WALK AND MAKE

I had a delightful morning yesterday at Dove Studios, Butleigh, on a half day course with local artist, Fiona Hingston.  Amongst other things, she works with natural materials gathered from the countryside - pressing, drying, stitching, waxing and assembling them into beautiful works of art. For ' Amazing Space ', which is an exhibition of specially commissioned work celebrating 45 years of the Dove Centre, she has collected plant material from the grounds and produced some amazing hanging boxes, full of manipulated bits of nature.

Our first job was to go collecting in the nearby fields, woods and orchard in the glorious sunshine and then bring our bounty back to tables set out in the open.  It is a beautiful spot and a magical, restful place. We then looked at what we had acquired and looked to see what could be done with them.

With Fiona's guidance, leaves and stalks and, in my case, thistle seed heads and feathers, were stitched together.  Apples and pears were sliced and left to dry in the sun and little collections appeared everywhere!  Fiona is shown (top left), cutting up some apples.  I won't be able to go on a walk now without taking a plastic bag, looking closely and coming back with bits of the countryside!

Fiona had laid out a table of inspirational work which she had done.  The seed heads set out in their cabinet looked like precious jewels.  It represents her close observations and responses to nature and a great deal of experimentation and patience.