East Yorkshire will be awash with art this month, as Jo Haywood reports

The extreme landscape of East Yorkshire provides an ever-changing inspiration for creatives of every hue, from painters and photographers to ceramicists, glass and textile artists.

Walking along the coast from Spurn Point to the chalk cliffs of Bempton, you climb from sea level to more than 400ft. Progressing from east to west, you first encounter the flat silt plains of Holderness, stretching as far as the eye can see, then the gently undulating hills and valleys of the Wolds.

Dunes, cliffs, farmland, foreshore, meres, valleys, estuaries, woodland and urban sprawls – all play their part in inspiring the artists who take part in the area’s annual Reveal open studios event. Now in its fourth year, running on September 25th and 26th and October 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th, it will feature more than 70 artists in 45 venues, making it the region’s largest and most diverse visual arts event.

Among those taking part this year are:

Shirley Goodsell, an artist, working principally in oils, with strong family connections and recollections of Hull’s Victorian docks, motivated by the changing and sometimes vanishing rural, sea and industrial landscapes of East Yorkshire.

Jean Illingworth, who has been photographing Bridlington beach nearly every week for six years, documenting its amazing light and changes of mood.

Jill Ford, a ceramicist who spent a week cut off in an isolated rural pottery during the heavy snows earlier this year. She found an invigorating new inspiration for her work in the snow and ice on the Ings and the subsequent flooding.

Peter Coates, a former labourer and street sweeper who has recently gained BA Honours in contemporary fine art from Hull School of Art. Describing his change of direction, he said:

‘Many seeds have been planted in my head that I now find are my starting blocks for working, making something invisible visible, something to walk round and touch, a story without paper or words. ‘I now read about art, dream about art and spend my days experimenting with ideas. For me, it’s the perfect world, a bubble that might burst any second.’

Cluny Chapman, a creative textiles artist who works with the wool produced from her own flock of rare breed Shetland sheep.

For more information about Reveal 2010, visit www.reveal-art.org.