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


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