Cloth Road

This story starts at Rowan Barn Murphy, here are the directions

Exit the school, turn left and carefully cross the main road. Turn right, walk round the corner and turn left into the Bartons. Continue to Lyde Green and go downhill to Wellow Lane. Springfield cottage is 50 m on your right.

Rowan Barnes Murphy is an inspiring author and illustrator, who has illustrated over a hundred books, for both adults and children. He can't remember a time when he wasn't drawing, but formally began illustrating when he was about twenty years old. Rowan initially trained at Salisbury art college and then went on to complete his studies at Cambridge art school and has been illustrating ever since. Rowan divides his time between Somerset and rural France and has an incredible portfolio of work.
Rowan uses a mixture of medias in his artwork: spray water colours, pen and ink, crayons, water colours, gouache and many more. He initially draws the component parts of his illustrations on tracing paper and then layers them up on a lightbox. These images are then scanned into a computer from where he starts to edit them.
Rowan takes inspiration from many things around him and can often be seen around Norton St Philip sketching the many beautiful sites of the village.

Sillly things like robots and monsters are what Rowan enjoys drawing the most from his vast reportoire of awe inspiring illustrations, though he did admit to finding horses difficult to draw! Rowan finds inspiration from other books and authors and especially admires the work of the illustrator Maurice Sendak.

In March Rowan spent the morning with the children of Norton St Philip School as part of their book week. He taught all of the children how to draw a series of polar bears, as they were the main characters of his latest book. The polar bears drawn by the children and Rowan can be seen in the school hall as part of the exhibition.

Exit Springmead Cottage and turn left. At the crossroads go left up Chevers Lane. The Studio is at the back of the last house on the right.
Hillside has a wooden door visible from the Bath Road.

Exit the Studio and turn right to Bath Road. Turn right and on the left you will see a Cedar clad studio called Gaugers.

A diverse group of stitch based textile artists showing traditional patchwork and modern creative embroidery using hand, machine stitching and exploring a variety of materials. One of the group is called Joyce Williams, here is her biography:

Joyce Williams studied creative embroidery, batik, weaving and silk painting. She is a textile and fabric artist, at the moment her topic is water. She uses tools such as needles, different sized threads, silks and so on.
Joyce Williams trained in teaching and fine arts in Birmingham University. She has wanted to be an artist since she was at school. She also wanted to be a primary teacher when she was little.
She didn't have any friends or family that inspired her to be an artist, but her Dad is good at art, although he's not an artist.
A textile artist called Jane Hall, who creates butterflies and flowers on textiles inspires her. She goes to her garden and the seaside to get inspiration.
She takes photos and creates pictures from the photos. She is retired, so does charity work at the American Museum. She has been commissioned for lots of things but she gives the money to charity. She does art everyday especially now to keep up with the demands of the Cloth Road Exhibition.
She thinks that anyone can be an artist if they want to! The most challenging piece she has done is a quilt that took over a year to do! The thing that frustrates her when doing her art is the size of the thing and not having enough space to work in. She doesn't use a computer for the design but she does use it for messaging her class and for photographs. She doesn't have any spare time but when she has the teeniest amount she sews, reads and spends time with her dog.

Sandra Porter
Sandra Porter is a modernist, abstract artist who creates fascinating and inspiring geometric designs. She specialises in viscosity printing (using different inks that resist each other to layer up colours). She loves drawing grids, grills and stripes and her printing work is inspired by contemporary buildings, trips to art galleries, cathedrals Italian Renaissance artists, travel around the world and other artists, to name but a few.
Sandra has been etching for 22 years and despite having no friends or family that inspired her to come into art, has always wanted to be an artist. She went to art school in Taunton in 1976 and then did an art degree in Plymouth. Finally she completed a Masters art degree in Chelsea and has been printing, teaching and exhibiting ever since.

When asked which was her most most challenging piece to complete to date Sandra replied that is always the one that she is currently working on, though she does have a large print in her studio that she is still working on after 2 years!

Sandra says that everyone can be an artist, but we all have our own style and we just need to find it.

Jo Taylor
Jo Taylor is a ceramic sculptor who uses porcelain clay to create amazing pieces of art. She uses tools such as; a potter's wheel for round pieces, her fingers for the sculpted pieces and a wetted Chinese brush for smoothing out rough edges.
Jo is the first and only artist in her family and likes to create abstract art that just lets your mind flow, with interpretation up to your imagination and interpretation. Jo became a professional artist in the year 2000 (14 years ago). Jo first learnt to create with clay during an evening class when she was a Policewoman. She then went to Bath Spa University for a teaching degree and finally she did a masters degree at Bath Spa in large art.
Jo finds inspiration in historical architecture, nature and in the most surprising places around her. She is also inspired by artists such as Richard Deacon.
The most challenging piece of work Jo has created to date was a three part sculpture which dripped from the edge of a diving board into a swimming pool. She creates pieces that can be displayed both inside and outside and they are in a variety of sizes.
Jo taught us that clay is like lego problem solving, with lots of pieces you put together in a variety of different ways.

Come out of the studio, turn left and go back down Chevers Lane. On your left you will see North Street. Half way along North Street on the left you will find Brewery Barn. From Brewery Barn continue through the garden, the Chicken Shed is behind the Barn on the left.

Come back through the garden. The photography club are exhibiting in the barn on your left.

Barbara Day is a print and textiles artist who also loves to paint. She prints a pretty pattern onto a sheet of cloth and it repeat prints it to make different designs. The tools she uses are printing inks, rollers and an etching press.

Barbara always wanted to be an artist when she was growing. Most of her family were not able to inspire her in art, because they were all (well, most of them) either doctors, nurses or teachers and the same went with her friends. The only person in her family that did inspire her was her Aunt who was an artist. Barbara trained as a teacher and managed to combine teaching with her love of art.


Barbara likes drawing and creating: printing textiles, painting making pictures but mostly she likes seeing what is underneath the layers. The artist Georgia O'Keefe is an Inspiration to her work.

When Barbara needs further inspiration she either goes to exhibitions, old castles, cathedrals, churches or the American Museum. If she couldn't be an artist she would probably either be a gardener or she would just grow things.

Barbara practices her art at least twice a week. Once or twice Barbara has been commissioned to do a piece of artwork, such as a few lamp stands and a sculpture of papier mache.
She really likes challenging herself, and she finds the best way to do this is through printing, as there are so many different ways to layer up colours and textures.

Barbara thinks, that anyone can be an artist, they just need to work hard!

The Photography Club
Ten talented photographers from the photography club will be exhibiting a selection of their photos. They all work together to share their love and enjoyment of the art of photography. The theme of their photographs is In A New Light and encompasses fabulous photographs with colour, reflections and light at different times of day.
Every artist has something that inspires them from capturing the perfect picture of a person unawares, to the perfect train shot or fluttering butterfly.
We learnt a very useful piece of advice as well... When concentrating on getting the perfect shot, be careful to check what you are lying in!

Come out of Brewery Barn and walk along North street until you get to Bell Hill. Look left and you will see the Fleur de Lis Pub on the corner of the crossroads.
Carefully cross the road and you will find Artemis.

Artemis Is a group of diverse artists who are presenting an exhibition of abstract and figurative images. They cover various disciplines including painting, original Prints, 3D & mixed media.
Artists include:
Jo Casey, Zofia Clark, Maureen Grimshaw, Marion King, Dorothy Whittle.

From Artemis you have 2 routes to get to the Church to see the beautiful flowers.
Either cross the road to the George pub and take the small path to the left of the pub. Follow the narrow path between the houses and you will get to the Mead. Cross the Mead straight ahead and you will see the Church gate. Go through the gate to the Church entrance.

Or cross the road to the B&B and walk down Bell Hill until you are parallel with The school. Carefully cross the road and the church is on your left.

In the Church there is a flower display of many flowers and there will be cream teas to buy on Bank holiday Saturday and Sunday. There will be a flower arrangement commissioned by the School and the Pre-School, as well as many others.

Congratulations you have completed the Norton St Philip Cloth Road Art trail. We really hope you enjoyed it and you found our instructions and biographies helpful. We would really appreciate your feedback in our visitors book in the entrance to our school.

If you enjoyed this and would like to see some more of the beautiful sights of Norton St Philip you may like to try our Storywalk - The Weaver of Norton.
Just type in the address, or scan the QR code to get started. The address is www.storywalks.info/norton. The QR code is situated on a slate plaque on the gatepost on the main entrance to the school. Have fun!