Wild

Cotswold Craftsmen at Nature in Art

Bringing together a wonderfully diverse range of disciplines, this selling exhibition will showcase the breadth and individuality of contemporary craft. Visitors can discover printmaking, jewellery, wirework, textiles, willow work, sculpture, painting, resin art and more, with each maker offering their own interpretation of the wild world around us.

From ancient woodland forms and botanical structures to animals, landscapes and the textures and materials found in nature, Wild celebrates the endless ways the natural world can spark creativity, whilst offering a glimpse into the rich and varied work of the Cotswold Craftsmen, whose members create thoughtfully made work across a remarkable range of traditional and contemporary disciplines.

We have another amazing Dare to Dabble planned for you!

Designed completely around the absolute beginner, or those who just fancy a dabble, these sessions provide a great opportunity to try out new art techniques and mediums.

Morning Session: 10am – 12pm

Afternoon Session: 1pm – 3pm

Inspiration, materials, guidance and fun are all provided, and as all tasks should, we’ll begin with a brew.

Follow this link to see what we have going on in the session today: Dare to Dabble

As part of a local environmental week, Nature in Art is showing a selection of paintings by Meg Stevens that are part of Nature in Art’s collection and were last shown in their entirety in 2017.
They are from a remarkable collection of paintings all done in situ by Meg Stevens in and around the Brecons, where she lived. She could be found out in all weather capturing the wild places she loved. These pictures in particular, highlight the flowers in their habitat.
In talking about the series, Meg said: ‘When I find bits (of land) where wild flowers grow plentifully, I want to celebrate. All art makes a statement of some kind about something experienced, emotionally or physically. It may be a proclamation or a protest, a poem or a political statement. I think mine are a sort of celebration’.
However, capturing those celebrations was sometimes a struggle! Meg much preferred painting out of doors taking her equipment out into the countryside on her bicycle. She said, ‘If I find myself painting in places where I almost have to cling on with my teeth, it’s because these are often the only places left where wild flowers can grow in profusion – the way they are meant to be seen.’ Meg went on to say, ‘Every picture is a fight. It wouldn’t be worthwhile, I suppose, if it weren’t. One suffers cold, heat, stiff neck, tennis elbow. Brolly springs a leak, blows away. Easel collapses. Seeds in one’s socks and prickles in one’s pullover! …… I can’t decide if it’s me fighting to find how to say it or the picture fighting to get itself said. That they do get themselves somehow said is not a tribute to my skill but to the beauty which, in spite of all that we do to our environment, insists on breaking out wherever it finds the smallest chance.’

In November 2025, the National Emergency Briefing brought together leading experts to present the latest evidence on the climate and nature crisis to politicians and other influential people in Westminster. That evidence is now on the public record. Since April , thousands of communities have watched this 50-minute film which combines authoritative scientific content from that event with reactions from members of the public and some more familiar faces, to help us process the information on a more human level. Although the facts are alarming, many that have seen the film say that they felt a sense of optimism about confronting the challenge together and seeing a better future.

Please book your tickets here (bookings open soon) Choose from:

• Free tickets for film only (doors open 8pm).
• £10 for our usual format – viewing the museum galleries beforehand and enjoying a buffet (Doors open 7pm)

The Gift and Craft Fair has been held for over 20 years and is always well attended, helping to raise essential funds for the Nature in Art Trust. Here at Nature in Art we are extremely passionate about supporting local artists and craftspeople, helping to highlight the array of crafts available and the creativity of the people in the local area. Our event strives to have a large selection of stallholders showcasing a variety of crafts, from woodwork and ceramics, glassware and photography to jewellery, textiles, resin art, flower art and much more.

In 2026, it will take place on Saturday 31st October and Sunday 1st November, 10am-4pm both days.

To apply, click here

Course details:

Make a magical Christmas wreath. Start a family tradition that you can enjoy year after year. I will bring a wide selection of glass, ceramic, mirror and vintage china, so you can create a wreath to your own colour scheme – richly traditional, silver and frosty, jazzy or shabby chic! 

Materials and additional costs: 

£22 (cash) to be paid to tutor for materials 

Please bring a shoebox size cardboard box to cut tiles into. 

Suitability:

Suitable for all 

Spaces: 

10

Price: £124 / £158

Book here 

Aurora

Paintings by Nick Jones

This autumn, Nature in Art presents two galleries of paintings by Nick Jones, made between 2015 and 2020 and drawn from his long fascination with landscape, light and the far north. The museum previously exhibited Jones’s Arctic paintings in 2023, and now returns to his work with a further telling of the story — both the aurora that first drew him north, and the optical phenomena that followed.

The first gallery brings together Jones’s aurora paintings, made after a series of trips to Finnish Lapland from 2014 in search of the Northern Lights. Those who have witnessed the aurora have long reached for the language of wonder to describe it; the polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen called it “colour etherealized,” writing that nothing more beautiful could exist than the Arctic night. It was in that same spirit of awe and wonder that Jones set out to paint what he saw. The results are quiet, luminous works that seek to evoke the mesmerising experience of standing beneath the aurora.

The second gallery turns to other optical phenomena of Arctic skies: halos, coronas, parhelia, fog-bows and rainbows (the last increasingly seen as rain becomes more common in a warming Arctic) formed as sunlight passes through the ice crystals, water droplets and mist that fill the polar air. Many of these paintings were made before Jones had seen such phenomena in the Arctic for himself, and developed in the studio out of a growing curiosity about the far north, and in preparation for his 2018 residency in Greenland and Baffin Island.

Across both galleries, Jones’s work traces not just what these phenomena look like but evokes something of the wonder and mystery that those lucky enough to have seen them have long described.

Nick Jones will also give a talk on 24th November, sharing more of the story behind both bodies of work. Book a ticket here

.    Nick Jones stands beneath the Northern Lights

An opportunity to view Nick Jones’s exhibition of aurora and Arctic optical phenomena paintings (7pm – 7.30pm), followed by a finger buffet, and then a talk by the artist on the stories and Arctic journeys behind the work. See information about the exhibition here.

Book your talk ticket here

Winter Robin needlefelt with Agnese Davies