Snowdon Shepherd - Keith Bowen

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.