creative outside your daily routine.  Despite what you might think that doesn't have to be an indoor activity (unless you want it to be) many outdoor spaces have pieces of artwork whether that's a sculpture in an urban plaza, a painting on the side of a visitor centre, a piece of natural art in the surrounds of a country park (a tree reimagined by creative use of chainsaw) or a landscape scale features such as Northumberlandia, the Lady of the North.


Earlier this year I was able to go to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (filling in time whilst Flora was in surgery in Wakefield if I'm honest!) and the size and scale of the artworks there was staggering, from the large Henry Moore sculptures dotted in the parkland to the tree sized head of a young girl by Jaume Plensa. Some are more naturalistic in form such as the Andy Galsworthy works (I must confess I walked past this one without realising - it looked so much like the bields out on the moors around Goathland!) and Ai Weiwei's iron tree (which I loved) there are ones that are giving nature a helping hand as well like Alec Findlay's Home to a King series of nest boxes with lines of poetry on each.
It was a wonderful day and lovely to see one of the many places to have advertised vacancies with CJS, it's such a large site I didn't get to see or hear everything maybe because I was distracted by watching great crested grebes courtship dancing on the lake so perhaps we'll have to return, the country park area permits dogs (on leads) and now that Flora is healed I'll have to take her to have a look as well.

Apologies the photos aren't brilliant, the weather was 'changeable' to say the least!