Ruby Taylor Artist – Maker

Meadow Weave

wild clay processing

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.

wild clay processing
wild clay processing