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Artybird Carnforth School of Art & Textiles offering City & Guilds Accredited Programmes at all levels. Online available

04/10/2026

🤯 What happens when you finally unfold something you've been working on for two years?

For Kate, the answer was a surprise.

In this final glimpse from our Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film, Kate remembers the day she finally opened up a large textile piece that had spent much of its making process folded and stitched.

With Diane at one end and another pair of hands at the other, they pulled it open across the floor... and what was revealed changed Kate's thinking about the finished work.

She had expected to fold it again. Instead, it was the unexpected spaces within the piece that suddenly became important.

Kate describes them as moments of stillness and peace amongst the movement -- reflecting something she'd noticed while watching the reeds at RSPB Leighton Moss

Still. Still. Still. And then suddenly they move like a wave.

Rather than filling those spaces, Kate allowed them to remain.

🎬 See the finished piece and hear more about its remarkable journey in the full Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film from Farfield Mill, Sedbergh on the ArtyBird website: https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

02/10/2026

🌊 The same Bay -- seen from a completely different viewpoint.

In this glimpse from our Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film, Diane remembers a day the artists spent with Andrea at Grange-over-Sands.

They headed down to the promenade to sketch, but what particularly struck Diane was the view from Andrea’s home.

From this side of Morecambe Bay, and from a much higher position, they could look across, down and over the landscape in a way they simply couldn’t from the places they had explored on the opposite side.

Andrea took those observations and developed them into her own distinctive response to the Bay... transforming sketches, colours and glimpses of the landscape into textile work.

It’s another reminder of just how much Morecambe Bay changes depending on where, and how, you look at it.

🎬 See Andrea’s work and hear the artists exploring Glimpses of Our Bay together in the full exhibition film from Farfield Mill, Sedbergh on the ArtyBird website: https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

🔎 From small details in a sketchbook to landscapes in felt.In our latest Glimpses of Our Bay clip, Andrea talks about di...
01/10/2026

🔎 From small details in a sketchbook to landscapes in felt.

In our latest Glimpses of Our Bay clip, Andrea talks about discovering landscapes hidden within the rubbings and marks she had collected -- a way of responding to the vastness of the Bay by starting with something much smaller.

These finished works show where that exploration could lead.

Through wool fibres, silk, colour and line, those fragments become horizons, channels, hills, skies and shifting landscapes... sometimes clearly recognisable, sometimes hovering somewhere between landscape and abstraction.

There’s something particularly interesting about looking across the three together and seeing how differently Andrea plays with the horizon and the balance between land, water and sky.

It’s a lovely example of how an idea discovered almost accidentally in a sketchbook can continue to evolve through the making process.

🎬 Hear Andrea talk about her process and explore the full Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film from Farfield Mill, Sedbergh on the ArtyBird website: https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

30/09/2026

🔎 Sometimes you don’t need to capture the whole landscape to find it.

In this glimpse from our Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film, Andrea talks about initially feeling daunted by the huge open vista around Grange-over-Sands.

Instead, she began looking more closely at the small details she had gathered in her sketchbook.

By taking rubbings, joining them together and experimenting with different horizons, Andrea began to discover landscapes hidden within the marks and textures themselves.

A small fragment could suddenly suggest a shoreline, a distant horizon or a much wider view.

It’s a fascinating example of how changing the way we look at something can open up an entirely new direction for our creative work.

🎬 Discover more of Andrea’s process and explore the full Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film from Farfield Mill, Sedbergh on the ArtyBird website: https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

Before they became textiles, they began with marks on paper. ✏️🌿These are some of Kate's studies of RSPB Leighton Moss ...
29/09/2026

Before they became textiles, they began with marks on paper. ✏️🌿

These are some of Kate's studies of RSPB Leighton Moss -- exploring the place through drawing, print, colour, repeated marks and layers.

Some capture the density and rhythm of the reeds and trees, while others open out into wider views across the reserve. They’re not simply attempts to reproduce what Kate could see.

They’re part of her process of trying to capture what it feels like to be there. The atmosphere, movement, birds, light and changing environment.

That process begins with time spent at Leighton Moss itself, sketching, observing and taking photographs, before returning to the studio to explore those experiences further.

Swipe through the images and you can begin to see ideas, shapes and colours emerging that eventually find their way into Kate’s textile work.

🎬 See more of Kate’s creative process and explore the full Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film from Farfield Mill, Sedbergh on the ArtyBird website: https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

28/09/2026

Before the textile comes the time spent looking. 🌿

In this glimpse from our Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film, Kate talks about how her work inspired by RSPB Leighton Moss Nature Reserve begins.

She spends time there sketching and taking photographs before returning to her studio and developing more detailed studies and drawings.

But it isn’t simply about recording what something looks like.

Kate is trying to capture the atmosphere of being there -- surrounded by birds, immersed in the environment and experiencing the landscape firsthand.

Those observations and studies then become the starting point for the textile work you see in the exhibition.

It’s a lovely glimpse into the journey an idea can take long before we ever see the finished piece.

🎬 Follow that journey and discover more of the processes behind Glimpses of Our Bay in the full exhibition film from Farfield Mill, Sedbergh on the ArtyBird website: https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

👀 When you know the story behind a piece, do you see it differently?This is Diane’s 'Stormy Day', created from an experi...
27/09/2026

đź‘€ When you know the story behind a piece, do you see it differently?

This is Diane’s 'Stormy Day', created from an experience of sitting in the car on a day when the rain was so heavy that the landscape beyond the windscreen had almost completely disappeared.

Look more closely and you can see that feeling in the work... the darkness, layers, texture and marks, with glimpses of something lighter amongst them.

For Diane, the piece also became connected to a difficult period in her own life, making 'Stormy Day' about more than simply capturing bad weather. It’s a landscape seen through a particular moment in time.

One of the lovely things about Glimpses of Our Bay is being able to hear the artists tell these stories in their own words -- and discover what sits behind the finished work.

🎬 Watch the full exhibition film from Farfield Mill, Sedbergh on the ArtyBird website: https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

26/09/2026

🌧️ Sometimes a landscape reflects more than the weather.

In this glimpse from our Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film, Diane shares the story behind one of her darker, more expressive pieces.

The inspiration came from one of those days when the rain is so heavy you can barely see through the car windscreen. Diane remembers sitting there knowing there must be a view out there somewhere BUT being unable to see it.

At the time, Diane and her family were also going through a difficult period, and looking back she can see how the two things came together in the work.

The darkness, texture and obscured landscape became an expression not only of what she could see around the Bay that day, but something of where she was personally too.

It’s another example of how the works in Glimpses of Our Bay grew from much more than simply observing a landscape.

🎬 Hear Diane tell the story herself and explore the full exhibition film from Farfield Mill, Sedbergh on the ArtyBird website: https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

24/09/2026

🧩 Not every piece an artist makes is intended to become a finished artwork.

Sometimes it's about asking questions: How can I create this texture? How do these colours work together? How can I capture the movement and speed of the sea? 🌊

In this glimpse from our Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film, Maggy shares some of her smaller low-relief felt studies... pieces created to explore ideas, test possibilities and work out where to go next.

And that's what makes them so interesting.

We often only see an artist's finished work, but these studies give us a glimpse into the process of gathering ideas, experimenting and resolving problems along the way.

They were even displayed so visitors could lift them up and look more closely -- an invitation to explore the making process as well as the finished exhibition.

🎬 See more of the process behind Glimpses of Our Bay at Farfield Mill, Sedbergh in our full exhibition film on the ArtyBird website https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

22/09/2026

The same landscape can look completely different depending on where you're standing. 🌿

For Kate, her glimpse of Morecambe Bay takes us away from the coastline and into RSPB Leighton Moss Nature Reserve -- part of a landscape that reaches much further inland than we might immediately associate with the Bay.

Here, Kate became fascinated by the trees and how they change through the seasons: bare branches in winter, the canopy gradually appearing, and the layers of reeds, fences and more trees beyond.

But there was something else she wanted to capture too.

Being quite short, walking beneath the trees can sometimes feel almost claustrophobic -- those strong vertical shapes rising up around her. So Kate began simplifying and editing what she could see, concentrating on the rhythms of the trees and that sense of being surrounded by them.

It sparked an interesting conversation in our exhibition film about how something as simple as our height can completely change the way we experience a place.

🎬 Watch the full Glimpses of Our Bay exhibition film from Farfield Mill, Sedbergh and discover more of the artists' stories on the ArtyBird website https://www.artybirdcarnforth.co.uk/

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Unit 3, Lyne Riggs Estate, Lancaster Road
Carnforth
LA59EA

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Monday 1pm - 5pm
Tuesday 1pm - 5pm
Wednesday 1pm - 5pm

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