I was so pleased to have the opportunity of taking up a residency at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park this autumn, as part of the Yorkshire graduate award 2021. The team there were very supportive and it was such an incredible privilege to be able to spend time there, and to make work in such a special setting.
Following the Perma-Art principles which I began to develop whilst studying an MFA at Leeds University, I began the residency by asking: “What is in abundance?”
The first thing I did was to pick several pounds of blackberries, of which there were large amounts around the park – 2022 being particularly good for fruit. The picking process provided good thinking time, as well as an excellent way to get my bearings.
Collecting fruit or seeds is a great way of collecting and storing energy. I started several gallons of wine off, so as to be able to make good use of the blackberries later in the year!
One of the other things that were in abundance, (apart from sheep manure), were several boxes of stainless steel teapots which I was told were up for grabs.
I began to weld them together into clusters, and then to weld the clusters into a sphere. I was shown into a locked shipping container filled with Anthony Caro’s off-cuts and told to help myself. So I pulled out some chunks of square tubing and steel angle, and welded a thorny stalk for the teapot sphere.
Meanwhile I had been drawing, writing and recording sounds, with a plan to create a zine as well as an installation – a labyrinth to follow on from my last few pieces: Key Knot which I made at Green Gathering 2022, and The Arizical.
The sounds were all collected during ‘destructive to be creative’ processes, or actions of collecting and preparing material for making. For example the sounds of sawing birch poles, drilling steel, cutting steel tubing and yeast turning to alcohol.
Collecting sounds, looking for abundance, observing existing systems, and listening before acting, are all strategies which I use to help me to remain aware and conscious of the impact I’m having on systems around me as I make work.
The zine that I created, Rosaceae: through fruit and thorn we find a way, was dedicated to my father, who died whist I was doing the residency. It records my methodology, connecting the making and thinking process to the Perma-Art ideas and includes recipes for blackberry wine and rasberry leaf tea.
At the end of the residency I led an artist walk / talk and gave participants a copy of the zine. (Edition of only 30). Among the final works presented were The Rubus which was an installation – a labyrinth space made up of seven domes of birch and willow poles. I served Raspberry leaf tea and freshly gathered beech nuts to participants in the central dome. (The blackberry wine wasn’t quite ready for drinking).
Other than the temporary labyrinth piece and the zine, the other main work presented at the end of my residency was Flower and Thorn – created from reused steel, (teapots and Caro off cuts).
This piece has been kept by YSP and is now part of their permanent collection. If you’re at the park you’ll find it down by the boat house.
