Sat 22 January 2022 – Sun 23 January 2022
In celebration of our Grinling Gibbons exhibition, we invite you to come and Meet the Makers! Watch live demonstrations from award-winning contemporary carvers featured in the exhibition including Sarah Davis, Tom Buchanan and Freya Morris. During your visit, you can discover the hidden stories of the ancient trees in our parkland and learn more about the use of wood in our Collections through a series of talks, listen to live performances in the Chapel from Warwickshire Baroque, and children can try their hand at producing a linocut with the wonderful Art Lab!
10am-4.30pm – Winter Walk Bingo! Pick up sheet your free activity sheet at the Welcome Centre. There are lots of natural treasures to be found. See how many items you can find while exploring our park with our fun Winter Walk Bingo activity sheet.
10am-4.30pm – Explore our Woodland Play Area.
10.30am-13.30pm – Live carving demonstration from Freya Morris, on the Portico and in The Courtyard. Free.
10am-11am, 11.30am-12.30pm, 1.30pm-2.30pm – Art Lab Kids Linocut carving workshop, £12 per child.
Discover the techniques needed to cut designs and create a relief surface. Experiment with inking and printing on to some cards, envelopes and bookmarks. Whether you are a beginner or someone who has dabbled in printmaking before and wants a refresher, come let your creative juices flow and print away. Take home your artwork and a new skill at the end of the day. This workshop is designed for children 8-12 years, join us for an hour workshop in our creative studio with Art Lab.
Parents can drop off for the workshop, but are also welcome stay and support the children in the activities.
All staff hold current DBS checks.
Capacity for each workshop 15 children.
12pm-12.45pm, 2pm-2.45pm – Warwickshire Baroque concert, located in the Chapel.
Limited capacity.
We are delighted to welcome the Warwickshire Baroque to our Chapel on the 22 January at 12pm & 2pm for a bespoke program of music selected in response to our current exhibitions.
Warwickshire Baroque is a group of musicians and solo singers who enjoy bringing to life music from 1650-1750 by exploring the instruments and playing styles used in this period. They are noted for exploring themes in their concerts and putting the music in a historical and social context. They enjoy this communicating with their audiences and presenting a mixture well-known favourites with some lesser known but equally attractive pieces.
1.30pm-3.30pm – Live carving demonstration from Sarah Davis, on the portico and in The Courtyard.
Please note a valid membership or day ticket will be required to enjoy all these events.
10am-4.30pm – Winter Walk Bingo! Pick up activity sheet at the Welcome Centre.
Winter may be cold but there are still lots of natural treasures to be found! See how many items you can find while exploring our park with our fun Winter Walk Bingo! activity sheet. Free, activity sheets can be found at our Welcome Centre
10am-4.30pm – Explore our Woodland Play Area
10.30am-4pm – Live carving demonstration from Tom Buchanan, on the portico and in The Courtyard.
11am-11.45am – Compton Verney’s Incredible Trees, Talk and walk in the park with Fiona Tansey, Landscape Manager & Gardener Chris Beddow. Meet at the Welcome Centre.
In this fascinating guided walk, learn the hidden stories of Compton Verney’s most magnificent trees. Discover how a Giant Wellingtonia survived a lightning strike at Compton Verney, how Yew trees can help to fight against disease and why Plane trees are considered to be sacred and divine.
12pm-1pm – Wood Carving in Art & Interiors with Gallery Interpreter Christine Cluley, meet in Naples 1.
3pm-4pm – Wood Carving in Art & Interiors with Gallery Interpreter Christine Cluley, meet in Naples 1.
NB A valid membership or day ticket will be required to enjoy all these events.
Throughout the weekend a series of live carving demonstrations will be taking place in the Entrance Hall. Meet outside the Main Entrance.
In 2012 I graduated from Chelsea college of art with a BA in Fine art. I enjoy the dialogue between traditional craft and contemporary art which led me to return to education in 2015 to study wood carving and gilding at the City & Guilds of London Art school.
As well as carving I use a wide range of hands-on sculptural techniques to explore the cyclical nature of recovery and renewal. The shedding of snake skin, the hatching of eggs and the short life of the octopus are all cycles that exist within nature. I use these narrative tools as a way to think about how we can navigate our own relationship with pain, healing and mortality.
Following completion of a BA in Art History at Warwick University, Freya spent some time in Venice as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. During this period, she became increasingly interested in architectural history and on returning to the UK, completed an MSc in Historic Building Conservation at Oxford Brookes University. She worked for over 20 years as a Listed Building and Conservation Areas Officer for District Councils in Dorset, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.
Freya started stone carving as a hobby, but three years ago she decided that she wanted to pursue it more seriously. Since then, she has completed a Level 1 and 2 Diploma in Stonemasonry at Moulton College in Northamptonshire. Freya is currently working as an assistant to Alex Wenham, a carver based near Oxford. With Alex she has worked on several conservation/restoration projects including at Eton College and Magdalen College in Oxford.