Sunday 17 January 2021

fallow

In the great pause of spring 2020 the farmer's field behind my house was left fallow for the first time in a long while. After eight weeks without rain the parched, bare ground cracked, like mini tectonic plates. Slowly but surely, wild, unintended things began to grow. Sorrel, Plantain, Thistles, Lesser Rosebay Willow Herb and dandelions grew to nose-high. A the edges of the field, along the irigation ditches, the dispersed seeds of crop plants from years gone by sprouted up again- rye, corn, barley, wheat and oat. A shimmer of Goldfinches could often be seen fluttering between thistle heads and telegraph wires. We began taking walks in the field, exploring this newly re-wilded dessert. At night when I closed my eyes I could see grasses. The wild was imprinted. The ground was like a dessert with islands of radial grasses, or constellations of miniature gardens. We'd found a little bit of wild to be in.

I began to draw, print and photograph and collect grasses and my partner Jack began to write, in a backyard project we will call fallow


Wednesday 13 January 2021


These 9 images form part of a 140 image colour chart collected in Cardigan and Cilgerran over a series of walks between 2015- 2020 and featured in my January 2020 residency on Instagram for @landartcollective

PLEIN AIR
A painterly tone inspired by  the Thomas Jones painting, wall in Naples, 1782

FIELDFARE  
White with umber undertones referencing the brown and white speckles of 
the migratory Fieldfare bird

HASTI HOLM  
The Norse name for the island at the mouth of the Teifi Estuary, thought to 
mean Isle of Horses and a safe haven

MUNICIPAL 
Inspired by municipal planting this is a loud red which makes it's presence felt

VERDISGREEN
This shade takes its name from the natural patina formed on copper, brass or bronze 
by atmospheric oxidisation

GLAW HALLT 
Welsh meaning Salt rain, references the briny Teifi estuary as described in the poem
 Y Cei by Ceri Wyn Jones


LLOCHES
This rich emerald green surface will provide shelter or shade. 



RESTORATION RED
 This warm historical tone pays homage to Cardigan's rich and fugitive architectural history

 In 2016 I made a little book to capture a snapshots of a cottage in Ceredigion which I came to know very well as it was in my partner's family and became our favourite place. Bought 50 years ago, it provided a home from home for three generations and many branches of the Thomas family, originally from Wales and who love Cardigan Bay. Its furnishings had barely changed since it was first taken over by the family, everything had its place and it had a very particular smell of coal and books and carpet and holidays. It remains nestled in a quiet unchanging valley but no longer belongs to the family. Before it was emptied I made a book with image and text capture snapshots of how it was. Some images and excerpts below.

How to describe the resonance of this place?
What is the sum of the things inside? Each person has their own capsule of experience here,
memories triggered by smells or sealed in ritual repetition.
The cottage is so much more than the things inside, but they're layered with sedimentary traces of all our times here.

they joy of life stripped to its simplest elements-
making warmth, preparing food. the comfort of cooking with the same old pans, awkwardly improvising with inadequate tools; grater, knives, chopping board.

Clammy condensation gathers on the kitchen and bathroom walls. these are rooms which have their own weather


We share the knowing of this place.
It resonates within us and between us,
We are connected by the people
who dreamed it, who built it, who bought it,
who put plates on the wall,
who left shells on the shelves and sand in the carpet,
and all the generations who've slept in that bed.