My garden Robin, looking for treats, visits as I rest.
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HOMELANDS

2021/22

Formed during an extended Metal residency HOMELANDS began with research into farming/rural practices in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. But in particular a consideration on how farmers and countryside specialists work in, on and with the land. And how we imaginatively transfer, draw up, celebrate, distil and repurpose it for the healing and nourishment of ourselves and others.

Alongside many interviews, it included detailed research at national galleries and museum, clay workshops and a discussion held at Metal Peterborough which brought together people, around homemade food, from distinct and diverse disciplines to consider emerging themes. This event also showcased work made as a distillation of my findings. Culminating in an evening of reflection on making, embedded lives and how identities and values form in complex and layered ways as a result.

The artworks created in response included: I am here, for you. An unlimited edition doublesided screen print on A1 newsprint. Gifted to everyone I interviewed and those who attended the talk and It’s easier to believe that there was nothing before there was something, than there was something before there was nothing. 18 raw clay, unfired and dried hard thumbs pots with scratched in overheard, found and bastardised quotes, with their own Hawthorn ring stands. Each pot will been gifted to volunteers who will bury it with a sweet pea seedling and stand, returning earth to earth.

Phrases on pots:

  1. I am all these things and nothing at all
  2. I am here, for you
  3. Look into me and find something of yourself
  4. Here I push the mud apart and lay thy fingers on thy heart.
  5. We are here only to keep watch not keep
  6. As hard as I can I can’t escape you.
  7. We are all afraid of our greatness
  8. I know earth without heart but brightness came because of you
  9. On+on+on+on+on+on+on+on+on
  10. If I lose myself I gain it all
  11. All truth’s waits in all things
  12. Your presence here will make everything complete
  13. My heart keeps ghosts
  14. Everything I am is yours
  15. I’ve always loved you, you just didn’t see it
  16. I am of this place
  17. A beloved beauty grows over me
  18. I am you, you are me

Thank you to:

Bowman Pumpkins
Georgina Barney – Artist
Eric Freeman – Butcher
Rachel Shoon – Farmer/Reiki master
Tim Cousins – Forester
Patrick Ryan  – Woodturner
Genever family – Farmers
Patrick Goldsworthy – Farmer
Rose Sawkins – Writer/ Theatre maker
Liz Genever – Consultant and Farmer
Jane Naylor – self-taught Florist
Denis Smith – apple grafter
Peter Pope – Caretaker /self-taught Artist
Tony Shepard – Builder/Artist
Patrick Joseph Ryan – Wood turner

Guests at Homelands event Metal Peterborough

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