Be inspired to capture nature through your camera lens in Tees Valley
Are you a budding Tees Valley photographer who has ever walked around your local park, green space or nature reserve and wished you’d stopped and spent more time capturing its beauty through the lens of your camera?
Well throughout 2024 the Billingham International Folklore Festival of World Dance (BIFF) is delivering a series of free arts and nature walks that will enable people to do just that.
The Dance of Time Walks are inspired by the paintings and sculptures of the legendary artist Salvador Dali, who was himself influenced by dance and nature.
The 90-minute events will explore and celebrate the beautiful parks that we all take for granted, and enable the people taking part to see the great outdoors in a totally new light.
Each walk is being led by local textile artist and photographer, Shirley Wells – who will be on-hand to provide people with her advice, guidance and creative eye when it comes to taking a snapshot of nature.
The green space sessions will incorporate the arts, nature, dance and photography with the dance styles being showcased being African and Indian techniques provided by Yorkshire-based Balbir Singh Dance Company and Tees Valley-based Taste of Africa UK.
The extraordinary events will be visiting all five boroughs of Tees Valley including Darlington; Hartlepool; Middlesbrough; Redcar & Cleveland; and Stockton-on-Tees.
The Dance of Time walks is proud to be supported by an Arts Council England National Lottery Project grant.
“I love capturing the moment. Like capturing a beautiful butterfly in the sun, or a dragonfly that is flying and hovering around you. Teasing you.
“Then you take a photograph, and it shoots off, as nature plays with you,” said textile artist Shirley Wells.
Shirley Wells is based in Stockton on Tees and has worked throughout the North-East for the past 20 years.
Shirley is a community artist and designer maker – who sells and demonstrates her work up and down the country. She has sold designs for interior furnishings in Japan, New York, Florence, Paris and London.
She is a graduate of Teesside University, where she gained a degree in Textile Design and Surface Pattern plus a Masters in Future Design. Her favourite green space is Forest Park at Stillington near to where she lives.
As an artist, Shirley is personally inspired by the organic forms of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh, and the designs of William Morris, which are based on nature.
The Tees Valley artist candidly says: “I am in no way a professional photographer, but I take photographs to record information for my work which is based on nature.
“I am looking forward to passing on my love and enthusiasm for nature, and show how it can inspire people to not only create amazing things but to allow them to see the places in which they live or visit in a whole new way.”
The current Dance of Time Walks locations and dates are as follows:
Darlington: Sunday, 11th February / South Park / 12pm-2pm
*Middlesbrough: Saturday, 17th February / Stewart Park / 12pm-2pm [*Fully Booked]
Redcar: Sunday, 18th February / Locke Park / 12pm-2pm
Stockton: Sunday, 25th February / Ropner Park / 12pm-2pm
More dates for Dance of Time Walks will be announced shortly, as the idea is to host them across all four seasons.
Olga Maloney, Artistic Director of Billingham International Folklore Festival of World Dance, said: “We are so lucky to have someone like Shirley leading our Dance of Time Walks, as her passion and energy for arts and nature is totally infectious.
“Coupled with her knowledge of Tees Valley and a thirst to convey the marriage between art and the great outdoors is something that we are all looking forward to experiencing.
“The Festival has been going now for sixty years and we are continuing to produce projects that both inform and educate our audiences.”
People can book a place on the forthcoming free arts and nature walks by visiting the Festival’s website and registering in the events section under Dance of Time Walks or by clicking www.billinghamfestival.com/creative-walks
Also for those people interested in seeing more work by Shirley Wells then she will be exhibiting some wall hangings based on nature at the Python Gallery in Middlesbrough between 22 March to 3 May.