Art in the Devon Landscape

I’m back on the edits of Book 2, The Warder, and the end is in sight. But before I get to work, I thought I’d share some highlights of summer day trips, and there’s a theme in the air.

Since coronavirus hit, many have looked to nature and the outdoors to help ride the storm, and I am no exception. But I especially like to marry it with art in the landscape, a way of feeling connected to people despite the need to distance.

Even better if you can support local artists and makers (and writers), who have had events cancelled this year. This was the case one Sunday afternoon, walking around the village of Combeinteignhead, looking out over the Teign estuary, before stopping off at a quaint thatched Devon cottage where a talented artist and potter lives. And bagged myself a beautiful vase.

On the other side of the estuary lies the seaside town of Teignmouth, and its Recycled Art in the Landscape exhibit that runs each year.

An eclectic exhibit all made by local artists, using material collected from beach cleans. It brightens the skyline and gets you thinking with messages calling to protect the environment.

Over at Dart’s Farm, a sculpture trail takes you into the cornfields, up to the skirting lanes with views over the hills and down to the distant sea. The landscape was a perfect backdrop to these amazing sculptures, including the wetlands which before this visit I hadn’t realised existed.

Then there’s the artwork you simply come across along the way. Like the surprise visitor we discovered on a trip to Eggesford forest. After a walk through huge old pine trees, around an old fort and overgrown moat, surrounding by a carpet of purple, we stumbled across Mary Poppins, masked no less!