Meadow Weave
Artist in Residence at Wakehurst 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.
Over 70 metres of thick, 2-ply hay rope (hay cut from the Wakehurst meadows) looped into a large circular net 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.
In 2015 a pigeon nest was discovered in the convex net structure, containing 3 eggs. A blackbird nest was also discovered, abutting the net on an oak beam of the building.
Meadow Weave residency in progress (photo).
Meadow Vessel: hay rope coiled with phormuim leaf fibre. Diameter of vessel 94cm. Exhibited at Making Lewes 2014.
