This year I won an emerging artist bursary award from Devon Open Studios. Have a look at the bursary winners here.
I also won the Joanna Radford prize which was a cash prize to help me purchase some more (much needed) materials.
Here I am emerging from the bushes!
I will be exhibiting my work with Moorland Makers, a diverse group of artists and crafters from Dartmoor, for Devon Open Studios which starts on 6th September and continues until 21st September. We will be in the barn at Ullacombe Farm, Haytor Road, Bovey Tracey. Details here
I will have all my lino prints with me, including some new work that takes a slightly different form in that all the materials were foraged from Dartmoor.
So for instance, in this raven piece, I made the paper from the loose dry moorland grass, (which is also hanging in tufts next to the moorland corvid feathers) and sourced charcoal from Yarner woods to make the ink for the lino print. Sheeps wool from Fernworthy is twisted to make the strings to hang the piece from a bit of wood picked up on one of the many walks I have on the moors.
I’m working with a sense of place, an eco mindset, a quiet form of activism which questions consumerism, and an idea that keeps tapping me on the back… What will you make art with once the world runs down and out? (I’m assuming I’ll still be here and the moors will be too!) The first priority will be to find food and the second to make art.
Of course I know I’d probably be more interested in surviving the onslaught of lawlessness and chaos that would ensue, dodging the Mad Maxes and probably becoming one myself with sticks and stones at the ready! I will probably have to quickly learn how to shoot a gun and kill the unraveled nutters if they didn’t get me first. I really hope I don’t have to kill animals, I’d like to think I’d survive on berries and nuts, but come the winter…
Poetry paper above.
