Publications

The art of sustainable living

By: David Symons

For artist Emma Baird Murray, Coed Hills Rural Artspace in South Wales has become a place of inspiration, a space where making art, sustainable living and community involvement go hand in hand. She describes how the organisation works with artists in a rural setting.

For many artists the ability to maintain a lifestyle that is conducive to their work is incredibly difficult. Artists have to multi-task, dealing simultaneously with the development of artwork, the practicalities of daily life and with the expectations of society. Leaving the secure world of education where space, equipment and the support of others are all provided to enter the 'real' world is a particularly difficult transition for artists. Coed Hills Rural Artspace (CHRA) was set-up in an attempt to ease this transition. Realising how many people were actually turning away from their artistic beliefs because they were unable to sustain them within the reality of their lives, CHRA's founder Rawleigh Clay, himself an artist, wanted to create an environment for artists to provide them with freedom and space. He wanted this space to be run by the artists themselves and importantly to be sustainable and run as a non-profit organisation. Originally CHRA was a working farm in the Vale of Glamorgan, a fairly recent victim of the struggle and demise of agriculture, it consisted of 180 acres of woodland and open farmland. Several outbuildings and barns had obvious potential to be...

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