News

We're grateful to the Ilkley Gazette for inviting me to write about the inspiration, design process and sense of relief now that the fountain is installed (click on the image below to access it):

We’re looking forward to showing an installation of mobiles at COLLECT 2025, organised by the Crafts Council. Our work can be found with JaggedArt in W8, West Wing, Somerset House 28 February- 2 March.

Ian Duhig was in Ilkley at The Grove Bookshop recently to read from his new collection, An Arbitrary Light Bulb. He began by reading a poem called Converse, which takes the inspiration for the Ilkley Fountain as its starting point. Before he read the poem, Ian quoted...

Image above: an Ilkley fountain model on Ilkley Moor, October 2024Filmmaker Clare Dearnaley and I have worked together on a short film which explores the origins of the design for the Ilkley Fountain. We had just two mornings to take the footage, and we were very...

Improving Ilkley will soon be announcing the date when the fountain is due to open in early 2025.A summary of the fountain project to date with links to further info can be found here: Ilkley Fountain summary

Ten years ago, some friends took us to meet someone who they had known for a long time. Her name was Sue Wright, and she lived in a small village near York with a garden which seemed to lead from one defined space to another. Her late husband’s sculptures could be...

Having recently watched the BBC documentary ‘Secrets in the Peat’, and now that the engineering works and fabrication of the gravity-fed Ilkley Fountain are well under way, I have tried to note down why I am intrigued by Sphagnum Moss, and why it felt so right as the...

We went to Swaledale for a week, and after coming across a first waterfall, decided to explore some of the others in the valley. Having thought about falling water and gravity-fed fountains for the past 18 months in connection with the Sphagnum fountain in Ilkley, it...

Auction of final model in Ilkley Fountain limited edition series, donated by Ronnie DuncanReserve price: £1,700.00 TO PLACE A BID EMAIL: louisehepworthwood@yahoo.co.uk Auction ends 24 July with model available for viewing at Grove Bookshop, Ilkley 10 - 24 July...

Thanks to Laura Mate for these professional images. 

I went on one of a number of days organised by Moors for the Future and Friends of Ilkley Moor to plant Sphagnum plugs on Ilkley Moor as part of the restoration programme. As the day went on, we had to tread more and more carefully around all the tiny plugs we had...

Made by Chris White and James Tulley at Iris House Media. Thank you!

There was a strong sense of community at the opening of the Improving Ilkley art exhibition and auction to fundraise for the Ilkley Fountain project. An amazing 27 works of art donated by local artists, - all invited, organised and curated by Louise Hepworth-Wood,...

For more images of the Ilkley Fountain model, please see here. 

After a development phase during which we have worked collaboratively with Improving Ilkley and James Wilkinson on the scale model for the proposed fountain sculpture for the centre of Ilkley, we are pleased to share images of the results.The site-specific design is a...

'Breath Water Marks', a small exhibition of five mobiles at the Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere, Lake District, has been extended until later this year.The mobiles are really enhancing the gallery spaces at Wordsworth Grasmere. People often comment about how lovely they...

The first pieces for an exhibition I am preparing for, 'Still', with Alice Fox, opening June 2024 at the Tinker Gallery. Images by David Lindsay.  

'Held', a series of mobiles inspired by Sphagnum Moss, will be exhibited at jaggedart London from Tuesday 28th November.

Our series of falling oak leaves, made as a response to exhibiting and spending time at the Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere, will be at Tinker Gallery, Ilkley from 5th October - 23rd December as part of a show called 'The Written Word'.  We used a quote (written on the...

After the recent articles in The Observer, Guardian Online and Ilkley Gazette about the design for the Ilkley Fountain, we thought it might be helpful at this point for others and for ourselves if we write a note about how it is evolving. Our hope is that the design...

‘I felt the kindliness of the moss, which is all over everywhere once you get out of the made world. God’s flooring. All the kinds, pillowy, pin-cushiony, shag carpet. Gray sticks of moss with red heads like matchsticks. Some tiny dead part of me woke up to the moss...

Making some new shapes using stones which we have gathered.  

Earlier this year, on behalf of Dovetailing with Clare Dearnaley, I received some seed funding from Bradford 2025 to develop a proposal for a project around sphagnum moss which is still in development. Valuable support has been given by Born in Bradford and Moors for...

We are honoured that our design for the new Ilkley fountain has been selected through public vote, and that there will be a celebration of the moors, and more specifically sphagnum moss, at the centre of our town. We have been working with Improving Ilkley to adapt...