Rosemary Firth

Rosemary Firth entered Sky Landscape Painter of the Year 2020

She wonders what gave her the courage to do so, but she is very glad she did.

She was placed in the top three in her heat and has experienced a burst of interest in her collage work. Many of the collages which she advertised on the Yorkshire Art website have sold and she has received commissions for further work.

The Sky programme was filmed at West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire, a location which was ideal for Rosemary. Her work is focussed upon nature and often features water. Holidays are spent sitting on the beach, painting the sea and photographing the natural environment.

Before the day, Rosemary suspected they would be painting at a National Trust site. She hoped it would be a natural habitat but knew the task could have been a mansion, or even an industrial building. Arriving at West Wycombe, she was relieved to see six pods set up facing the lake and Temple of Music. They were lucky - it was a sunny day, but blustery. The wind was more of an issue for Rosemary than for the other artists. Her work reutilises previously made art, including batik and woodcuts. The need to chase strips of fabric and paper being blown across the grass was remedied when a sheet of polythene was deployed as a windshield. She thoroughly enjoyed her day. Steven Mangan chatted easily with her, while painter Tai Shan Schierenberg was interested in her technique. She explained how she layers material to give a sense of depth and build up a colour palette. Her work encourages the viewer to look beyond, forming a path into the distance. Rosemary interrogates the interaction between emotion and nature. The judges liked the inventive way she had responded to the ever changing water, having managed to create an interesting surface with watery depth.

Studies and Teaching

From a young age, Rosemary loved to draw. Following school, she studied a foundation art course in Doncaster and then completed her BA Fine Art at Hull College of Art. After taking time out to have a family, she trained to teach and started passing her love of art on to secondary school students. Although she loves teaching, she found the school setting restrictive. There were too many things that needed her attention, other than art. So after sixteen years teaching she decided to leave education and immerse herself in art, by opening a gallery. She continued to teach, running classes for adults in the gallery. When the gallery lease ended after two years she decided to carry on creating art and teaching from home. By using the Yorkshire Art website she was still able to have a visible platform for her collages. For Rosemary, teaching is a way to pass on skills as well as to reflect on your own practice, and to think about things more deeply. The small groups who gather at her home have become friends as well as students. She even managed a few socially distanced classes this summer. Art was created in her garden, a suitable venue for an artist with a passion for nature. The spring lockdown gave Rosemary the opportunity to engage fully with nature and she enjoyed her daily walk or bicycle ride with her husband, discovering small green pockets in urban Doncaster. The lack of traffic made the experience more enjoyable and brought nature to the fore. She returned home inspired to create, an inspiration which was given direction in June when she heard she had been selected for Sky Landscape Painter.

Preparing for Sky Landscape Painter

Rosemary spent a lot of time practising in advance of the big day. Until the week before shooting they were unsure if they would be able to take their own materials. In the end this was possible, but Rosemary had to practise making immediate materials for use in collage as she could not rely on previously made work. She developed a technique of layering marks upon paper, using a variety of tools and materials, to form collage material. She reached the point where she knew that she could produce materials and a collage within the four hour framework of the programme. In the end she didn’t need to use this technique on the day. Going forward, she can see herself experimenting with these materials in the future. Her supply of re-useable materials is dwindling, and with the current lack of teaching it is not being replenished.

Alongside teaching Rosemary has been passing on her love of creating and inspiring others through writing books. She has published five to date and is working on a sixth about drawing. Her most recent, Mixed media collage: Recycling artwork appeared in 2020 and was clearly inspired by her current practice. She says that writing books has encouraged her to think in new ways.

Rosemary is very much a Yorkshire artist. Her favourite location is the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust site at Potteric Carr in Doncaster. One of her most arresting works is the view of a shaded pathway at Danes Dyke in East Yorkshire.

Keeping it in the family

The Yorkshire Art website gives her the opportunity to promote her art and celebrate Yorkshire. She has been pleased to accept commissions for other parts of Yorkshire, including Gledhow Valley in Leeds. Her family also engage regularly in art. Her husband, Graham, is an artist and author. Her daughter, Nicola, is a workshop supervisor at Leeds Arts University and a skilled upholsterer; while her son, David, created the extremely popular Salad Fingers animations.

Doncaster and art

When Rosemary opened her art gallery, in 2009, the opening was packed. She feels that this indicated a hidden thirst for art in Doncaster. She had been pleased to see that there are now more art events in the city including the Doncaster Art Fair. She is pleased to see art being exhibited on the walls of pubs and the market Deli. She is excited by the prospect of the D31 Gallery, which she has been involved in since the project’s conception, moving into the Old Library building. D31 was formed when artists signed up to collaborate on the project, which would give local artists a dedicated gallery space to show their work and participate in both national and international art events. The project, led by Chinwe Russell, has already established an online gallery and Rosemary looks forward to the day when they can work together in a physical space. Rosemary is thinking of entering more competitions in the future. She has already had work shown in the Ferens Art Gallery Open Exhibition in Hull and the Harley Open in Nottinghamshire, as well as Doncaster Open Art. This year has rejuvenated her interest in art and nature. She is looking forward to a future where Doncaster will become a much more significant place in the British art scene.

Words by Debbie Rolls