Continuum - Summer

During our research period Jo Dacombe and I took plenty of images of the leaf canopies in Thoroughsale Woods plus a few other woods during the summer months of 2016.

Our original intention was to hold the walk in March 2017 when the surrounding trees would still be bare to give a contrast between what was and what would be but rain made this impossible and the walk was rescheduled for May. However this change of plan worked in our favour and created shifting perspectives and experiences.

Three fabric canopies were printed giving different viewpoints through the photographic leaves. These were tied high above ground level, ground cover and mats were laid beneath them and participants were invited to lay down, look up and view both the artworks and the actual trees through specially made kaleidoscopes

The photographs from this part of the walk can be found here

Continuum was commissioned by Deep Roots Tall Trees as part of the Our Woods Festival

deeprootstalltrees.org/

Continuum - Spring

In Spring the woods are carpeted with Bluebells, Miles and Dacombe wanted to recreate the many and various shades of blue in a more open space. Participants were asked to choose a sheet of blue acrylic and a pair of blue tinted glassed to wear so the could become fully immersed in the filed of blues. They were then encouraged to form small groups, working together to form drifts or sculptural clusters to represent the Bluebells.

The photographs from this part of the walk can be found here

Continuum was commissioned by Deep Roots Tall Trees as part of the Our Woods Festival

deeprootstalltrees.org/

Continuum - Winter

For the Winter Intervention, Miles and Dacombe wrapped a Hazel tree in silver foil. The tree to be found inside the cool green of the woods and simmered as the light changes or the leaves moved. The space was quite confined and the group had to line up in single file to receive a piece of Turkish Delight (a nod tothe eternal winter and the Snow Queen in C.S.Lewis's Narnia). As they ate, participants were asked to think of a word, the first that sprang to mind. They were each given a piece of orange ribbon to tie on a tree or branch before leaving the wooded enclosure.

The photographs from this part of the walk can be found here

Continuum was commissioned by Deep Roots Tall Trees as part of the Our Woods Festival

deeprootstalltrees.org/

Continuum - Portal

Continuum was envisaged as a time-travelling walk with artists Miles & Dacombe to discover frozen moments in time. The artists wanted to enable participants to see the woods in a new way through artworks installed in Thoroughsale Woods in a magical and sensory exploration in this part of the ancient woodland of Rockingham Forest. A walking experience that played with concepts of time and seasonal change within a woodland setting where walkers were invited to further create the auras of different times of the year with the use of a range of materials.

PORTAL

The first intervention which invited walkers to step out of the everyday and into the changing seasons to be found in the woods.

The walkers gathered at the Boating Lake Cabin and the walk began at the entrance to the woods. 

Jo Dacombe performed her specially created invocation 

Continuum: an invocation

Welcome to Continuum.

Welcome to the woods,

A place of mystery and constant change

Long have woodlands been the source of

Folk tales and enchantment.

Trees contain spirit and energy

The perfect analogies of the cycle of life, death and rebirth

With their seasonal change

And deep time endurance.

Their canopies stretching to light and life;

Their roots reaching into the underworld

Of death and darkness.

Trees have mysterious properties

A Tree-lore

That our ancients understood.

Divination, protection and healing;

A deeper, long time wisdom.

The Alder, the Goddess Tree, with its nurturing and protective powers,

Giving nutrients to the earth;

The Ash, the World Tree, holding the earth and sky together;

The Beech tree, its wood used for inscribing runes by the Nordic peoples,

Carrying wisdom in the form of letters

The Beech gives us the word for Book.

The Beech, the Celts associated with ancient knowledge and time.

We cast the mast

From the Beech tree

To open a portal to knowledge and time;

Where time slips

Exploring the four seasons in one day

And the knowledge of sight and sounds,

Taste and touch;

The magic of the trees.

We invite you to step over the mast

And enter our woodland time

Continuum.

Jo Dacombe

The photographs from this part of the walk can be found here

During this part of the invocation Carole Miles created a portal by casting beech masts for the participants to walk over.

Continuum was commissioned by Deep Roots Tall Trees as part of the Our Woods Festival

deeprootstalltrees.org/

Miles and Dacombe have been collaborating since 2010. Their work aims to creatively engage people with environments, often enhancing the senses and leading walks into undiscovered places, connecting people with their surroundings in surprising ways. They work nationally, running walking projects and creating interventions in landscapes. They have worked on trains, in fields, climbed trees and explored crossings between the urban and the rural, even in the rain.

Dreaming Our Woods - Rehearsals

Very busy week with final rehearsals for Dreaming Our Woods

Neil Paris in the centre

Barb Jungr

Gareth Fuller

George Reilly and Barb Junger

Neil Paris striding in Kurt's lightsacpe

Dancers

The Eloquent Fold - Book of Days Project

The Eloquent Fold - Book of Days Project 

The project ran over four weeks in Spring 2017, on Thursdays in Roade Library and Fridays in Deanshanger Library from 3.00pm to 5.00pm. The sessions were free.

Participants learnt how to make their own handmade books using print and journalling techniques fill ing their own books with ideas such as key events in family life, career, village life, the gardening year, dreams for the future, dates in history that have impacted on the participant in some way

Participants learnt how to make their own handmade 

books using print and journalling techniques 

The Eloquent Fold ensured that, whilst exploring days that had a personal significance to the maker and creating a hand made book, they provided a warm, friendly space in which to support wellbeing and create new friendships.

Sessions always ended with refreshments served in vintage china (in this way I have turned my passion for old crockery into something useful and pleasurable!).

You can see all the images and books here

Deanshanger 1

Deanshanger 2

Deanshanger 3

Deanshanger 4

Roade 1 

Roade 2

Roade 3

Roade 4

Extra Session 

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The Eloquent Fold on Facebook

The Book of Days was a project funded by the Northampton Community Foundation David Laing Family Fund and run by artists Carole Miles and Phiona Richards both of whom love books; print stitch; gathering and creating stories.