Sunnyview Artists’ Residency

The first Sunnyview Artists’ Residency took place in Glastonbury from 16 th to 29 th September 2023. It was inaugurated by Alexandra Fraser and Gareth Mills to celebrate the life and work of Peter Fraser, Alexandra’s father, who had died on Novemeber 1 st 2022. It brought together six artists from Belgium and the Netherlands, and two more from England, and succeeded in its aim of printing 40 copies of a book on Peter’s Albion Press, using traditional letterpress together with wood engravings and linocuts. The book, ‘The Hollow Hills – An Artists’ Interpretation’ was showcased in an exhibition at the newly renamed Hollow Hills bookshop which ran through the month of October, and binding continued at The Glastonbury Press and Bindery, itself an unforeseen outcome of the residency. Having been rejected for a grant from The Arts Council in 2023, the artists worked without pay for two weeks and funded their own travel.
 

Though the residency had been initiated primarily to bring artists together in a stimulating and fresh environment to inspire and encourage each other’s work, an unexpected and important outcome emerged during and after the event: the engagement of the local community in the creative process. Visitors to Sunnyview during the event, and to the subsequent exhibition in the town, expressed their desire to get directly involved, to learn new skills, and to make things for themselves. This informs the agenda for the 2024 residency, which focused on process as much as outcome.
 

Glastonbury has a growing influx of visitors throughout the year, perhaps best characterised as
seekers and pilgrims rather than mere tourists. They now provide the basis of the town’s economy, yet the majority of the distinctive independent shops in the flourishing High Street continue to import their wares from outside the area. The focus of the 2024 residency was on empowering local people to see themselves as makers, training them in new craft skills and offering continued support beyond the residency to develop as professional artists.
 

Over a century ago, William Morris wrote that ‘We are living in an epoch where there is combat
between commercialism, or the system of reckless waste, and communism, or the system of
neighbourly common sense’. The residency sought to introduce into the community an
appreciation of what Ivan Illich called ‘convivial tools’, which he defined as ‘those which give each
person who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of his or
her vision’.
 

The programme of events will began with an open day in The Assembly Rooms on Sunday 15 th
September, culminating with a live music and performance event and offering a series of free
workshops throughout the day in bookbinding, letterpress, linocutting, pottery, wood engraving,
paper making, marbling, pyrography, pinhole cameras, leather working, jewellery making, calligraphy, etc. Each workshop provided the opportunity to continue the training with more intensive sessions at the three main residency venues, Glastonbury Press and Bindery on Church Lane, the upstairs of The Hollow Hills bookshop on the High Street, and at Sunnyview itself, which had two marquees in the garden as well as the print room and two other substantial workspaces.