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 I’ve been re-purposing old sponges, plastic netting, recycled wax, paper, out-of-date mustard powder and violet oil ...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!