Ruby Taylor Artist – Maker

Meadow Weave

Artist in Residence at Wakehurst (Royal Botanic Gardens Kew) for the Meadow Festival and accompanying Meadow Folk exhibition, 2014.

The residency, ‘Meadow Weave‘ involved working with with species-rich hay plants, grown and harvested on site.

The brief was to explore the creative possibilities of the material and to make a piece for the timber-framed buildings opposite the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst.

Made of over 70 metres of hay rope using hay cut from the Wakehurst meadows. Looped into a large circular knotless netted structure, with a diameter of 2 metres.

This structure was suspended to create a convex form in the roof space of the open-sided timber-framed building near the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst.

The piece references the context of hay-making; how the activity binds communities together.

wakehurst meadows artist in residence 2014

Meadow Weave, work in progress.

hay grass basket

Meadow Vessel: Hay rope coiled with phormuim leaf fibre. Diameter of vessel 94cm. Exhibited at Making Lewes 2014.

coiled hay grass basket

Meadow Vessel, work in progress: coiling hay rope using a bone fid and phormium leaf fibre. You’ll find more photos, video clips etc in my journal.