The picturesque countryside of East Anglia has been the inspiration of many a great artist over the years with its abundance of wildlife, diversity of landscape and huge skies. This summer and autumn Durrants are doing their bit to celebrate some of Norfolk and Suffolk’s talented professional artists and bring it to the fore as lead sponsor of Harleston and Waveney Art Trail.

Harleston and Waveney Art Trail is a diverse and lively community of professional artists who live and work in the beautiful Waveney Valley. The collective put on their first ‘open studios’ trail in 2005 and due to its success have run one every year since, apart from 2020 due to the pandemic.

The 2021 Harleston and Waveney Art Trail will be accompanied by a group exhibition at The Old Harnessmakers Gallery in Harleston. The ‘Meet the Makers’ exhibition will showcase the work of the 11 participating artists and craft makers, acting as a hub for visitors to get a taste of the work on offer throughout the open studios. At the exhibition, audiences will get to see a selection of the artists’ work and can start planning their studio visits with help from gallery owner Lisa Henshall.

The studios will be open over the weekends of 19th and 20th June and 26th and 27th June while the gallery will host the exhibition between 27th May and 3rd July.

The event hopes to encourage visitors to explore the art and landscapes of Harleston and Waveney. Harleston and Waveney Art Trail chairman Malcolm Cudmore said: “I’m beyond delighted that Harleston and Waveney Art Trail is back in action in 2021. As a group, our principal purpose is to welcome visitors to our studios each year – the very thing (for completely understandable reasons) we’ve been unable to do for the last year.”

Dominic Parravani, Managing Director for Durrants is delighted to be supporting the Trail in 2021, having been associated with Harleston and Waveney Art Trail for over three years. “Events like these showcase our region and the talent within it beautifully. Communities are brought together by the Trail, and as an organisation with long established roots in Norfolk and Suffolk, being part of our local community is something we at Durrants are very proud of.”

The eleven artists participating in the Summer Art Trail are Carolyn Moulton, Sara Johnson, Barbara Bernard, Paul Zawadzki, Liz Taunt, Bobbie Watchorn, Rachel Wiles, Ingrid Duffy, Nell Close, Lisa Henshall, Kath Wallace. The artist’s studios are dotted around the valley, in and between Harleston, Wortwell, Homersfield, Denton, Earsham, Ditchingham, Bungay and Hedenham.

Later in the year, an Autumn Trail will take place, with every member of Harleston and Waveney Art Trail – around two dozen artists taking part. This trail will take place over the first three weekends of September – 4th/5th, 11th/12th and 18th/19th.

If you’d like more information about Harleston and Waveney Art Trail visit their website here.