Art competition to celebrate 60 wild years

The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside will celebrate 60 years of conservation with an exhibition and competition of wildlife art.

The exhibition at the Brockholes Nature Reserve has five categories: Urban Wildlife, Wildlife on the Coast, Wildlife on Reserves, People in Wildlife and Wild Scenery.

Taking place on the weekend of September 10 and 11 (10.30am to 4pm both days), it will be the main event in the 60th celebration.

Organiser and Individual Giving Officer Vicki Lamb said: “For centuries, artists have used the natural world to hone their creativity to create wonderful breath taking art.

“Taking time out in nature helps us to relax, to restore and recharge. Painting, drawing, crafting is also another relaxing activity. Put those two things together and we find ourselves immersed in a state of wonder, clarity and clear focus, with creativity and imaginations running freely.”

Wildlife Trust has been the inspiration for many artists capturing the colours and life on our reserves.

And it will celebrate the history of the Trust which began as the Lancashire Naturalists’ Trust in the summer of 1962, a year later it had bought South Walney Island Nature – which transferred over to Cumbria with the boundary changes in 1974.

In 1980 the Trust bought the first part of Mere Sands Wood in Rufford and changed its name to Lancashire Trust for Nature Conservation. The name remained the same until 1992 when it was officially the Wildlife Trust of Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside.

Over the past 20 years the Trust has bought huge areas of peatland in Lancashire and Manchester and opened Brockholes in 2011.

Supporters and artists are invited to send in their artwork. Entries can be of any medium; paintings, drawings, 3D, and sculptures. Entry fee is £10 for one category.

All the work displayed will be publicly judged and winners will be featured in our Winter Lapwing members’ magazine. Please visit the shop at Brockholes to submit your entry.

For more details go to 60th Anniversary Art Exhibition | The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside (lancswt.org.uk)