Last year, three artists commissioned by Kendal Windows on Art to make artworks inspired by farming and landscape found themselves uniquely placed to observe and record the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Windows on Art founder Carole Hamby extended the Farm Project's traditional brief, and invited Duncan Ibbotson, Robert Henfrey and Pam Williamson to respond to the crisis in any way they felt appropriate.

Writers Pamela Sandiford and Maggie Norton were also invited to join the project, supported by the National Fund for the Cultural Documentation of Foot-and-Mouth Disease.

They were asked to record in diaries the experiences of people affected by the outbreak, and to compose their own prose and poetry.

Samples of the artwork and writings are now on show at the Lake District Visitor Centre, at Brockhole, Windermere.

Ambleside artist Pam Williamson was fortunate to have access to High Yews Farm, Crosthwaite, developing a close friendship with sheep farmer Sue Jones.

All Pam's artwork relates to sheep and, in 50 Ways to See a Sheep she has covered an old door with 50 items such as a lambing glove, knitted bootees, recipe for lamb steaks, and a press photograph of a burning pyre juxtaposed with lines of idyllic, rural poetry by Wordsworth.

Ulverston-based writer Pamela Sandiford has years of experience as a hill farmer in the North Staffordshire moorlands, and did not hesitate when invited to join the project.

"It was an extraordinary position to be in," she said.

"Part of me was relieved I no longer had any livestock to worry about personally, and the other part of me felt as though I was tip-toeing around the edge of real farmers' lives, and wondering how I would have felt if somebody came up to me with a notebook at the moment of total crisis, and said have you got time to tell me what you're going through."

She saw herself as "a big receiver", catching words and attitudes, and translating them into poetry.

"It's like a reflection of the disturbances at the heart of farming in this country and beyond this country, because food is global," said Pam of the poetry produced.

"The other side of it is hopefully a celebratory nod in the direction of nature."

l Windows on the Landscape is at Brockhole until April 21, and will be at Brantwood, on the shores of Coniston, in July and August.

Windows on Art's first publication, bringing together some of the work of artists and writers on the Farm Project, is now on sale at tourist information centres for £3.50 (£1 will be donated to the Cumbria Community Recovery Fund) or call 01539-720471.