New compositions with objects.


This is really a continuation from Traces of Making. The ceramic objects initially made by myself and a selection of friends helping me along this line of experimentation where each object has been made from a simple instruction of one word. 

 By giving these unmarked balls of clay to other people to interpret, when they return I am able to examine the subtle differences or similarities without making assumptions based on my own knowledge of the material. However, these have been sitting in a crate waiting for the right opportunity to move this research and develop a new collection of work. 

 So! I've gathered all the found objects that have also been slowly accumulating in the studio over time and looking at how or whether these made objects have any relationship with the found objects. 

Most of the brick remnants have been given to me by two friends in Oxford often finding their way into my possession from the Norfolk coast. 

 It occurred to me that I have a growing selection of materials sitting around and most of them have come from the ground in some way. Chalk is the most recent addition to this I have a bag of coal, slate, brick and my increasing fascination with geology ultimately means that they all have this connection.

 Over the next few weeks I intend to continue with the photography and add to these assembled compositions to see where it takes me. 








CaCO3 10days Winchester

CaCO3 will be on display until 7th November 15 at the Theatre Royal Winchester as part of 10days chalk Winchester's art biennial.

 I will be in conversation with Sara Roberts and Jackie Bromley on Thursday 5th November from 5-7pm in the Theatre discussing Chalk in making. 

 Follow the links to purchase tickets:
http://www.10dayswinchester.org/article/chalk-in-the-making-5-7pm-i-thursday-5-november

Install for 10Days Winchester.

Here are a few images from the third and final canvas for 10days Chalk in Winchester. 
Yesterday was the installation for opening on Sat 10th Oct. With very little idea how these were going to look until they finally made it up on to the wall I had resigned myself to adding sections on site. 

Throughout the entire making process I had these 3m panels flat on the floor. Making it very difficult to fully see the work or understand the overall impact.



Along with the three large panels made to hang on the red brick wall originally an exterior wall within the Theatre. 
I also included some smaller test pieces and several 50x50 cm squares that I had initially worked through exploring how the chalk was reacting to the surface the differences between varnishes, matt mediums and egg. 

 Much like my exhibition at Siobhan Davies I wanted to keep the entire body of work together creating a narrative from start to finish throughout the space.


The second Canvas going up with the help from Spatz at the Theatre. Installation was complete within four hours my record time and I maintain that was down to the expert help and patience from Spatz who was a complete star from start to finish. 


These are taster images as I don't want to spoil the entire exhibition before it opens. 



I will be posting more images up in the next few weeks.
The Biennial opens on Saturday everyone is welcome. There will be a trail of openings  across the city starting at the gallery at Winchester College of Art. I will be at the theatre from 4pm where I will give a brief welcome and will be around for any questions afterwards.

 http://www.10dayswinchester.org/exhibitionlist





Introversion





This is a subject that has been a constant source of fascination to me for a while now.
Particularly after Ben gave me this book as a gift. Quiet the power of Introverts in a world that can't stop talking. Written by Susan Cain www.quietrev.com/quiet-the-book/
From the title I knew that I was going to get along with this book and draw much from it.

I've always known that I have the disposition of being introverted but didn't really fully understand what it was other than being quiet and sometimes misunderstood for being shy.

 Several years ago a friend of mine introduced me to Myer Briggs a personality test that can be easily completed on line to determine what kind of personality type you are. This test derived of Carl Jung's theories and consists of 16 different types. 

 'The theory of psychological type was introduced in the 1920s by Carl g. Jung. The MBTI tool was developed in the 1940s by Isabel Briggs Myers and the original research was done in the 1940s and '50s. This research is ongoing, providing users with updated and new information about psychological type and its applications. Millions of people worldwide have taken the Indicator each year since its first publication in 1962.'

 from http://www.myersbriggs.org
http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

 Some personality types are more common than others. This test is often something that you may be required to do if you work for large corporate companies and the traits that will deemed favourable will be team player, confidence and extroverted personalities.
However, sometimes this comes down to who has the loudest voice and those who must be heard as opposed to what is actually being said.  

The overiding element of this test is to determine whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, based around how your energy levels run. 
This may not be what we immediately associate with these two words. It's often perceived as quiet or confident the test also hi lights how you make decisions and how you think. This is divided into abstract and concrete thinking processes. 

An introverted person can be confident but they will feel exhausted in large groups of people, whereas an extroverted person will feel energised by the large group.

 Having completed this test myself I came out as INFJ this is the rarest type with only 1% of the population. 

 I must admit when I read this it made complete sense. I could begin to be a little kinder to myself and understand why I feel certain emotions at a particular time or place. Where my  intolerance comes from when I'm surrounded by people who are constantly talking and fail to understand the notion of an edit button and my hyper sensitivity to noise. I also realised that it's nothing to do with being anti social it's about being able to think. 

 The reason I'm writing this is that introversion or the ideas of introversion is continuously filtered into my own work. Living in a society that rarely allows us to stop and be still I feel it's increasingly important to make people stop. 

 I don't want to talk about this too much now as I want to expand on how these ideas are currently impacting on contemporary architecture and design in my next post. 

 In the mean time here are a few interesting links around this subject,
and a link to a book recently published, written by Pete Mosley: The Art of Shouting Quietly
A perfect book for the quieter creative person. 

 http://www.create-the-good-life.com/slow_movement.html

http://www.quietrev.com

http://shoutingquietly.com

Chalk 10days Winchester 2015 work in progress

This is a quick update about the work I'm currently making for 10days Winchester opening in October.

 Since my last post I've managed to move it along slightly with one of the three large canvas panels almost finished. 

 After a conversation with Sasha this morning I'm still undecided about how the smaller test pieces will be hung in the space. I started photographing them outside in natural sunlight this afternoon and there are some interesting elements beginning to unfold, which has now made me think about lighting and possibly positioning them away from the wall in order to be able to see these details more clearly.

Chalk in three stages some of the process work will be on display along with some photography taken in  Sombourne chalk quarry.


As for the larger panels these are going to be hanging from the red brick wall but I can experiment with spot lights once the work in installed. It's something to consider and will give the white expanse a little more depth as the marks made through making will have a stronger resonance. 

10 Days Chalk 2015 Winchester Arts Biennial


Chalk: A white soft earthy limestone (calcium carbonate) formed from the skeletal remains  of sea creatures.

CaCO3

In October I'm showing a new piece of work called CaCO3 in Winchester for the Arts Biennial 10Days: Chalk 2015.

This can be seen in The Winchester Theatre Royal just one of the many venues hosting events exhibitions and performances across the city for the month of October - November.
http://www.10dayswinchester.org

I'm just in the process of gathering everything I need together to begin making so in the meantime here are a few images of some of the material tests I've been working on recently. 



These pieces of chalk were collected from just outside the train station in Winchester on my first visit to meet Kate Raines at the theatre to measure the space where the final works will be hung.

 It's pretty easy to find once you start to open your eyes. Chalk is very much part of Winchester's geological foundation but it will be interesting to find out how many people living in and around the city take notice of this material beneath them. 



Having collected some medium sized pieces of chalk to begin initial tests. It requires quite a lot of time and effort to crush it down into a workable state.


Here are the results of some of the tests to date. I'm also finding that different mixing mediums create contrasting finishes. Although the largest piece of canvas I've worked on so far is only 50 x 50 cm square I'm beginning to understand how far I can push it. Although, it's often a very different story once you scale it up to full size.





Sombourne Chalk Quarry: Hampshire


Last weekend I visited Sombourne chalk quarry in Hampshire to choose the chalk I need for my next exhibition. After several conversations with Mark Yorke who owns and runs the quarry single handily.

 Ben and I drove down with plastic boxes in the boot and began selecting the chalk from the various different shapes and sizes from large boulders to dust.

Throughout the quarry, the chalk is divided into different sizes according to it's use. 
The dust to 20 is used for agriculture to line the flooring for cow sheds. 
Chalk is also used within the building trade for construction work such as building or lining river banks.
The larger blocks some weighing up to a tonne are often used for larger projects or art works. It's interesting to find out how this material is utilised but also the handling processes involved in the quarry itself. It's removed from the landscape in metre levels according to the natural seam lines.  

The quarry is normally only in working order during the summer months as it's an impossible task to work with such a dusty material during the wet winter. In many ways it's fairly similar to the way clay pits function.
Where industry is very much dependant upon the weather conditions and seasonal cycles.



Image taken by Ben Winkley 2015


Whilst I was there we filled two boxes of dust to 20 and a further two boxes of the larger chunks which can be seen in the forth image here. 



When we arrived brilliant sunshine was beaming down into the quarry. 
This was a new experience! 

 I had never been into such a space that was saturated by the colour white before. 
With the addition of sunshine it becomes blinding but also quite invigorating. 
You realise how powerful it is and the spiritual connections white carries with it. 

 It's something I've been interested in for a while now and White ultimately plays a huge part in this current piece of work but it's so rare that you find yourself immersed within a natural landscape surrounded by one solid colour. 





Flint is embedded within the chalk and has to be removed by hand this type of flint is quite rare with the white skin and dark black interior and is only found within this locality. When you visit Winchester flint has been used in many of the older buildings some of the interior walls within the theatre have been lined with it.

 I brought one piece away with me which I intend to include in the final process display in October.

 Please follow the link to take a look at the quarry as there are very few chalk quarries left in the country anymore and it's quite a special place and a big thank you to Mark for all his help.

http://www.hampshirechalk.co.uk




A Day in Kent


Last weekend we decided to leave London for the day and head towards the Thames Estuary to discover the Medway. 

There are several circular walks you can do in and around this area. As the point of this mini expedition was to see the sea we made our way to All Hallows by Sea.

An open desolate landscape with a similarity to Dungeness, a power station looming in the background and a carpet of long grasses with a scattering of yellow daisies popping out. 

We began the 4.5 miles walk having to steer clear of two herds of cows along the way.

Here are a few images in memory of our fresh breezy day on the Estuary.












Theaster Gates at White Cube, London.

A short and sweet post about my brief visit the The White Cube Gallery a couple of weeks ago to see the Theaster Gates Exhibition Freedom of Assembly.

I'm not going to talk extensively about this experience as I think the link to the film articulates it far more than I could put in to words.

The images below were taken in one of the three rooms. 
This collection of work was the reason I wanted to visit. A vast open space houses an selection of huge imposing black tar canvases. I think it's obvious to anyone how knows me…. Why these simplistic, powerful material led works stopped me in my tracks with such a sudden bolt.

Enormous in scale, the subtle layers of tar and rubber were hardly visible until you really examined the surface. The light just caught sections hi-lighting these material based panels. They were strong and present within the space but at the same time there was also a quiet quality to them.

Each piece commanded your time to look and examine and simply be for a moment.

As the film explains in more detail the reason Gates used these particular materials and with that understanding and knowledge the works become deeply embedded with a sense of his family history through process a deep understanding of material behaviour and how the two cross over into different contexts.

http://whitecube.com/artists/theaster_gates/

http://whitecube.com/channel/in_the_gallery_current/theaster_gates_bermondsey_2015/





My Inspiration

For a while now I've been trying to make sense of the many many different strands of focus and interests that make up my practice.

Because I don't make collections of work or have a range of objects I'm reconised by or known for I think I can often feel as though I have many separate elements.

However, on closer inspection I really don't think that is necessarily the case.

There are key ideas and points of reference I take for my conceptual thinking and in this post I hope to be able to show some of the inspiration, sources of research and smilarities that run throughout my multi layered working methods. 

If I begin with ceramics as this is always at the core of my thinking despite the fact I may not always use it or indeed fire it. Most of my exploratory work begins around either clay, clay materials in their raw form or clay soils.  


 Puddle clay from Stoke on Trent 

Raw clay before it's processed into bags or made it's way through a pug mill. 
This is one stage I love about this material, It can be seen in clay pits in such large quantites and it hi-lights how enormous, heavy, and dense this is but for me it really inspired ideas of being able to built on a large scale. 


On the other end of the spectrum I adore using porcelain it's a material that really needs to be handled with care and experience. Where I'm at this present moment with porcelain is trying to reliquish control and push it to it's breaking point.  



Brick a clay material I fell in love with during my MA. 
By using multiples allows you to build sizeable pieces of work but I'm also drawn to materials that may be considered mundane or ordinary. Most of us may be confronted with brick on a daily basis but it becomes somewhat invisible or we take it for granted as a standard building block for houses and buildings. 

Once you step away and begin to look more carefully at the range of bricks the different colours and textures used and how they have been positioned together it becomes more evident that the common brick offers so much more. 
  

The Red House 


Cambridge 

Continuing with the possible idea of the mundane the next subject has recently become prominent after my exhibition last year at Siobhan Davies dance where I was looking at local London clay and soils specific to Southwark. This has opened up a new fascination with soils and geology across the UK. 

 Wherever, I visit I take a roll of small plastic bags and a small trowel with me to remove a sample and come home to test it out on to canvas.



Layers for the Human Nature Season at Siobhan Davies 2014

The act of making is obviously an huge part of what I do and this can often be overlooked when confronted with a final piece of work. Process and working methods are equally important, sometimes I find it can be more important and revealing that's one reason I always like to give an insight into each project from start to finish. 


Mark-making 

Whether this is on paper, Canvas or clay. Texture and surface normally plays a part in what  I explore and it maybe linked back to my fascination with the handling of materials and tactility. 






Moving on to art movements other artists designers and architects I've already mentioned Richard Serra, Anselm Kiefer and Peter Zumthor in previous posts. 
I haven't talked about Minimalism or Land Art in any great depth. Two movements that have had an influence on my work to date and continues to.
I've recently been reading a book called Minimalism: Origins by Edward Strikland.  

One difficult question I was asked was: What is your aesthetic? 
I find that fairly tricky to answer however, I will attempt to and the two words that immediately come to mind are Minimal and Raw. 

I try not to overly complicate work but when you are working with materials that have normally come straight from the ground I like to keep them as pure as possible you are ultimately dealing with an unrefined quality. 

 Here are two examples of work I'm particularly fond of in the Forest of Dean and think they both encapsulate my description.
Raw By Neville Gabie, located 2001


By David Nash, charred larch 
http://www.forestofdean-sculpture.org.uk/index.php/sculptures/60


Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail





Architectural spaces, Phenomenology 

 Something I always strive for in my work is to involve the audience or to allow the viewer to be able to react with the work on a sensory level. I'm not interested in making precious work that can't be touched, walked through, sat on. This is a common notion born from the context of the gallery and I'm certainly not a fan of the plinth. 
The plinth for me conjures up the notion of unapproachable work that can simply be viewed or enjoyed from afar. 

Phenomenology is a subject I attempted to begin to understand about four or five years ago. It's often talked about in the context of architecture and architectural practice.
It's a huge area to try and condense down into a few sentences. 
Essentially it has been born from philosophy and psychology based around the work of Edmund Husserl, and later developed by Heidegger.

 Phenomenology is the human perception of a place space or experience. it's not tangible and this makes it a complex area to try and define.
Despite that being the case it's something I try and capture within parts of my research and development of an idea or project. 

 Whether this is through tactility, sound, light, dark, small confined spaces, or the positioning of the work itself. Every small detail and subtle nuance is considered. 


Winchester Cathedral Crypt.

Finally gardens are another important part of my practice. Fascinated with space, colour, planting, I grow plants myself this has to help with my understanding and appreciation. Gardens are more than simply places to step outside into. 
Gardens are to be truly experienced and there is a sense of freedom that can be gained from a garden. During my MA I spent a lot of my research visiting different kinds of garden spaces. From the highly formal layout of Sissinghurst to the French show in Chaumont exhibiting more experimental spaces.

 They are spaces that are in a constant state of transformation not only with the plants life cycle but also with the weather conditions and changing of the seasons means that gardens are never static. You experience these fleeting moments and then it moves into the next phase and this continues all year round. 


Japanese Garden Vancouver 


Ightham Mote


The High Line New York


Garden tour of Syon Park



On Wednesday afternoon I was very lucky to be able to go on a garden tour of Syon Park. One of Capability Brown's landscape gardens and with the 300th year birth of Brown next year in 2016 this garden will most likely be on the receiving end of more attention.



The garden has two lakes the first one we encountered snakes through the landscape. There are two garden spaces essentially one is open to the public the other is private we were fortunate to be able walk both of them. 


Here we began to see the typical open expansive landscape Brown is celebrated for.
A parkland vista where every angle was carefully considered and constructed to create a line of vision. Of course not all of the original intended views still exist today. Trees have grown other buildings have been built and some pathways may have changed slightly in two and a half centuries. However, it still remains a wonderful legacy and example of Brown's work. 



 A fallen Oak tree has been left marks the different feel in the the second part of the garden. The great element of this portion of the gardens that it remains less manicured, the grasses are longer there is a distinct feel of the english meadow and openness. 


The second lake where the cow's are grazing across the lake side.



Here are two images of the HaHa the original brick construction dividing the land at two different levels. The HaHa historically came about the keep the grazing cattle from coming too far in land.


For next years celebrations more information can be found at  www.capabilitybrown.org outlining events across the country to mark the birth  of Lancelot Brown.

A Day in Dungeness




My day trip to Dungeness a couple of weeks ago with Alie. 
The main aim of the day was to collect clay at low tide from Littlestone beach a few miles down the road. As we had to wait until late afternoon early evening we had a good chunk of the afternoon in Dungeness.



During the hours spent at Dungeness we both began to search for treasures. Flint is easy to come by but the larger more abstract forms were still buried under water as the tide was fairly high.


Littlestone Beach: The concrete cube embedded within the sand tilting upwards immediately caught my attention. I felt as though I had stumbled across a piece of sculpture or land art. The water marks perfectly created a visual divide across the form. 

 How long had it been there?
It was too heavy for the incoming tide to wash it away.
With that in mind it then becomes a piece of art. It may change with time, it may move slightly, it transforms from being visible and then disappearing again with each day. Perhaps someone will come along and take it a way one day.

 I would have been that person had it not been for travelling by train or at least had the energy to carry it all the back home. 

 I hope it remains there for a while for some one else to stumble across.




And finally here are the days findings! 
It's always quite interesting once you return home and take a closer look at what you have collected and in many cases different moods or mind sets can change your focus. 
For some reason I decided that I was going to hone in on black and white (with some grey thrown in there.) I'm particularly pleased with the beautiful white piece of bone. 




We were also successful with the clay…. new tests will be posted soon. 

A flying visit to Winchester Cathedral

Last week on our back back to London from Herefordshire we stopped off in Winchester to make a quick trip to the Cathedral. Sitting in the centre of greenery you walk under an avenue of trees to be confronted with the splendour of this enormous gothic building. Built between 11th and the 16th century much is unchanged today. 








Medieval floor tiles from the 13th century said to be the largest collection of tiles from this period in England. It is within these smaller details shown in the last few images that really makes me think about all the people that have passed through this space. The thousands of footsteps that have made their way across the floor and it still stands the test of time. 


 There were several reasons I wanted to take a look inside one was the see the Antony Gormley Sculpture Sound II 1986 positioned in one of the oldest parts of the Cathedral the crypt. 

 One lone figure stands with cupped hands in a cavernous space filled with atmosphere after long periods of rain the crypt floods and this lead sculpture human in scale is opened up to the elements continuously changing and dependant up on the weather conditions. 

 The day we visited it was dry but there were still traces and marks on the floor where the previous flooding had been. 








The second reason was to see the Burne Jones stained glass windows in the Epiphany Chapel. Created at William Morris' workshops in 1910 the four stained glass windows sit in the tiny chapel depicting the life of the Virgin Mary. Reminiscent of the period each central image is encased with highly detailed and exquisitely crafted flora and foliage. 


 The final reason was I had a proposal to write!

New material tests


Here are a few of my new material tests I have been developing over the past few weeks,  looking at the use of raw materials particularly materials that would normally be used in glazes. 
For example china clay, cornish stone, dolomite, quartz and so on.

 I've selected white or cream raw materials to maintain a fairly clean palette these are the beginnings of my exploration into how each one reacts when applied to canvas.

 The next stage will be the addition of oxides where I can introduce some darker shades and compare the two where I can begin to build up the surface texture. 










Movement through space at Siobhan Davies Dance.

This collection of Images were taken on one of the very first visits to Siobhan Davies Dance back in December 2013 at the beginning of my research for the Human Nature Season in 2014.

I was partly interested in looking at the movement through space and also wanted to push the capability of the camera to slow the final images down.

Although the outcome for Human Nature was completely different I still consider these to be important in the initial stages of the thought process.

I'm in not doubt that they will feed into another project at some point in the future. 







All images taken by Ben Winkley Dec 2013





All images taken by Kim Norton Dec 2013 

Kettle's Yard Cambridge

Bank holiday weekends are always the perfect time to leave london and have a day out. We hopped on a train to Cambridge 45mins from Kings Cross we had arrived in the beautiful city of Cambridge. 

Kettle's Yard was our first destination after a hearty lunch. I've seen so many images of Kettle's Yard and had never been before so when we arrived we certainly were not disappointed. http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk

Having walked down a narrow walkway you are confronted with St Peter's church on the right and the gallery on the left. The house is straight in front and a small queue of people waiting outside as there is a limitation on how many visitors are allowed in at any one time.  


You enter the house through an old wooden door and the staircase is immediately on your left this space then opens out into a perfectly formed reading room and dining area, nestled in the corner with a small bedroom and bathroom at the end of the house. 

 The placement of objects, prints, paintings, flowers and furniture is very much how the house was when Jim and Helen Ede had lived there.
Jim was a curator at Tate in the 1920's and the house is filled with artists works he collected such as Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Miro, and Lucie Rie.  


It was also refreshing to be encouraged to sit down on the many chairs scattered throughout the house. As the rooms were meant to be seen from a sitting position. 

 As you climb the stairs to the first floor again you are presented with a lounge area with a piano and seating space next to a large window and a huge painting hanging on the wall at an angle that follows the line of the wall itself. 

 There's an abundance of plants and greenery dedicated areas floodlit with natural sunlight where the plants are clustered together. The entire space has an instantly welcoming feel to it. 

 Despite the fact it is a gallery that happens to be within a domestic setting. It feels as though Jim and Helen have just momentarily popped out.


As you walk down some steps there is the most unexpected transformation to the space. In 1970 the extension to this house was completed. Architecturally it is reminiscent of it's time, the space is light and airy, cleverly divided revealing different views as you walk though the rooms. Minimal in it's construction with clean linear structures creating and dividing the space. 





 Kettles Yard is shortly going to be closed from the 22nd June 2015 for two years due to redevelopment work to open a cafe, and education centre and expand the gallery area.
I will definitely pay another visit upon it reopening in 2017.

Physical traces of making: Part 3

Since my last additions based around 'Physical traces of making' I've been scaling the work up slightly and also looking at different ways to present it. 

Work in progress with porcelain 



The two or three pieces below have been photographed on mirror glass against white and black backgrounds to see how or whether it changes the appearance in any way. On closer inspection the porcelain against black seems to bring out more detail on the surface. 

 The use of monotones in reversal is definitely something to explore further.

 Mirror glass is a material I'm revisiting from the exhibition at Arthouse1 in 2014.
I'm fascinated by extending the work and revealing parts of the form that would normally be concealed by the plinth or surface it's sitting on. 



I'm particularly interested in these tiny points of contact with the mirror glass raising the rest of the surface up and away. Creating new visual spaces intangible spaces and small pockets of space. 


High fired Porcelain

Back to the fields Camden Arts Centre

A couple of weeks ago I paid a visit to Camden Arts Centre to see the current exhibition showing there.
Back to the fields by Ruth Ewan www.camdenartscentre.org

In one room, floodlit with sunshine the sound of water and the scent of growth I was confronted with an abundance of large trees, some in bloom others simply looking lush and green. Along side these huge structures was an awe inspiring collection of objects, raw materials and tools. 

This exhibition is based around the French Republican calendar. The calendar was introduced in 1793 and was abolished in 1806. 

The structure of time relating to the calendar consisted of twelve months, each month was 30 days long, there were three weeks in each month and one week was 10 days. I've included a link to a conversation with Ruth Ewan talking about the exhibition in more detail. It's well worth a look! I had very little idea about the French Republican calendar and it's contexulised By Ruth so eloquently.

http://www.camdenartscentre.org/whats-on/view/gpe-03

The collection of objects, plants, seeds, trees, materials such as Slate, limestone, marble, fruit, etc 
represent each day within the Republican calendar. Each month is labelled with a colour and within that month is a collection of 30 artifacts.  






Snow: 6 = Lava 26th December  7 = Topsoil 27th December  8 = Manure 28th December 


Snow: 12 = Clay 1st January  13 = Slate 2nd January  15 = Rabbit 4th January  16 = Flint 5th January 





 I'm going to be back in Camden Arts on Thursday and look forward to see how or whether the space has changed much. Some of the plants were in flower and the trees were flourishing within the room but I do expect it to look slightly different on my return.

My Second Visit… 

 19th March 2015 

 Today I met with my friend Susan to take a look at Back to the Fields.
It wasn't such a bright day compared to my previous visit but I could definitely see a transformation in the room. The trees had grown and the space seemed to have filled out as the branches had spread and opened out. 
The quality of light within the gallery had also changed. It's noticeable to see from my images today. There is a distinct element of set focus captured. 


Fog: 5 = Goose 26th October 












 Having had the opportunity to revisit the space also allowed me to focus on certain objects I may have overlooked initially. There is so much to see but I was able to absorb the smaller details, for example how certain objects had been shown. Seeds that had been simply laid directly on to the floor and others displayed in small glass jars.   

 I look forward to seeing what Ruth Ewan comes up with next as I found this piece of work a true inspiration. 
Third visit

 28th March 2015

 My third and final visit before the exhibition closes on Monday. 
We arrived to find that there was a petting zoo to represent the days of the month named after animals.

 Goat = 5th March 
Pig = 25th November 
Goose = 26th October 
Horse = 26th September 
Duck = 24th May

 Which was pulling quite a crowd 




 As we headed upstairs to the gallery once again I saw a difference in the plants growth and most importantly found out that my birthday was the day of the onion! 

 However, on a more serious note…  with each and every visit I've noticed something new or   a different thought triggered regarding the calendar and the structure of time.   

 I think what interested me most of all was the emphasis and importance placed upon horticulture, art, and music along side the rational nature of time's structure. When you enter the gallery space what immediately faces you is something of beauty and wonder. This exhibition is multi layered and it leaves you questioning, thinking and imagining time existing at a completely different pace.  



Rain: 15 = Cow 3rd Feb  17 = Lichen 5th Feb 



Germinal: 13 =Morel 2nd April   15 = Bee 4th April   16 = Round Lettuce 5th April