It’s always good to get out of London once in a while and my visit to Chichester provided a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of the city. Whenever I hop on a train to other parts of the country, I always find myself astounded by how much beautiful wide open spaces of nature we have. England, you are beautiful!
The plan for the day was to tour the truly marvellous Cass Sculture Foundation Park, and later on take part in a whisky tasting session. The foundation is a charitable commissioning body with an outdoor based museum promoting modern sculptures made by various artists. Home to over 80 of the very best modern sculptures across 26 acre grounds, in the middle of the beautiful West Sussex countryside, there is a lot to see. I was told by two of the Visitor Services Officers that every single piece is for sale and can be bought by anyone. The organisation has helped produce over 400 works since 1992.
Our visit was arranged by the Famous Grouse, which recently announced a global collaborative project to mark the start of a new era. The brand will be asking men and women across continents what would they like to be famous for, and answers till be laser cut into strips of aluminium, creating a special unique sculpture in the process. It is a collaboration involving 34 engineers, artistic and technology teams – together they will transform the global responses into a magnificent sculpture. To get involved in the process you can visit its website by clicking here.
Tony, one of the foundation’s Visitor Services Officers, kind took a group of us on along a tour for a few hours and to my surprise those hours actually flew by. I think the combination of the jaw-dropping scenery alongside enormous art pieces just swept me away.
After the tour, we all gathered inside for lunch and watched a chef put together a delicious dessert involving whipped whisky cream.
Lee Tomlinson, who is a manager at one of London’s whisky specialist shops Milroy’s of Soho, led a group of us through whisky tasting as we explored several hand selected varieties of the alcoholic beverage by The Famous Grouse.
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By the end of the day, I never thought I would happily spend hours looking at modern art. I do love art rather passionately but mainly old paintings and sculptures of historical value. Modern art is generally not my cup of tea so it was a real surprise to find myself having such a good time.
The whisky tasting class was quite fascinating. It is very much like wine-tasting and coffee-tasting, you find yourself being amazed by how many hundreds of different varieties there are out there, and how extensive the development process actually is.
Lauren Aitchison
Whisky- the drink of my homeland! I’m a proper Scottish country bumpkin so even though I’ve only been in London 5 weeks, it is difficult being in the city when you’re not used to it. I would love to explore more of England, as it’s gorgeous (but very flat!)
Those installations are amazing. x