Sarah Mayhew Craddock on the inclusive Art in Woodstock

Last weekend saw swarms of art-enthusiasts elbow their way past those who beat a path to Blenheim to descend upon Woodstock for the annual Art in Woodstock festival, which continues until Sunday.

Churches, hotels, restaurants, shops, The Oxfordshire Museum and Woodstock Town Hall all open their doors to showcase work by local artists and artists from across the UK and the globe attracted to the prospect of exhibiting their work in this well-heeled honeypot of a Cotswold market town.

Whilst it would be easy, and understandable, for Art in Woodstock to sell out to the allure of becoming absorbed by commercial success, it seems to me that Art in Woodstock has integrity. This is an honest celebration of visual arts organised by people who clearly love and respect the breadth of fine art, be it for commercial gain or for conceptual exploration.

The festival isn’t curated as such, however, it is very carefully orchestrated. Reaching out to, and engaging with, art aficionados and infants alike, each day will see artist demonstrations take place in a pop-up studio space in the town square, art workshops take place in the museum, an exhibition of works produced by pupils at local schools in the Town Hall, the ever popular speaker evenings will take place at intervals throughout the week, and street pavement artists and performance artists may also be found in the town throughout the festival period.

Art in Woodstock isn’t an overwhelmingly big festival, yet the 34 artists are too innumerable to mention here.

That said, there is one artist whose elegant, free-flowing, yet carefully-controlled brush strokes have captivated me for years, and it is this artist’s work that I shall be seeking out at Art in Woodstock 2014. That artist is local Woodstock artist and musician Rod Craig.

Capturing natural and man-made rhythms in his oeuvre Rod Craig takes his inspiration from his passion for architecture, landscape, and the elements. Whilst many of his works are executed at speed, en-plein-air in order to capture the immediacy of a moment, those fleeting sensations that one encounters out on a walk, his works are more abstracted and atmospheric than they are representational studies.

Frequently working in Indian ink and watercolour Craig’s confident mark-making is emphasised by the punchy pigments of his palette that he employs in order to obtain clean, bold marks.

Rod Craig in no way conforms to the stereotype of a watercolourist; from his fearless palette, to a style that has echoes of oriental art, to the scale that he experiments with – some of Craig’s watercolours are five feet wide. It was Craig’s studies of birds that really captured my imagination; his ability to represent flight, apparent weightlessness, and freedom is incredible, and so it comes as no surprise to learn that he is exhibiting a series of works based around trees for Art in Woodstock. He comments: “All of the inspiration for my tree images has been drawn from the beautiful Woodstock water meadows or Blenheim Park through the seasons.” He continues: “The Oxfordshire countryside around Woodstock has the most incredible trees and the changing seasons are a constant source of inspiration – The Water Meadows with their beautiful colours in spring and summer, the spectacular autumn leaves in the park and the skeletal forms of the Blenheim ancient oaks in winter.”

Craig’s beautiful works possess a lyricism, he captures the natural rhythms of his environment, and his musical talents transcend his instruments, spilling into his visual abilities.

Interestingly, he is currently developing his ‘painting from live music' project, and in doing so has found himself experimenting with his palette further still.

Rod Craig is only one of the captivating artists exhibiting as part of Art in Woodstock — go forth and find your favourite!

Art in Woodstock 
Until Sunday, November 2 
Sponsored by Henmans Freeth
Visit rodcraig.com and artinwoodstock.com