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FESTIVAL OF WESSEX 2026 • 19 Harry Brockway: Ways with Wood Glastonbury’s Somerset Rural Life Museum is hosting a celebratory exhibition honouring the life and work of Glastonbury-based artist Harry Brockway (1958 – 2024). Bringing together a significant selection of his wood engravings, woodcuts and wooden sculpture, the exhibition offers an in-depth look at the creativity and craftsmanship that shaped his distinguished artistic career. Harry Brockway was an exceptionally skilled printmaker, sculptor, illustrator and stone carver. Alongside making independent prints, he created wood-engraved illustrations for an impressive range of major and independent publishers, from Penguin to The Folio Society. His work appears in editions of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and in texts by Philip Pullman, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mark Twain and W. B. Yeats, among others. In addition to his wood carving, Brockway worked as a self-employed stone carver and monumental mason, contributing to restoration projects across the UK, including Wells Cathedral. His diverse portfolio extended from stonework for The National Trust and memorials for The Lettering Trust, to commemorative coins for The Royal Mint and t-shirts for sustainable fashion brand Finisterre. This exhibition pays tribute to the remarkable skill, imagination and deep commitment to craft that defined Brockway’s creative life. His legacy continues to influence contemporary wood engraving and woodworking, inspiring artists, makers and illustrators today. Born in 1958, in Newport, South Wales, Brockway studied sculpture at Kingston Polytechnic and The Royal Academy Schools in London, later training as a stonemason at Weymouth College. He was an active member of The Society of Wood Engravers and The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. He worked from a small studio at the bottom of his garden where he continued to develop his practice in wood engraving, letter cutting, sculpture and design. Every day he downed tools to take his daily walk up Glastonbury Tor. Until 2 September: Somerset Rural Life Museum, Chilkwell Street, GLASTONBURY, BA6 8DB. Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 5pm. £8.50 / £6.95 / £3.50. 01458 831197 / srlm.org.uk . ‘THE PEARL NECKLACE’ (2008) ALEXA MACKENZIE Returning Five artists who share a long friendship present a reflective collection of paintings marking their personal journeys: the people, places, and emotion that inhabit their memories. 27 June - 25 July: Fisherton Mill, 108 Fisherton Street, SALISBURY, SP2 7QY. Monday - Saturday 9.30am - 5pm. 01722 500200 / fishertonmill.co.uk. REBECCA NEWNHAM ‘QUERCUS EDITION’ (2022) Common Arts at The Fringe Common Arts are launching a new contemporary arts festival in Shaftesbury, inspired by Soulzight from Tokens by Dorset dialect poet William Barnes. The term reflects how memory and time inhabit the world, allowing the past to persist within the present. Artists Rebecca Newnham, Fran Quinlan, Zara McQueen, Lizzie Sykes and curator Aliceson Green present sculpture, video and drawing installations throughout the town, exploring these ideas through landscape, community and documenting time. The festival launches at Gold Hill Museum on 11th July (3 - 5pm), with curator tours on 14th and 18th July, and children’s workshops on 18th and 19th July. Maps are available throughout the town. 11 - 19 July: Various locations in SHAFTESBURY, SP7 8LY. 07712 902586 / instagram.com/common_arts.