Shaping Up

It’s been a lucky month - full of energy and exciting breakthroughs!

I am thrilled that Sack has been shortlisted for the Cass Art Prize 2025! The prize aims to champion contemporary art from across UK and Republic of Ireland with prizes for different categories. The exhibition will be hosted at Copeland Gallery, Unit 9, Copeland Park, 133 Copeland Rd, London SE15 3SN, Fri 24 Oct – Sat 1 Nov. Do visit if you can!

Sack is made from recycled, found or donated waste materials including jute, fabric (some hand dyed with homemade botanical inks), twine, plastic, polystyrene, rope, wood, wire, mainly sourced from wastelands, riversides, and coastlines. Part of my stilt structure series, it was inspired by stilt dwellings which exist on edges of safety around the world; hybrids implying precarity, adaptability and resilience. It was originally created during my PADA residency last year, located in an old jute warehouse.

Huge thanks to Cass Art and the panel of judges David Mach, Ishbel Myerscough, Michaela Yearwood-Dan, Pallas Citroen, Ryan Lanji, Tim Allen.

I’m also over the moon to have been selected for Wells Art Contemporary Site-Specific Installations 2025! There will be a range of installations created for the interior and grounds of Wells Cathedral, responding directly to this unique space. It will be such an honour to place my work in The Chapter House, my favourite space in the Cathedral. It is the place where the governing body of the Cathedral meet - connect - to discuss, decide, find the right way forward.

This year there’s a theme: ‘Flowing Light’, taken from 13th century mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg’s writings about her relationship with God. Flowing light symbolises enlightenment, interconnectedness, the divine. Artists are invited to respond to this. I’m working flat out making my proposed installation Threads of LIght. (progress pics below - more on this later) The exhibition will be at Wells Cathedral from Wednesday 8 Oct - Sat 1 Nov. Hope to see you there!

Massive thanks to judges Laura Moffatt and Cathy de Monchaux for selecting my work, I’m deeply grateful.

Please join us for the Private View of One Island - Many Visions, Saturday 6 September, 6-9pm.

One Island - Many Visions is a collaborative project featuring the work of 27 artists, a partnership with members of the Royal Society of Sculptors and Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust.

Sculptures and installations will be located within Tout Quarry Sculpture Park & Nature Reserve and Drill Hall Gallery. Maps available at both locations. The artworks comprise a broad range of responses, media and materials, reflecting diverse contemporary and conceptual approaches to the natural environment.

My site-responsive piece Riot is inspired by Maritime Sunburst Lichen (Xanthoria Parietina), ancient life forms of fungi, algae, and cyanobacteria in symbiosis. Sensitive to atmospheric pollution, signifying pure air, lichen are also resilient and play a vital role in nutrient cycling. Lichen are the slowest growing of all known organisms. The nature of my making is slow too, appropriately. It’s taken me 8 months - in between other work - to make Riot! Threads, hand-stitched, weave together a layered bricolage of line, texture, colour, entanglements. Riot is an artivist piece, a form of soft rebellion. It spotlights our wasteful consumerist society, and negligent treatment of our ocean.

Riot (part II), found, recycled & donated materials: beach waste (ghost netting, rope, hard hats, fishing floats), wire, textiles (some home-dyed with natural pigments), wool, twine, plastic, sponge, polyester, natural debris, sandbags. Some donated by Weymouth & Portland Marine Litter Project

Made in 2 parts, Riot is also wearable. There will be a transient performance during the show, in which the human body activates the work. I’ll be performing with Riot in collaboration with Melanie Thompson at Tout Quarry Sculpture Park & Nature Reserve (Sun 14 Sept, 2-3pm, location: what3words: ///deliver.press.tilts).

Rehearsal with Melanie Thompson at Zig Zag, Glastonbury

There will be a range of other events, including a Symposium (27/28 Sept). I’ll be leading an Eco Sculpture Workshop (Fri 10 Oct 2-4.30pm, Drill Hall). Book: fionacampbell-art@sky.com. I’ll also be taking part in an Artists-in-Conversation, Sun 19 Oct 2pm with Ros Burgin, Nicola Turner, Rebecca Newnham, Kate Parson & Hannah Sofaer, chaired by Freeny Yianni (Close Ltd). Save the dates!

Thanks to Kate Parsons who has worked so hard leading the project alongside a Steering Group (Dallas Collins, Anna Gillespie, Rebecca Newnham and me), and to PSQT for hosting. Thanks to The Arts Society Wessex Area for funding my workshop, and contributing to our events and catalogue. See @oneislandmanyvisions for details.

Tufted Duck is floating in Cranmore village pond (BA4 4QJ, Somerset) until 30 August. Made from recycled and found materials including wire, bottle tops, buttons, beads, lifebuoy ring. I created it for the Eco-Arts Festival Trail, themed Water Life. I worked on it with people of all ages and abilities, including Cranmore residents. The Trail takes place around Shepton Mallet, Cranmore and Doulting, Somerset. Maps from Strode Arms Pub, Station Cafe, Cranmore, One Craft Gallery, and Shepton & Wells libraries.

Photo by Roger Spear

I led a joyful one-day Sculpture workshop ‘Drawing in Space with 3d Materials’ at The Sherborne as a wider offering for the exhibition Recurring Intricacies.

My upcoming courses via Frome Community Education begin in September: Drawing and Creative Sketchbooking. Book soon if interested.

New product in my shop:: a range of copper napkin rings for sale - do take a look.

Fund raiser: I’m extremely thankful to those who’ve donated to my fund-raiser so far: Caroline Driscoll, Hanne Castein, Angela Morley, Claire Alves, Julia Middleton. The fund-raiser (running ‘til the end of August) is to help finance the build of a shed for artwork/storage (see progress pics below - thanks to Roger Spear for all his work on this so far), to work with Melanie Thompson on the Riot collaboration, and film of the performance. If you can help please get in touch. All donors will be acknowledged in my next blog/newsletter and receive a giveaway pack of my greetings cards.

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Christmas Wishes

Winding down into winter, I’ve been enjoying some quiet solitary making. Working slowly towards an exhibition One Island - Many Visions for next year, with fellow Royal Society of Sculptors members, in collaboration with Portland Sculpture Quarry Trust. I’m interested in Lichen (Xanthoria Parietina) found on rocks at Tout Quarry, their colour, form, and radial growth. Among the oldest living and slowest growing organisms on Earth, the first to colonise new land, Lichen absorb large quantities of carbon dioxide. It seems fitting that my making is a slow, meditative process. I’ve been gathering materials, dyeing recycled fabric with turmeric, onion skins and avocado pits, wrapping and hand-stitching. Looking forward to another trip to Portland this weekend to collect beach litter for the work. Thanks to those who have donated remnants. If you have any spare orange or yellow waste textiles please get in touch!

Drawing on Dorset

Two of my charcoal drawings are currently on exhibition at The Sherborne, Dorset, DT9 3JG, part of Dorset Visual Arts Drawing on Dorset, which has toured venues in the South West. The show is in the Drawing Room and runs daily from 23 November - 23 March.

Sprouting Potato, charcoal on Arches paper

Dandelion Roots, charcoal on Somerset paper

If you’d like to purchase a drawing, please get in touch!

I have 3 pieces on show created from discarded piano parts in The Piano Shop Bath, 1&2 Canton Place BA1 6AA, created for Played and Remade. Available for sale and online.

A few images of my work from Elemental, an exhibition at Sou Sou West Gallery, Bridport, Dorset last month. I showed with Jan Alison Edwards and Ally Matthews.

Maquette I, Above and Below; recycled and found materials

Foreground: work by Jan Alison Edwards; Background: my Stilt Structure II

Nymph; found, discarded, recycled materials: fabric dyed with botanical inks, jute, teabags, paper, oil, rhubarb leaves, wood, wire, wood & other natural debris, hair, shoe inner sole, copper, wax, thread, sisal

Nymph (collage); recycled materials: paper, plant debris, fabric, teabags, cardboard

Foreground: Maquette I, Above and Below; on wall: work by Ally Matthews; Background: Stilt Structure II

My work on show at Elemental, Sou Sou West Gallery

Alongside the exhibition, I ran a weekend Eco Sculpture Workshop with Jan Alison Edwards. Below are pics of some of the wonderful experimentation by participants.

Stilt Structure I (detail); found & recycled materials

Seed Commission

Thrilled to have been commissioned by Seed Sedgemoor to create installations for a popup in Angel Place Shopping Centre, Bridgwater TA6 3QT from February ’25. Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand & Life in the Undergrowth will be showing 18-23 Feb. Flags of the Forest will open 8–13 April.  I’ll be at the Seed Creative Popup, Angel Place 18-22 Feb, and running Eco Sculpture Workshops daily, 11am-2pm. Free, fun, and open to everyone aged 6+ (children with an adult). Do drop in!

Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (detail), Together We Rise, Chichester Cathedral. Photo by Anne Purkiss

Flags of the Forest, Wander_Land, Tremenhere Sculpture Gardens

Seed’s primary aim is to enable more people in Sedgemoor to actively engage in the creative arts. This activity is supported by Arts Council England via the Creative People and Places programme.

New Courses

To kick off the New Year I’ll be running a series of 5 week Sketchbooking and Eco Sculpture Courses from January onwards via Frome Community Education, day and eves.  Please visit this link to see them all, for further info, and to book.

Also: Mon eve 7-9pm, 24/2, 10/3, 17/3, 24/3, 31/3

Also: Mon morning 10am-12noon, 13/1, 20/1, 27/1, 3/2, 10/2

I’ll also be running my Online Sculpture Course from 13 January - 9 February ’25. Visit this link for further details or email me fionacampbell-art@sky.com. Alternatively, I have an ongoing self-directed Online Sculpture Course available at half the price.

See my shop for hand-made gifts and artworks. And do follow my instagram for regular updates.

If you missed As Old as the Hills, please visit my previous blog.

Looking forward to some time off over the festive break. Wishing you the same, and a very Happy Christmas! X

Back in the Studio

Last year my studio underwent a space-saving transformation. Walls and floors are now free of clutter - ready for new mess!  I’ve been enjoying the space, absorbed in making alchemical concoctions with everyday soft and hard materials for a sculptural piece Path of Pollination for Fifty Bees IV, an exhibition starting next week at Black Swan Arts, Frome. The piece is a hybrid of sculpture, drawing and installation. I’ve been re-purposing old sponges, plastic netting, recycled wax, paper, out-of-date mustard powder and violet oil ... transforming through cutting, bending, stitching, wrapping and melting.  The process takes me back to my childhood making strange mixtures in my little jungly world at the back of our garden in Kenya.

Path of Pollination - work in progress. Photos by Seamus Nicolson

Fifty Bees is a collaborative art project showcasing the plight of our British bees and pollinators.  Lydia Needle sculpts fifty miniature art pieces and invites fifty artists to create new work in response to one bee’s ecology.  My designated bee is Hoplitis Claviventris (Welted Mason). 

Researching the Welted Mason bee’s path of pollination I got hooked on pollen as matter.  Key to its makeup is its stickiness, the yellowness due to flavonoids for UVB protection.  Mason bees are far more efficient pollinators than social bees.  Pollen transfers from flower stamens, collects all over their body hairs, then drops to other flower pistols, causing cross-pollination.  BirdsFoot Trefoil - the main pollen source for the Welted Mason bee - has a strong sweet ‘violet-scented’ aroma.  After drinking the nectar, the bee deposits pollen moistened with nectar in piles inside a stem, an egg laid on each, so the young can feed after hatching.

The fine copper wire and thread connectors between pollen forms in my work are transmitters of energy. 'Nature is an ever dynamic and complex matrix of individual lives and supporting elements, forming interconnections, of which we are a part… interconnections exist between all matter and lifeforms..a kind of three dimensional fabric .. bristling through all, across space and time… The light dims a little when small threads break between phenomena, fading entirely if there are deeper tears and cuts'. (Ginny Battson, 2018).

Fifty Bees IV - the interconnectedness of all things runs 8 February - 14 March ‘20 at Black Swan Arts, 2 Bridge Street, Frome BA11 1BB. Preview Friday 7 Feb, 6-8pm. All welcome!

I’m interested in string theory and mycelial networks, which offer a symbiotic relationship with plants, evoking imagination and hope.  How to combine life with death, despair with hope. I’d also like to develop more work along similar lines to my piece Glut - wrapped tentacular entrails, sensual bodily forms from waste materials. While thinking on new work, I began an ink and oil pastel drawing (below). Strangely, around the same time I came across similar structures in rock iron secretions at Burton Bradstock beach, Dorset.

The tragic wildfires in Australia (and Amazon) affected me deeply as so many others worldwide, and ignited the idea for an ongoing piece for Incendiary, an exhibition at Pound Arts, Wiltshire (19 March - 18 April).  The focus is Fire, Mourning, and the 'carbon-heavy masculinities' (Alaimo) of climate change. Entitled Pyre, I’m creating wrapped bundles of found/collected objects: items of love and life including sticks, bones, feathers, flotsam & jetsam, all bound, charred and eventually stacked in a pile to form a pyre. To me they are like grave offerings, memorials, wailings, grief bundles.   

My work is currently on show at The Royal Society of Sculptors Gilbert Bayes Award 2019 Winners Exhibition until 20 March, when it tours to Grizedale Sculpture.  I’ll be taking part in a Sculpture Slam on Wednesday 12 February, 6.30 – 8.30pm with all other exhibiting GBA artists. We are presenting a series of short 3 minute talks, chaired by Alex Chinnock. The Slam is an opportunity to tell people about our practice, an informal evening open to the public. Doors and bar open at 6.30pm, the Slam runs 7-8pm followed by viewing the exhibition and chatting. Please come along and support if you can!

Glut. Photos above and below by Jennifer Moyes

I’ve been leading a range of workshops and Masterclasses for young people at the Holburne Museum: Colourful Still-Life drawings in oil pastels, Life Drawing and the next one is Painting Self-Portraits in Acrylics on 16 Feb, 10.30am-4pm. For more info and to book visit: www.holburne.org/events

I’ll be running drop in family friendly workshops for Somerset Climate Action Network on behalf of Somerset’s four District Councils, the County Council and Somerset Art Works. We’ll be making sculptural pieces using recycled materials including tin, copper wire, twine and plastic netting, highlighting the climate emergency. Come along on either:

8th February, Sedgemoor District Council. The Sedgemoor Room, Bridgwater House, King Square, Bridgwater, TA6 3AR

15th Feb, Mendip District Council. The Council Chamber, Mendip District Council Offices, Cannards Grave Road, Shepton Mallet, BA4 5BT

22nd February, Vicarage Street Methodist Church, Yeovil, BA20 1JB

For more info visit: somersetartworks.org.uk/have-your-say-on-climate-strategy

Delighted to be taking part in Window Wonderland, Shepton Mallet. I’ll be re-purposing an old work Tendril (5 metres sculpture - see below) for a window display at Tesco, Shepton Mallet (5-8 March), adding recycled components related to Bags for Life funded community projects. Running concurrently with All the World’s Our Playground performance at St Paul’s School, the project is supported by The Art Bank,  Make the Sunshine and the Rubbish Art Project.

Art UK are coming to film me next month for their national project aiming to introduce young people to contemporary artists, writers, filmmakers and performers. Exciting!

I was delighted to have been selected for the Learning Programme Masterpieces in Schools in partnership with the Royal Society of Sculptors.  One of the following 5 artworks will be loaned for a day loan alongside my delivery of a sculpture workshop for schoolchildren. I wonder which they’ll pick?

All the above sculptures will then be available for sale - contact me if interested!

The sculpture course I’ve been running via Frome Community Education ends next week. It’s been wonderful working with some lovely enthusiastic adults, who’ve made some amazing pieces.

I’ve been inspired by visiting several exhibitions in the past month, ranging from The London Art Fair to Hauser & Wirth Somerset (where I sometimes invigilate), and the impressive studios of Simons Hitchens and Michael Fairfax.

Hope to see you at some of my forthcoming events!