New exhibition at Buxton Museum celebrates Derbyshire's trees

An artist, a photographer and a story teller have collaborated on the new exhibition, which launches next week.

Treasuring Trees: Celebrating Derbyshire’s Trees opens at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery on Saturday February, 19 and will run until June.

Buxton based Gordon MacLellan is a poet, storyteller and puppeteer and has worked with watercolour painter Sarah EA Parkin and Valerie Dalling, who is a Peak District photographer, to create this celebration of Derbyshire’s trees.

He said: “As the world changes, our trees are under threat.

"With the effects of rising temperatures, forest clearance and diseases like Ash Dieback, we are losing trees all the time.

"In this year when, to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, there are plans to plant one million trees, we are inviting people to look at trees more deeply."

The Treasuring Trees exhibition aims to encourage conversations about trees, to build a deeper understanding of the relationships between trees, landscapes and people.

Gordon said: “We’d like people to celebrate Derbyshire’s trees.

“An appreciation of trees can foster personal wellbeing and encourage the community to become more involved in biodiversity and climate change projects.”

The artists have drawn inspiration from history, landscapes and communities about their local trees.

The four-month exhibition at the Terrace Road venue will showcase Sarah’s paintings of the Derbyshire Dales landscapes while Valerie’s work focuses on birch trees in the National Park and Gordon’s project reflects emotional responses to Ash Dieback and the changing woodland landscape.

In preparation for Treasuring Trees, all three artists reached out to the community in different ways. This has resulted in a community wall of paintings, poems, photographs and prints from people reaching from Leek to Sheffield and Derby to Buxton.

For museum opening times visit https://buxtonmuseumandartgallery.wordpress.com/.

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