SNOWDON SHEPHERD

This work is the product of a unique assignment and collaboration. The artist Keith Bowen, who lives in north Wales, recently spent a year among the sheepfarming community on the slopes of Snowdon. Their active co-operation allowed him to record their working lives and methods throughout a farming year, against the backcloth of the beautiful but unforgiving landscape of Snowdonia. In over 60 pastels as well as line drawings, Bowen depicts all the landmarks of the sheepfarming year: the selection of the new flock at the October ram sales; the gathering of sheep off the higher slopes of the mountain in November; the mortal winter struggle to combat frozen troughs and drifting snow; the lambing season; summer shearing; the Annual Show and the make or break September auctions, when serious business is leavened by gossip as old friends get together.
Keith Bowen's measured commentary, containing a wealth of sheepfarming lore, deals with all the mundane tasks of the shepherd's life: the year-round vigilance against predators, parasites and diseases, the dipping and dousing, the injecting and - nowadays- scanning for radioactivity; the maintainence of miles of walls; the endless searching, checking and and walking.