Hope of a Tree

Hope of a Tree is the working title of my latest piece in progress for Inch by IN:CH, an artist-led travelling project around South West UK.  The phrase comes from The Overstory (Richard Powers), a book which has influenced my work, following on from The Hidden Life of Trees (Peter Wohlleben).  Both reveal emotive stories and facts about trees: their sentience, underground communication, and resilience.

Hope has been an ongoing theme this past year. I find hope and sustenance in my garden everyday.  Watching, talking to birds, and listening to their chattering across the trees has been joyful. Hope is ‘a belief that the world has so many strangenesses and possibilities’ (Katherine Rundell, The Book of Hopes). 

Slowly, I’ve been building up the work.  A metal trunk (case) is the base from which rigid linear vertical forms ascend into branching umbrella structures. These contrast with translucent yellow hand-stitched textiles, referencing ‘invisible hands’ all over the world, repair, hope and regeneration. The recycled and found materials are gathered from my locality or donated by friends and neighbours. The trunk was sourced from an auction, and has a military history linked to Dar es Salam.

Inch by IN:CH runs from 29 May - 3 October in multiple venues. There has been a huge amount of behind-the-scenes work, including fund-raising - still ongoing… We’re delighted by the generous support (listed on our website), which will help bring a free programme of events to audiences.  I’ll be providing free sculpture workshops for visitors to explore techniques using recycled materials.

I’m juggling several projects, and it’s been hard dedicating time to making when online work demands attention.  I’m trying to prioritise ‘making time’; when the sun’s out and I can work outside - my favourite workspace - it’s top of the list!

Design work for for my All The Colours project is in its final stages. The community art project, part of Art First, via Seed, is a collaboration with the public to co-create a holographic artwork for 30 buses. The final designs will be revealed in June, when the art is on buses!

My first foray back into the real world running in-person workshops at Victoria Park Community Centre, Bridgwater was fun.  I loved interacting with participants after so long in lockdown, making collages for the photo mosaic chameleon which will change colour depending on viewpoint. I’m really grateful to all those who’ve submitted images to the project.  There will be an online exhibition of all work, and a prize draw.

I’m delighted to have been selected and awarded first prize for Round Lemon’s anniversary online ONE exhibition. 9 artists have been selected to take part: Chantelle Boyle, Sam Heydt, Nikolay Vlahov, William Shoal, Irina Laaja, Artemis Herber, Rachel Lou, Sarah Strachan and me. 

As part of it, I’m giving a free talk about my practice on 6 May 7-8pm. Book via the link - hope you can join!

My short film Life in the Undergrowth and a sketchbook feature in In Pursuit of Spring, an exhibition of works by Somerset Art Works members responding to the book by Edward Thomas. The first part of this exhibition is open on the ground floor of Black Swan Arts, Frome, 10am- 3pm, Friday-Sunday. The next part opens later in May (covid restrictions permitting). There’s an online exhibition on SAW and Black Swan Arts’ websites, featuring the artworks, artists’ statements and quotes from the book, published by Little Toller Books in Dorset.  It’s a lovely show, curated by Paul Newman and Emma Tuck. (2 Bridge St, Frome BA11 1BB; 28 March - 27 June ‘21).

Life in the Undergrowth is a filmed diary, inspired by hidden worlds in my garden. It began in early spring. Appreciating, observing, and communing with small creatures seemed vital. I witnessed transformation, life and death, and strange incidents happened... The film reflects my love of nature, changing seasons, how alive the air with bird sounds when we are quiet.  I was invited to write an article about my Life in the Undergrowth project for Somerset Gardens Trust magazine's Spring issue. You can see the article on my Press page.

I’ve been doing dedicated weekly drawing sessions (see @sculptorsdrawingspace on instagram) with Royal Society of Sculptors members initiated by Mark Richards. We draw together on zoom in congenial silence except for the sounds of our various drawing tools. It’s a precious time in the week to focus on anything we fancy drawing in the hour. Some of my drawings have been quick experimental doodlings, others slow and intricate.  One of my drawings will form part of a hand bound book of artists’ work, compiled by Nina Gronw Lewis for Somerset Reacquainted - coming to Ace Arts, Somerton in June.

I’m taking part in a Window on Art trail, Trowbridge from 5th June - early September, and other projects are in the pipeline. See my instagram for regular updates:

Hope you can visit some of the events!

Take care,

Fiona

Life in the Undergrowth

Cocooned in our insular worlds, observing and attending to nature seems vital.  On the whole, I’ve been enjoying my deep seclusion.   Rather than work in the studio, the glorious sunshine and accompanying birdsong draws me outside. I’ve been gardening and making art in tandem, both meditative and feeding off each other.  This fusion initiated my self-directed art project: Life in the Undergrowth.  

I’m allowing the process of investigation to lead me, creating and documenting a series of artworks based on hidden worlds that often get overlooked.  My sketchbook is filling up with observations of seedlings rooting and upturned turf with entangled worms.  Working through different processes of collage and maquette-making using to-hand materials, larger pieces may evolve.

Alongside this, I’ve been making and editing videos of the process.  It’s a steep learning curve.  Covid19 has catalysed a need for online creative provision, so I’m building on my digital skills in order to offer an online art course.  I’ve had some technical advice from Richard Tomlinson, Ignite Somerset and am doing an online teaching course with Future Learning, which is really helpful. The advantages of convenience, flexibility, extended reach, instant access, no travel means it could be a sustainable way forward. Below are 3 short video demos I’ve made of different processes: Plant Fibres in Paper, Paper-making with Plant Fibres, and Collage Making using Old Magazines.  These free resources are for you to try out.  If you’re interested in learning more about my forthcoming events and online art courses, please subscribe here.  My first course will focus on creating nature-inspired sculptures, being experimental, resourceful, and deepening our engagement with our environment. There will be an introductory offer and a free giveaway!

Use natural debris from the garden or park to make simple paper artworks.

For full instructions visit my YouTube channel

Audio: Akale Wube - Ayalqem Tedengo extract

Step by step demo on how to make paper with plant fibres.

For full instructions visit my YouTube channel

Audio - Neroche (Snakes and Ladders)

I was thrilled to be selected as an Art Tour International instagram #stayhome #savelives winner! As a result my work is now featured in a double-page spread in Art Tour International’s latest Spring magazine and I have an online interview coming up this Thursday!

Zoom sessions have been a way to keep in touch with peers and join international conversations. I’m grateful for my connections with an artist-led group INCH, Somerset Art Works and Black Swan Arts.

I’ve been involved in several online and postal collaborations and initiatives, which has been energising: 

Vegetate curated by Anna Souter.   A range of artists, writers, curators, social scientists and others responded to Anna’s text prompts in a postal swop. The postal system acted as cross-pollinator. I received a wonderful piece of lavender smelling poetic prose about nurturing the earth and growth. I was inspired by the words ‘pale hairs sprouting... long enough to comb and plait... The growth shone in the sunshine as I trimmed the ends with bright scissors...’ . Responses were limited to letter size/weight. I made some simple pieces - fine copper wire hairs enveloped in khadi paper, waxed. Now sent off to their designated recipients.

Lockdown Portraits with Tchad Findlay - friendly conversation while creating portraits of each other

Letters to the Earth - Earth Day, 22 April. I wrote the poem for Earth Day, and asked Lou Baker to hang it on her Wishing Tree in Bristol.

A-Z B - Between online exhibition - 44AD 

Gardens of Earthly Delights - curated by Jessica Wetherly. Virtual platform to share hidden worlds.

Somerset Reaquainted with Sara Dudman/SAW members; response to unique period of isolation and renewed proximity to nature. To ‘investigate the minutiae of our local environment, sharpening our senses..’ It completely resonates with my own project.  Artists’ work will be posted in SAW’s Instagram takeover.’ Ongoing.

10gram Challenge. Royal Society of Sculptors members are provided with small pieces of wax to create a mini sculpture to be direct cast into bronze. Ongoing.

#artistsupportpledge. Do visit my Instagram highlight to view my art for sale. I’m offering some pieces at very special prices for this excellent initiative to support artists in difficult times.

This past month in isolation has had its ups and downs. Mind meanderings have been liberating, but also uncover mixed feelings, memories, concerns. I’ve struggled with brain fog, feel pressure to ‘make the most of it’, want to resist the market-driven art world, finding alternative ways to support myself, questioning what is important. It’s amazing how little one needs.

As I write this blog, some excellent news has arrived.  I have just learnt that I’ve been awarded an Arts Council England Emergency Response Fund!  The award aims to help artists who have suffered severe financial losses due to covid19.  It will support my Life in the Undergrowth project, digital development and Online Art Course.  I’m feeling extremely fortunate, so thankful and absolutely over the moon!

Stay safe!

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!

Juggling

It’s a common phenomenon for artists to be adept jugglers, managing multiple balls in the air to survive. A book I’m reading ‘The Artist as Cultural Producer’ by Sharon Louden highlights 40 artists who do it very well. It’s been a dizzy time juggling different strands of my practice and feeling excited by opportunities that have come my way.

Carymoor - newt sculpture

I installed my Great Crested Newt sculpture in his new home at Carymoor Environmental Trust. Made from recycled and found materials, he sits on a grassy tussock by an old bomb incineration tank (now pond - home to great crested newts). Here he can oversee his live newt friends who hide underneath the sheet of corrugated steel.

The sculpture was commissioned as a memorial to the founder of the environmental centre Hamish Craig. He loved great crested newts and it was finding these on the old landfill site that sparked the beginnings of Carymoor - now a wonderful wildlife and education centre built over a site full of waste.

MA graduation ceremony

Earlier this month I officially graduated with an MA in Fine Art at a grand ceremony in the awesome Assembly Rooms, Bath, celebrating with fellow graduates. It was a treat to meet our chancellor Jeremy Irons and I was honoured to be invited to give the valediction speech on behalf of our cohort. I managed to do this without tripping up. It was a lovely sunny day for photos - happy memories!

Gilbert Bayes Award sessions

Since winning a Gilbert Bayes award from the Royal Society of Sculptors, I’ve been going to London for monthly development sessions. The last with Shelley James focused on writing about our work. The year ends with a group exhibition in London, which tours to Grizedale Arts afterwards - exciting! I try to maximise on my London day trips by visiting exhibitions or museums. I saw Anni Albers at Tate Modern and more recently strolled through the V&A materials and techniques sections, which is mid-blowing.

Outdoor Arts

I have spent 2 weekends on an Outdoor Arts Development Course in Weymouth (delivered by Activate, b-side & Bournemouth Arts by the Sea Festival). It’s been fun and informative discussing potential art projects, learning tricks of the trade and thinking up new ideas. I’m now working on a pitch for a potential project which will involve collaboration, to present soon for the forthcoming event Dorset Moon this summer (Luke Jerram's international touring project Museum of the Moon). I’ve made a mini rickety ladder as a maquette. If I don’t get selected I will at least have a cute little ladder for posterity. I quite like making small objects despite normally making huge pieces. A bit finickety but addictive!

Incendiary

The wonderful multi-site exhibition ‘Incendiary’, featuring my work, came and went in full fiery mode. 25 artists responded to the firing up of industrial incinerators - a thought provoking exhibition curated by Patricia Brian. Lou Baker and I held an event ‘Join in the Conversation’ as part of it - we were delighted that we had a room packed with engaged people at Stroud Valleys Artspace, discussing our work in context with waste.

Glut at Incendiary. Photo by Mike Garlick

Cells residency

For my cells residency ‘Offenders’ at Town Hall Arts, Trowbridge (April/May) I’ve made initial sketches, a collage and have started sourcing scrap steel for the skeletal form of a proposed huge Tongue sculpture. Working in the garden on sunny February days has been great. Confrontation with uncomfortable topics related to environmental exploitation will be a characteristic of this residency and exhibition. 

My work often involves sourcing, sorting and stripping wire. I’ve happily received donations of unwanted materials: pink clothes, towels, wire and fruit nets. Still looking for recycled wax, lead and copper wire. Please get in touch if you have any spare.

Forthcoming exhibitions

Other events coming up include a big group show ‘Re-formation’ at the Bishops Palace, Wells, Somerset for Summer 2019, organised by Heritage Courtyard Gallery. I have been developing ideas for this.

Fundraising for Prison Project - B-Wing

I’m currently writing an ACE application for a forthcoming project ‘B-Wing’, an arts event being held in the unique spaces of Shepton Mallet prison. Delivered alongside co-curator Luminara Star and several selected artists, we are making progress. B-Wing will involve 5 artists and 1 writer making site-responsive works leading to an exhibition and performances in the B-Wing section of Shepton Mallet Prison during Somerset Art Weeks Festival ’19. The project promises to be quite special and will be a nice follow on from my Cells residency work. We are looking for funds to engage the local Shepton community, schools and various other groups in the area and from afar. More news to follow.

Copper bowls

I have made a series of little copper bowls for Fosse Beads and Friends, Black Swan Arts, Frome. Each one is annealed and hand beaten.

Workshops

I had fun with tinies (Yrs 1 & 2) at Trinity First School, Frome the other day. Around 120 children made sea creatures in a day using recycled plastic and other found/discarded materials.

I am running a few workshops over the next few months with places available. The next is a 3d wire workshop, Tues 9 April, 10am-1pm, ages 6+; £15 per adult+child; additional children £8 each; includes materials & drink. Town Hall Arts, Market Street, Trowbridge BA14 8EQ. Book: www.townhallarts.co.uk

If you’re interested in more, please visit this link.

Ready Steady Go

Welcome to my new website - it’s had a major makeover, thanks to Dave Meehan!

After an amazing Christmas holiday in Kenya visiting family and canoodling with baby orphaned elephants, I feel refreshed. This January has, naturally, been a month of beginnings. Having pulled together my reserves I’ve begun to take on the wealth of opportunities that have come my way.  I managed to sell a few pieces of work and almost finished a sculpture commission for Carymoor Environmental Trust. It represents a great crested newt using recycled components - deadline end of the month.

In between, I’ve attended the first inspiring weekend session of an Outdoor Arts Development Course, delivered by Arts by the Sea, Activate Performing Arts, B-side and Outdoor Arts UK. It was great to meet other art practitioners working in different disciplines. Most exciting is the fact that I was selected for a Gilbert Bayes Award by the Royal Society of Sculptors, and have been to the first session in London to meet the other selected artists and learn about photographing sculpture from Anne Purkiss. I am so impressed by the strength of work in the group and look forward to exhibiting with them at the end of the year.

In February I am taking part in a multi-site, multi-disciplinary group exhibition ‘Incendiary’, curated by Patricia Brien.   It spans one week, and is packed with all sorts of exciting happenings.   My work ‘Glut’, concerning waste, will feature in the show at Stroud Valley Artspace (SVA), Stroud, 6th - 10th Feb.  Lou Baker and I will be inviting the public to ‘Join in the Conversation’ at SVA - a performative discussion about our work on Saturday 9 February, 11-12.  Come and join in! 

In my new role as part of the education team at the Holburne Museum, I ran a workshop with a mixed age group of schoolchildren. They created Double Portrait drawings linked to Hockney’s Mr & Mrs Clark and Percy, on show at the time. I’m scheduled to run some masterclasses at the Holburne later this year.

Next big project to focus on is a Cells Residency and forthcoming Solo at Town Hall Arts, Trowbridge (April/May). I have some ideas to explore more fully in the studio, inspired by Berlinde de Bruyckere’s recent exhibitions at Hauser & Wirth Somerset and Palermo. I’m collecting various recycled materials; if you have any copper wire, wax or red wool, they would be much appreciated! This work will hopefully lead on to a collaborative art project I’m organising with Luminara Star in Shepton Prison later this year. We are about to start funding applications…

Things come in waves and I think I’m on a big one… Ready Steady… Go!