WILD PROJECTS #7 – HARD CORE – Test 4 - Balance and Connection

The twig bundles are slipped into the hole in the table.

Hard cores wrapped 

with soft bindings.

With support it can be possible

to find balance and connection

space to think, make, do, disappear.

WILD PROJECTS Curated by Artist and Sudborough Green Lodge Coordinator, Sophie Cullinan, Wild Projects are opportunities for artists to use the Lodge and the space around it, to meet, experiment with new ideas and to learn from each other’s skills, knowledge and experience. Events take place four times a year.

WILD PROJECTS #7 – HARD CORE – Test 3 - Please Keep Off The Seeded Grass

I arrange

and rearrange the items on the table.

 I am enjoying the weather worn surface.

I aim for more simplicity

I make small conversations.

I Consider The hard Core

I Must Keep Off the Seeded Grass

The Grass is Well established, I'm Walking On.

WILD PROJECTS #7 – HARD CORE – Test 2 - The Small Print

Other artists present are moving, singing, 

wrapping, slicing, spraying, making stories. 

We are all in our separate spaces, 

we are all together.

Not my apple but part of someone else's story.

Mono printing on the picnic bench by the apple tree, 

this ink is just water based, a bit too squishy, 

the results are unpredictable, 

there may be rain at any minute.

I press on.

She Embraces the Core of Things

Positive

Negative

There is Always Temptation

Positive Surrender

Negative Surrender

I invite Kate to place the prints and conkers

around the remaining parts of Test 1.

We have moved to a quite space

a picnic table behind the cottage

I am exploring secret spaces.

The prints are offered around the wrapped twigs 

and interspersed with the hard cores (conkers)

The Apple Queen and the Future Apple Queen visit.

WILD PROJECTS #7 – HARD CORE – Test 1 - Wrapped and Buried

WILD PROJECTS #7 – HARD CORE – 18^TH OCTOBER 2015

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art invites expressions of interest from artists of all disciplines for the celebration of Apple Day in a uniquely beautiful, remote countryside location in East Northamptonshire, 2 miles from civilisation. 

Blessed with an abundance of apples since the wassailing of our trees last year, this is an opportunity to propose site responsive work, performances or any other form of work in any way you choose centred around the theme. Proposals for group activities particularly welcome.

Test 1 - Wrapped and Buried

Thinking about something hard wrapped inside something soft

The Horse Chestnut - Aesculus hippocastanum

Status - near threatened, population decreasing

The apple - soft flesh, hard pips

I gathered apple and horse chestnut twigs, made bundles of three - the horse chestnut casing splits into three. Three can be considered lucky. Three can be tricky to balance. I wrapped each bundle with a band of felt and a contrasting piece of wool. I gathered more conkers, apples, twigs, put an apple in the bottom of a glass, put all the twigs both wrapped and leafy in the glass then balanced a conker in it's case on top of another apple. I buried the glass in a mound of hard core and placed more conkers. Much was buried, much was too complicated. Start again.

Mess, Muddle and Materials - Monet Water Lilies, Year 2, Earl Spencer Primary School

We looked at Monet's painting and his garden,

talked about light and time, distance and focus.

We folded origami water lilies

I rolled blue watery backgrounds

each child drew a water lily and a leaf 

into press print and rolled their chosen colours.

We worked on A3 paper and made about 60 prints

and 30 folded flowers. It was a busy day!

Artist in Residence - Priory Lower School - Picasso Yr 4

We looked at Picasso's harlequins 

and cubist musicians and then made 

a felt portrait head inspired by the 

paintings we had explored. We sewed 

them on the sewing machine, I

 steered, the children drove!

Whilst the sewing was taking place the children made

A3 paper collages of their own Picasso inspired musicians

Deep Root Tall Trees Coming Home Concert

I have been a part of the alto section of this wonderful Choir since our first concert in 2012 and it is amazing to reflect on just how far we have come. In the run up to the concert we met together twice a week and had one Sunday intensive rehearsal where the set was brought together. It has been fascinating to see how songs develop, grow and change, just as we as individuals and as a choir have grown and changed. 

Screen shot from the DRTT website

The music, our wonderful Artistic Director Barb Jungr and our ever patient Choir Director Gareth Fuller, keep us on our metal. In this concert the sound and blend of the Choir felt lovely, being together on stage, waiting to begin, we all felt bonded and ready to give our all, together. 

Photo by Andrew Rushton

Photo by Andrew Rushton

I was lucky enough to be part of the group that helped to create new songs for the concert and wrote the words to a piece called Shooting Stars, which was shaped, pruned, transformed, arranged and set to music by Barb Jungr, Mark Brennan, George Reilly and Gareth Fuller. They give us such inspiration and share their talent, skill and time so wholeheartedly it is quite overwhelming. 

When I first heard how magically Barb had transformed my words I was in a beautiful garden, feeling both joyful and sad, celebrating the life and passing of a dear friend who had also had faith in me as a visual artist in the early days of my career. Tom's band The Red Hot Chillies were playing and it was strange not to see him there with his trumpet. I remembered the happy time I had had painting a riotous mural on the walls of his music room in Gretton. I think he would have enjoyed becoming part of the associated memories stitched inside the song. 

The song also contains walks over wet, windy fields with my dear friend Ros, without whom I would not be singing, but most of all it contains memories of three small boys and their Dad and all the walks and picnics we shared in Stoke and Northamptonshire. For quite a long time he didn't recognise what that the song was about us 

" I never showed you parks and gardens" he said

It was only after I listed all the places we had been that he felt happy to accept the song was for him. 

Photographs by Kate Dyer on the DRTT Website

It was a moving experience to be able to sing the song as soloist with the wonderful DRTT Choir. It is hard to put into words everything this journey has meant to me. There is so much still to learn, so much I need to improve, but for the moment all I can say is I loved every moment. 

During the whole day and into the performance there was a real sense of joy and community amongst the Choir which we wanted to share with the audience, I think we succeeded if this comment from Twitter is anything to go by!

"Marian Anderson ‏@MarianSAnderson Oct 3

Cried tears of joy, laughter & sheer emotion tonight @thecorecorby seeing #DeepRootsTallTrees choir. 

Loved @Digifem singing Shooting Stars"

There are many more wonderful photographs of the all the performers By T.J.Driver Photography here